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“The Dupes of Hope Forever:” the Loco-Foco Or Equal Rights Movement, 1820S-1870S

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“The Dupes of Hope Forever:” the Loco-Foco Or Equal Rights Movement, 1820S-1870S “The Dupes of Hope Forever:” The Loco-Foco or Equal Rights Movement, 1820s-1870s by Anthony Comegna BA, Shippensburg University, 2010 MA, University of Pittsburgh, 2012 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment Of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2016 University of Pittsburgh Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences This dissertation was presented By Anthony Comegna It was defended on February 19, 2016 And approved by Seymour Drescher, Professor Emeritus, History Department Marcus Rediker, Distinguished Professor, History Department Werner Troesken, Professor, Economics Department Co-Chair: Van Beck Hall, Associate Professor, History Department Co-Chair: Gregor Thum, Associate Professor, History Department ii Co-Chairs: Van Beck Hall & Gregor Thum “The Dupes of Hope Forever:” The Loco-Foco or Equal Rights Movement, 1820s-1870s Anthony Comegna, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2016 This dissertation illustrates the impact of the Loco-Foco movement (1820s-1870s), most notably its role in the development of “Manifest Destiny,” the Free Soil Party, and the Republican Party. While historians have assumed that the Loco-Foco movement ended with the existence of the original third party in New York (1836-7), I pursue their philosophy and activism throughout the time and space of the late antebellum period. Loco-Focoism can be characterized as radical classical liberalism, including commitments to natural and equal rights, individualism, private property, laissez-faire, democratic republicanism, and, often, antislavery. Self-avowed and influential Loco-Focos included Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, and countless other important figures in antebellum thought, culture, and politics ranging across the continent from New England and the northern border to the Pacific frontier zone and even the increasingly proslavery, anti-locofoco South. This study compiles the largest collection of primary sources related to the movement of any treatment to date, including dozens of newspapers, published books, poems, and pamphlets, public speeches, paintings, and private correspondence collections. This is the first and only history of the Loco-Foco Movement as such, and its conclusions offer sharp challenges to prevailing interpretations of the development of democratic-republican government, liberalism, and corporate-capitalism in the United States. While their ideology offered radical alternative models for American political and intellectual life, their efforts at practical politicking created much of the modern democratic, corporate- capitalist nation-state familiar to present-day readers. iii Table of Contents Abstract...........................................................................................................................................iii Introduction: Who They Were and What They Did......…………………………………....…….1 1. “A Glorious Illumination:” The Origins and Thought of the Early Loco-Focos .....………...12 2. ‘Loco-Romanticism’ & Young America: Locofocoism, the Equal Rights Party, and Revolutionary Republicanism in the Canadian Rebellions……………………………...66 3. ‘Waking the World:’ The Rhode Island Rebellion and Loco-Young America……………..106 4. “No Monopoly of Mackerill:” Radical Locofocoism, the Dorrite Clam Bakes, & Young America………………………............……………………………………....................147 5. Loco-Young America and Free Soil Republicanism………………………………………..208 6. A Proliferation of “Isms:” The Slow Death of the Loco-Foco Movement…………………260 Conclusions: Existential Crisis, Generational Change, & the Loco-Foco Movement………...303 Appendix………………………………………………………………………………………..315 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………326 iv List of Tables Table 1: US Population, 1770-1880............................................................................................306 Table 2: US GDP, 1700-1870.....................................................................................................306 Table 3: GDP (US, Western Europe, World), 1700-1870..........................................................307 Table 4: Share of Global Wealth, 1600-1870.............................................................................307 Table 5: New York City Local, State, and National Elections, 1835-1837................................322 Table 6: Rump Loco-Foco Ticket for Local Offices, November 1837......................................322 Table 7: Loco-Dorrite Clam Bakes, 1842-1844.........................................................................323 Table 8: Presidential Elections, 1844-1852................................................................................323 Table 9: Selected Gubernatorial Elections..................................................................................324 v List of Figures Figure 1: Conservative Democrat Candidates, 1835..................................................................315 Figure 2: Equal Rights Democrat Candidates, 1835...................................................................315 Figure 3: “The Gilpinade Ballad”................................................................................................316 Figure 4: Thomas Cole, The Savage State...................................................................................319 Figure 5: Cole, The Arcadian or Pastoral State..........................................................................319 Figure 6: Cole, The Consummation of Empire...........................................................................320 Figure 7: Cole, Destruction.........................................................................................................320 Figure 8: Cole, Desolation..........................................................................................................321 vi Introduction: Who They Were and What They Did HOPE When youthful hearts are light and true, Yet Hope hath still her pleasing power, And all is fair around us, Although she's a deceiver! The future breaks upon our view And e'en while storms above us lower, In every bright and pleasing hue-- She paints so bright the future hour, For Hope's sweet spell hath bound us, We cannot but believe her-- And all seems fair around us. Although she's a deceiver! But ah! too soon we're doom'd to find Thus we stray on in quest of joy, The scenes that look'd so charming, The dupes of Hope forever! Beset with thorns, with snares intwined, Earth hath no good without alloy, That Hope is false, and Fortune blind, And sweetest pleasures soonest cloy, And dangers most alarming, We soonest from them sever-- Where all had seem'd so charming. The dupes of Hope forever! --William Leggett, "Leisure Hours at Sea," 1825 The Locofocos were liberal-republican, anti-corporate ideologues and political activists located throughout the United States from the 1820s to the 1870s and this is the history of their movement. Locofoco ideology and politics varied and shifted according to a multiplicity of contexts and individual idiosyncrasies, but those intellectuals and activists explored in this dissertation in some manner claimed a heritage with the circle of individuals originally slurred by their enemies as “Loco-Focos” in New York City, 1835. The Locofoco movement began with the workingmen’s and Jacksonian movements in the late 1820s and by 1835, New York City political conflict birthed the Loco-Foco Party. The Loco-Focos battled Tammany Hall and fought for control over the Democratic Party, continuing the work of many from the days of the Workingmen’s Party. Over the course of several decades following this formative period in New York, individuals and movements either self- or peer-identified as ‘locofoco,’ deeply influenced life in the United States and related corners of the world. Ultimately, however, the locofocos most eager for reform and most convinced of the virtues of democracy and republicanism proved in many ways to be the “Dupes of Hope Forever,” a very young William Leggett explored in verse. As they fought a political and (often) military war on “monopoly” and legal privilege, the locofocos transformed significant portions of the American institutional framework, allowing for much of the rapid industrialization and proliferation of corporations that characterized the late nineteenth-century economy. The radical liberal ideas for which locofocos fought over the decades demanded the liberation of all individuals from legislation conferring artificial rights and privileges on the essentially aristocratic few. This life-long “War on Monopoly,” resulted in a long series of events which in many ways diffused and democratized power throughout the populace. From general incorporation to antislavery, locofocos often claimed revolutionary victories. Yet, at every turn they were stymied, won only minor political victories, made mistakes, changed their minds entirely, or allowed themselves to be coopted. Loco-Foco political activists generally won few, relatively minor elections and leapt at offers of swift reconciliation with the great political middle and conservative establishments like Tammany. The movement survived reunion with Tammany only to lose military contests in Canada (1837-1839) and Rhode Island (1842). Locofocoism persisted throughout the Old Northwest and New England, while the culture of New York Locofocoism gave birth to the Young America movement, the Dorr War clam bakes, and the loco press throughout the country. Political
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