P Who Argue That American Politics in the Jacksonian Era Re- Flected Few Basic Social Or Economic Cleavages in the Electorate
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PENNSYLVANIA POLITICS IN THE JACKSONIAN PERIOD: A CASE STUDY, NORTHAMPTON COUNTY, 1824-1844 BY WILLLAm G. SHADE* P ENNSYLVANIA has stood as the classic example for those P who argue that American politics in the Jacksonian era re- flected few basic social or economic cleavages in the electorate. Henry Mueller's study of the Whig party presented a traditional economic interpretation of partisan activity associating the Whigs with commerce, manufacturing and wealth in general.' However, subsequent examination of working class voting and the general complexity of the state's politics tended to discredit this view.2 Today most students of the state's politics during this period probably agree with Richard McCormick: Like New York, Pennsylvania was a large and hetero- geneous state with a multiplicity of religious and na- tional groups and with definable geographic sections. Unlike New York, however, its politics rarely reflects religious, national or sectional cleavages.3 Yet evidence of the importance of religious and ethno-cultural factors on nineteenth century voting behavior has appeared which indicates that forces similar to those structuring New York politics were at work in Pennsylvania. 4 This article focuses on *The author is an Associate Professor of History at Lehigh University. He would like tp thank his students Edward J. Cody, K. Doyle George, Jerome J. Gillen, and Virginia L. Griscom for helping collect data and for sharing their own interpretations with him. 'Henry R. Mueller, The Whig Party in Pennsylvania (New York, 1922). 'William A. Sullivan, The Industrial Worker in Pennsylvania, 1800- 1840 (Harrisburg, 1955); Philip S. Klein, Pennsylvania Politics, 1817- 1832: A Game Without Rules (Philadelphia, 1940); John Julius Reed, "The Emergence /of the Whig Party in the North: Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio" (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Pennsylvania 1953); Charles/McCool Snyder, The Jacksonian Heritage: Pennsylvania Politics, 1833-1848 (Harrisburg, 1958). 'Richard- P. McCormick, The Second American Party System: Party Formation in the Jacksonian Era (Chapel Hill, 1966), 136. 'Paul Kleppner, "Lincoln and the Immigrant Vote: A Case of Religious Polarization," Mid-America, XLVIII (July, 1966) 176-195; Michael F. 313 314 PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY political behavior in a single eastern Pennsylvania county during the two decades before 1844 and confirms the importance of ethnic and religious differences during the Jacksonian period. The greater part of Northampton County lies in the valley between Blue Mountain and South Mountain with the Delaware River serving as its eastern boundary, and the section of the Lehigh River from Blue Mountain to Bethlehem serving as its western boundary.5 The county was settled by Scotch-Irish and German farmers moving north from Philadelphia and Bucks County. Although English and Irish settlers migrated to the county, it proved particularly attractive to Germans; one con- temporary source estimated that 90% of the people in the county in 1832 came from German stock.6 As one might expect, the majority of the population was affiliated with either Lutheran or Reformed churches. Of an estimated forty-three churches in the county in 1840, twenty-three were either Lutheran or Re- formed. 7 Most of these were what the Pennsylvania "Dutch" called Union churches which served two Congregations (one Lutheran, one Reformed) that met on alternate Sundays sharing the cost of erection and upkeep on a single edifice. However, the county was the home of the Moravian Church in America Holt Forging a Majority: The Formation of the Republican Party in Pittsburgh, 1848-1860 (New Haven, 1969); Roger Petersen, "The Reaction to a Heterogeneous Society: A Behavioral and Quantitative Analysis of Northern Voting Behavior, 1845-1870, Pennsylvania a Test Case" (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 1970). 5Actually Lower Saucon and Williams townships extend south of South Mountain. Until the 1840s Northampton County included several town- ships north of Blue Mountain which are now in either Carbon or Monroe counties. This study focuses only on the area which is today Northampton County. Among the county histories the most useful are those including sketches of the townships and boroughs: Israel Daniel Rupp, History of Northampton, Lehigh, Monroe, Carbon, and Schuylkill Counties (Harris- burg, 1845); Matthew S. Henry, "Manuscript History of Northampton County," the original was written in 1853, a typed copy is in the Easton Public Library; William Jacob Heller, History of Northampton County, Pennsylvania and the Grand Valley of the Lehigh (New York, 1920). "Thomas F. Gordon, A Gazetteer of the State of Pennsylvania (Philadel- phia, 1832), 324. Captain F. Ellis, History of Northampton County (Phila- delphia, 1877), 178, gives evidence that the language spoken by county school children in 1858 as 1318 only English, 4537 only German, and 3149 both. 