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American Democracy Before the Civil Sean Wilentz. The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2005. xii + 1044 pp. $35.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-393-05820-8. Reviewed by William Shade Published on H-SHEAR (August, 2006) Sean Wilentz, Dayton-Stockton Professor of Appleby, however, is a very good historian and History at Princeton University and well-known loves both the "splendid detail" and Wilentz's public intellectual, has written a very big book. sure-footed guide through "the labyrinth of Amer‐ However, while time consuming, it is not tedious, ican politics" of the time. because it is exceptionally well written. In a close- David Herbert Donald praises Wilentz, be‐ knit circle such as H-SHEAR, I will depart from cause he "emphasizes politics, not impersonal so‐ normal reviewing practices and begin with the cial forces" and provides "subtle portraits of lead‐ "blurbs." Of course, they are a bit over the top, but ing men." That he often does quite well. I am not I think they represent what Wilentz intended sure, however, what Donald means by "politics," when he was constructing this book. Since this since Wilentz practically ignores electoral and leg‐ book has already won the Bancroft Prize, I beg the islative behavior and the intricacies of most of the readers' indulgence for an overly long, overly legislation he discusses. Although he seems to footnoted, and perhaps, overly critical review. agree on many topics with Charles Sellers, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., writes that it is a Wilentz pulls up short of declaring that democra‐ "profound and powerful work" that "casts fresh cy and capitalism are incompatible.[1] and vivid light on the growth of democracy in Wilentz's colleague, James M. McPherson, America and the causes of the Civil War." Phillip compliments him for his portrayal "in dramatic Roth, certainly one of the best novelists in Ameri‐ detail of the contested rise of democracy" that led ca today, says that Wilentz is "among the fnest to the Civil War. That seems to be the author's in‐ writers of history America has produced." The tent. Wilentz, to a degree, rejects McPherson's book is a good read, but does not show an impos‐ ideas about modernization and follows Eric Foner sibly "deep understanding of every last detail of in describing how the North tended to develop a the American political tradition." Novelists are not democracy rooted in the idea of "free labor," historians. The former president of SHEAR, Joyce while the South moved toward what has been H-Net Reviews called "Herrenvolk democracy" based on univer‐ Faulkner in college (as a high school teacher, I sal suffrage for white men in a slave society.[2] had to teach this story from a textbook by Faulkn‐ While I generally think that these "blurbers" er).[5] The Rise of American Democracy is Pro‐ are right, I cannot agree with the Harvard Profes‐ gressive History 101 and it is not "neo," with a sor of Law, Randall Kennedy, who insists that heavy emphasis on class as one might have ex‐ Wilentz has established "himself as a major fgure pected, but rather "retro." The Constitution is, for in all of American historical scholarship." Wow! I Wilentz, a backlash at the democratic forces un‐ agree with much of this praise, but Kennedy sets leashed in 1776. The ideal democracy was Penn‐ the bar too high. I do not think that Wilentz has sylvania under its Constitution of 1776, which had told those of us who study this period anything a unicameral legislature and essentially no execu‐ dramatically new. When Arthur M. Schlesinger, tive. It also discriminated against Quakers and Jr., wrote almost the same story over sixty years various sectarian Germans. I can agree with the ago, he did something new and established a criti‐ standard Progressive idea that the Constitution cal point in the historical debate that hatched a was a step backward on the road to democracy, huge and varied body of scholarship.[3] but Wilentz does not analyze the undemocratic aspects of the Constitution in the way Robert Were I still teaching in the United States, I Dahl's recent book did. He simply repeats Charles would make my students read this book. In fact, Beard.