Charles A. Dana, the Civil War Era, and American Republicanism

Florida International University FIU Digital Commons FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations University Graduate School 11-8-2019 Charles A. Dana, the Civil War Era, and American Republicanism Eric X. Rivas [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd Part of the Intellectual History Commons, Political History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Rivas, Eric X., "Charles A. Dana, the Civil War Era, and American Republicanism" (2019). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 4347. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/4347 This work is brought to you for free and open access by the University Graduate School at FIU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of FIU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY Miami, Florida CHARLES A. DANA, THE CIVIL WAR ERA, AND AMERICAN REPUBLICANISM A dissertation submitted in partial FulFillment of the requirements For the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in HISTORY by Eric Rivas 2019 To: Dean John F. Stack, Jr. Steven J. Green School oF International and Public AfFairs This dissertat ion, wri tte n by Eric R ivas, and ent itled Charles A. Dana, the Civil War Era , and American Republicanism, having been approved in respect to style and intellectual content, is referred to you for judgment. We have read this dissertation and recommend that it be approved. ________________________________________________ Jessica Adler ________________________________________________ Clement Fatovic ________________________________________________ Darden A. Pyron, Co-Major ProFessor ________________________________________________ Gwyn Davies, Co-Major ProFessor Date oF DeFense: November 8, 2019 The dissertation oF Eric Rivas is approved. ________________________________________________ Dean John F. Stack, Jr. Steven J. Green School oF International and Public AfFairs ________________________________________________ Andrés G. Gil Vice President for Research and Economic Development and Dean of the University Graduate School Florida International University, 2019 ii AB STRACT OF THE DISSERTATION CHA RLES A. DANA, THE CIVIL W AR ERA, AND AMERICAN REPUBLICANISM by E ric Rivas Florida Internation al Universi ty, 2019 M iami, Florida P rofessor Gw yn Davi es, Co-M ajor Professor P rofessor Darden A. Pyron, Co-M ajor Professor W hen Ch arl es A. Dana bo ugh t the New York Sun in 1868, he used it to support the presidential can didacy of Ulysses S. Grant and the R epublican Party ticket to unify the post-C ivil W ar nati on. A f ter a victor y fo r the C ivil War gene ral and R epublican Party, though, the first fifteen months of the new ad ministration turned the editor against the president and his party. Dana’s Sun c riticized G rant and his allies as corrupt, of using the military for political ends, and of growing the size and po w er of govern ment beyond tradi tional American pra ctice. Again st the backdrop of R econstruction, Dana also decried the Grant ad ministration’s f oreign policy, especially regarding the ongoing war in Cub a. This dissertation e xplor es how Dana’s interpreta tion of republican va lues clashed with the American response to transatlantic politics to justify further criticism of t he president and his party between March 1869 and the election of 1872. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION 1 I. CHAPTER ONE: FOUNDATIONAL INTELLECTUAL INFLUENCES FROM BUFFALO TO BROOK FARM (1810 — 1847) 27 II. CHAPTER TWO: IDEOLOGY AND PARTY POLITICS (1848 —1856) 71 III. CHAPTER THREE: BELLIGERENT PARTY POLITICS (1856 — 1867) 102 IV. CHAPTER FOUR: ANTI-REPUBLICANISM AND CRITICISM OF THE GRANT PRESIDENCY (1868 — MID - 1870) 132 V. CHAPTER FIVE: REJECTING GRANT’S FOREIGN POLICY TOWARD THE CUBAN REVOLUTION (1868 — MID - 1870) 180 VI. CHAPTER SIX: CONTINUTED OPPOSITION TO GRANT’S RECONSTRUCTION POLICY (MID - 1870 — 1872) 231 VII. CHAPTER SEVEN: REPUBLICAN VISIONS IN FOREIGN POLICY INFLUENCE AMERICAN PARTY POLITICS (MID -1870 — 1872) 281 CONCLUSION 342 LIST OF REFERENCES 368 VITA 421 iv ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS *Associationism: a set of ideas/political philosophy associated with the American version of Fourierism, the ideology created by French philosopher Charles Fourier that found followers in the United States between the 1830s and 1840s. These ideas are not connected to the selF-labeled Associationalist ideas calling For private and community responses to the Great Depression by Herbert Hoover in the 1920s. *Communitarianism: a political philosophy associated with the utopian-inspired ideas of Henry de Saint-Simon, Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, George Ripley and others. In the United States, the