'Estimates of the number and orientation of the churches in each town- ship were made for 1840 using the county histories mentioned above and Northampton County Guide (Bucks County, 1939), Gordon E. Alderfer Northampton Heritage (State College, Pa., 1953), Alfred Mathews and Austin N. Hungerford, History of the Counties of Lehigh and Carbon (Philadelphia, 1884). JACKSONIAN PERIOD POLITICS-1824-1844 315 and included a sizable Moravian population. It also contained a number of Presbyterians, many of whose families had been in the county since before the Revolution. Northampton was not a typical Pennsylvania "Dutch" coun- try. During the Jacksonian period, it was undergoing the tran- sition from a predominantly agricultural area to a manufac- turing center.8 By 1840 the number of people employed in manufacturing was greater than the number in agriculture., Outside of the town of Easton, Lower Saucon Township (which would later become the home of the Bethlehem Steel Corpora- tion) employed the largest number of people in manufacturing, and several other townships included sizable proportions of their population in manufacturing. Throughout the entire period Northampton County was a Democratic stronghold. Andrew Jackson won overwhelming majorities in each of the three times he ran for President; and although the Democratic percentage declined steadily between 1824 and 1844, Democratic candidates continued to pile up TABLE 1 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN NORTHAMPTON CouNTy, 1824 TO 1844* Year Candidates Percent of Vote 1824 Jackson 91.6 Adams 3.4 Crawford 2.3 Clay 2.7 1828 Jackson i 80.33 Adams 19.67 1832 , Jackson 71.85 Clay 28.15 1836 Van Buren 62.85 Harrison 37.15 1840 Van Buren 62.43 Harrison 37.57 1844 Polk 58.24 Clay 41.76 'Basedon returns in The Easton Sentinel and The Northampton Whig. 'W. Ross Yates, History of the Lehigh Valley Region (n.p., 1963), 29-128. "Sixth9 Census of the United States (Washington, 1841), 149. 316 PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY sizable votes. Even in 1840 when William Henry Harrison car- ried Pennsylvania, Martin Van Buren polled nearly sixty percent of the vote in the county. (Table 1.) State and local elections followed a similar pattern. George Wolf, a native of the county, won the governorship in 1829 and retained it until he was defeated when his party split over taxes and the common school law in 1835.ln The Democratic vote of the county declined each successive time Wolf ran, but he still held a majority in the latter year. In 1838 the united Democracy of the county gave David R. Porter nearly sixty percent of the vote.'" Examination of 115 contests during this period in which party designation could be determined revealed that the official party nominee won 105 of the contested offices. In Northampton County nomination by the Jacksonian party was tantamount to election. While this might indicate that the magic of General Jackson's name influenced politics at all levels; in fact, the citizens of Northampton seem to have been much more interested in state and local rather than presidential elections.- The editor of The Easton Centinel commented after the 1824 election that "as usual of all Presidential elections the vote was not so large as it is when local affairs are to be decided by our suffrages."u'3 Although the election of 1828 sparked a good deal of interest, the turnout for presidential elections generally lagged behind that in gubernatorial elections. It was only after 1840 that a greater proportion of the eligible voters turned out for presi- dential elections and this was in part the result of decline in interest in gubernatorial elections. (Table 2.) Two party competition on a stable basis did not emerge in "Henry J. Steele, "The Life and Public Services of Governor Goerge Wolf," Pennsylvania German Historical Society Proceedings, XXXIX (1930), 5-25; Snyder, Jacksonian Heritage, 50-67. "IlPorter was the brother of James M. Porter, an erratic but powerful Democrat from Northampton. The latter is the subject of jean E. Fried- man, "James Madison Porter, Conservative Democrat," forthcoming in Pennsylvania History. "In this Northampton County did not differ much from the national and state patterns. See: Richard P. McCormick, "New Perspectives on Jacksonian Politics," American Historical Review, LXV (January, 1960), 288-301; and J. R. Pole, "Election Statistics in Pennsylvania, 1790-1840," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, LXXXII (April, 1958), 217. "The Easton Centinel, November 5, 1824. This paper changed the spelling of its name to The Easton Sentinel on February 21, 1834. JACKSONIAN PERIOD POLITICS-1824-1844 317 TABLE 2 PERCENT OF PoPuLAR VOTE iN NORTHAmPTON CoUNTY IN PRESIDENTIAL AND GUBERNATORIAL ELECTIONS, 1815 TO 1844 Year Est. No. of EligibleVoters President Governor *1815 4520 1816 4680 29.82 - 1817 4840 81.90 1820 5320 81.18 *1822 5640 ---- 1823 5890 84.86 1824 6140 20.57 1826 6640 38.97+ 1828 7140 63.27 01829 7380 61.84 1832 7890 49.15 66.74 1835 8300 74.13 1836 8470 43.18 - 1838 8810 - 81.71 *1840 9160 72.96 1841 9320 - 69.33 1844 9840 67.54 60.17 'The number of eligibles can be derived for these years by using: Pennsylvania Archives, 4th Ser., IV, 864-865; ibid., V, 316-317; T.