[6] for my entire career I taught a course for which it would have been a perfect text (when it became Wilentz continues on with this Beardian story available, I assigned a reader that Wilentz edited). as he approaches the frst of his great democratic The Rise of American Democracy is crammed heroes, Thomas Jefferson. He explains the origins with information and I do not disagree with most of the Republican Party in an old-fashioned way of the factual statements. However, there are mo‐ by focusing on the resistance to the Hamiltonian ments where Wilentz is not completely wrong, program. With a few romantic references to the but leaves incorrect impressions. It is a teacher's Democratic-Republican societies and a nod to the dream. One example is the origin of the American Whiskey Rebellion, he is off to a textbook descrip‐ Colonization Society or more properly the Ameri‐ tion of the Jay Treaty fght, the XYZ affair, and the can Society for the Colonization of Free People of Alien and Sedition acts. Wilentz almost complete‐ Color. Wilentz quotes Clay's own extreme empha‐ ly ignores Pennsylvania's local hero, John Fries. sis on his role and notes what Robert Remini says, He devotes most of a chapter to the revolution of slighting the more correct position of Douglas 1800 and 1801, without considering the question Egerton in his biography of Charles Fenton Mer‐ of taxation. One might wonder why someone so cer.[4] Wilentz does note one of Egerton's articles, interested in Bush's tax policy does not note that but does not acknowledge what it shows us. Sim‐ the Federalists raised taxes and the voters re‐ ply put, Clay did not create the American Colo‐ belled, as Jefferson himself said. Wilentz also nization Society. But this is a minor point, al‐ plays down the effects of the Three-Fifths Clause, though Wilentz uses the story as part of his at‐ which made Jefferson President. The 1800 elec‐ tempt to demonize Clay. tion was manipulated in the state legislatures, in‐ cluding the least democratic of them, South Car‐ What does this very big book say? Wilentz olina. shuns analysis and has written a narrative histo‐ ry, which tells a relatively familiar story for those The problem with this narrative of the Revo‐ of us who grew up on David S. Muzzey's high lution of 1800 is that which plagues the rest of the school text and were assigned Harold Underwood book. Wilentz tells the reader his version of the 2 H-Net Reviews "true story" of democracy's emergence in the Ear‐ Wilentz does not develop this point. Certainly he ly Republic without (even in the endnotes) con‐ cannot mean the tremendous increase in the fronting those historians who disagree with him number of internal improvement corporations or the contradictions inherent in his own argu‐ and banks that characterized the era, which he ment. He does not acknowledge that in some Re‐ seems to dissociate from democracy. This is an publican states there were less liberal laws con‐ historiographical chestnut that he does not want cerning seditious libel than the Sedition Act. Nor to crack. He refuses to deal with the entire litera‐ does he refer to the fact that there was a possibili‐ ture grounded by Louis Hartz.[12] Nor can he re‐ ty that the militias of Pennsylvania and Virginia ally be thinking about the food of entrepreneur‐ might be called out to insure Jefferson's election. ship and individualism that Appleby traced in In‐ History is not something written in stone, but an heriting the Revolution, which, for similar rea‐ ongoing debate. Wilentz has opted out. And he of‐ sons, does not seem to ft with his views.[13] It fers no real analysis of what was a true political also was not all "good news." The Republicans in realignment in Congress. At this late date we are New Jersey took away the vote from the few wom‐ left with the economic/sectional analysis of Man‐ en that possessed it. In time the Jeffersonian/Jack‐ ning J. Dauer in The Adams Federalists (1963). sonian Republicans would take away the vote of Wilentz moves on to praise something histori‐ free black men. ans since Beard have called "Jeffersonian Democ‐ It is clear--and Wilentz subliminally acknowl‐ racy" by describing some of the things Jefferson edges this--that the emergence of democracy in did when he was President. Everyone on this list antebellum America was an emergence of white is familiar with what Wilentz calls "Jefferson's man's democracy and was tainted by racism. The Two Presidencies." Dumas Malone devoted two movement toward wider suffrage, even in his fa‐ volumes to praising his administrations.[7] For‐ vored terrain, New York, was not partisan. As rest McDonald mildly criticized them in a slim Chilton Williamson showed a half-century ago, in volume.[8] Anthony F. C. Wallace savaged Jeffer‐ American Suffrage from Property to Democracy, son's Indian policy.[9] Leonard Levy gave Presi‐ 1760-1860, a "democratic suffrage philosophy was dent Jefferson low marks on civil liberties.[10] Re‐ not the monopoly of either of the two great par‐ cently, Roger Kennedy has questioned the demo‐ ties" in the Jeffersonian era.[14] Several of the cratic implications of the Louisiana Purchase.[11] leaders of the reform movement in the New York Wilentz deflects the criticisms of Jefferson for his constitutional convention of 1821 became Whigs, views on slavery and race, and sanitizes his re‐ and Martin Van Buren, Wilentz's sometimes hero, sponse to the Haitian revolution, but conveniently was, at best, a moderate on suffrage expansion.
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