community at Brook Farm (1841-1847) is an ideal example. Communitarians emphasized the egalitarian spirit of republicanism and often were open to experiments in communal living, alternative Family organization popular in the first half of the nineteenth century. *Communism: a set of ideas/political philosophy that emphasizes the aspects of permanent violent revolution against capitalism and its structural influences. It opposed the ideas of socialism in Dana’s time, which insisted on a relatively peaceful transition of the existing capitalist system in a more republican direction. *Liberalism: a set of ideas/political philosophy associated with the collection of ideas generally included under the banner of the term, like- equality, individuality rationalism, anti-slavery, free- trade, and the state protection oF private property. *Republicanism: a set of ideas/political philosophy associated with civic virtue, communitarianism, egalitarianism, economic nationalism, anti-corruption, and anti-monarchism. It also has strong connections to small government ideologies, and broad fear of standing armies and militarism. The use of the term is not meant to connote any direct connection to the Republican Party at any point in the dissertation. In the Civil War era, however, republican ideas made up a strong segment oF the Republican Party platForm. During Reconstruction, however, this connection shifted, drawing Dana to make the major changes in political affiliation that make up the majority oF the dissertation. *Socialism: a set of ideas/political philosophy associated with the generally non-violent approach to reforming corporate and industrial capitalism. In Dana’s period, the term socialist had wide ranging connotations, but in my employment of the term, I use to describe economic reform of capitalism with republican inspired policies while also embracing the larger structure of the social, economic, and political makeup of the American system of life. v INTRODUCTION As an Undersecretary of War in 1863, Charles Anderson Dana (1819-1897) won a permanent, iF minor, place in the history of the Civil War by helping convince his chiefs, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and president Abraham Lincoln, to salvage General Ulysses S. Grant’s career, when many wanted him cashiered. Six years later Dana, now a newspaper editor and owner, helped co-author a campaign biography of the general in support of Grant’s candidacy as the Republican Party’s nominee for president. Within a year, however, Dana Famously refused to continue defending Grant, the administration, or the Republican Party that supported the president instead, becoming its loudest critic. Dana’s enemies—including the administration itself—charged Dana as a Frustrated job-seeker and cynical newspaperman. This characterization of Dana—a spited, and selFish, ankle-biter to the president — is the standard portrait found in most historiographical accounts of Dana. The editor of the vastly popular New York Sun responded to these charges by insisting that his public record since the 1840s illustrated a set of steady ideological commitments — transatlantic republican perspectives — that best explained his behavior between 1869 and 1872. IF never really a politician nor a soldier, his liFe and career as a journalist and public intellectual merit a closer and more detailed examination. Indeed, his biography reflects the complexities of nineteenth century American and transatlantic politics, as well as a myriad oF socio-political connections between region, nation, and even international events. This dissertation presents three inter-related investigations: it studies Dana’s commitment to the ideas of civic virtue, communitarianism, and egalitarianism in early adulthood; explains how his transition from a pacifist understanding of republicanism in the 1840s and 1850s transformed into a belligerent defense of those ideas in the Civil War era; and explains how these very ideas informed his rejection of President Grant and the Republican Party during Reconstruction. This project scrutinizes Dana’s biography to make this case in detail: Dana’s 1 established vision For nation and world in the Civil War era Fueled his opposition with the policy approaches of President Ulysses S. Grant’s administration and its Republican allies. This dissertation makes the argument that Dana’s earliest ideological Foundations developed around a classically republican worldview. Dana grew to embrace these ideas while in BuFfalo, New York, next at Harvard and the Brook Farm commune, and that these ideas were then further stimulated at the New York Tribune and the War Department during the Civil War, continuing into his purchase of the New York Sun in 1868. Readers familiar with the

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