Republican Principles, Opposition Revolutions, and Southern Whigs: Nathaniel Macon, Willie Mangum, and the Course of North Carolina Politics, 1800-1853 A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at George Mason University By Benjamin L. Huggins Master of Arts George Mason University, 2003 Director: Jane T. Censer, Professor Department of History Fall Semester 2008 George Mason University Fairfax, VA DEDICATION This is dedicated to my parents, Bill and Joanne Huggins. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS While researching and writing this dissertation many institutions and people offered a great deal of assistance, and it is my pleasure to acknowledge their contributions. In the course of researching the political careers of Nathaniel Macon and Willie Mangum, several institutions opened their rich historical collections to me. I am deeply indebted to the staffs at the Library of Congress, the New-York Historical Society Library, and the North Carolina State Archives. The professionalism of the archivists and librarians at these institutions made my job easier. All expressed an interest in my work, helped me locate valuable material, and generally made researching a pleasant experience. I was able to research and write this dissertation because of the generous financial support provided by a George Mason University College of Humanities and Social Sciences dissertation fellowship, a Gilder Lehrman dissertation research fellowship at the New-York Historical Society Library, and several fellowships from the Department of History at George Mason University. I reserve special thanks for the members of my dissertation committee, Jane Censer, Rosemarie Zagarri, and Stephen West. Jane Censer was everything I could have wished for in a dissertation advisor, a first class scholar of the antebellum South and an editor of unmatched ability. She was always ready to talk and advise. Rosie’s comments helped to improve the style of the dissertation and keep my chapters focused on Macon and Mangum. Both Jane and Rosie were more than committee members; they were teachers, advisors, and mentors throughout my years as a graduate student. The debt I owe them is immense. Stephen West read the entire dissertation, offered valuable suggestions, and helped sharpen my arguments. Additionally, I would like to thank my graduate student colleagues in the Sunday afternoon dissertation group for reading chapters and offering their invaluable comments: John Burns, Lee Ann Ghajar, Maureen Guignon, James Halabuk, Dick Harless, Chris Hughes, and Mike Moravitz. Finally, I want to thank my parents, to whom this dissertation is lovingly dedicated, for enthusiastically supporting me every step of the way, constantly encouraging me, and continually inspiring me. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract ............................................................................................................................v 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................1 2. Republicans and the Republican Cause ...................................................................21 3. Southern Republican Divisions ................................................................................94 4. Old Republicans in Opposition ..............................................................................162 5. Old and New Old Republicans: Macon, Mangum, and Jackson’s Revolution ......240 6. The Whig Opposition: States’ Rights and the Senate.............................................329 7. The Revolution of 1840: From States’ Rights to Clay Whigs ...............................401 8. The Whig Ascendancy: Whig Principles and Clay Whigs ....................................458 9. The End of the Whig Ascendancy ..........................................................................544 10. Conclusion .............................................................................................................642 Bibliography .................................................................................................................656 iv ABSTRACT REPUBLICAN PRINCIPLES, OPPOSITION REVOLUTIONS, AND SOUTHERN WHIGS: NATHANIEL MACON, WILLIE MANGUM, AND THE COURSE OF NORTH CAROLINA POLITICS, 1800-1853 Benjamin Huggins, Ph. D. George Mason University, 2008 Dissertation Director: Dr. Jane T. Censer The political careers of Nathaniel Macon and Willie P. Mangum, United States senators in successive generations, offer a focal point for analyzing the ideology and politics of North Carolina’s Southern Whigs, from their origins to their fall. From 1800 to 1852 Macon and Mangum were at the epicenter of both national and state politics. Both Macon and Mangum emerged as leaders of political opposition parties – Macon among the state’s Jeffersonian Republicans and Mangum among the Jacksonians and, later, the Whigs. These two southern parties, too little studied by scholars, were linked by a shared opposition ideology. This dissertation traces the emergence of Macon’s “Old” Republican opposition faction professing loyalty to the “pure republicanism” of the “Principles of ’98” and the Revolution of 1800, the change of that ideology to an ideology of opposition, and its adoption by Mangum and a new generation of North Carolina Old Republicans, who, along with other opponents of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, made that Old Republican ideology the foundation of the Whig Party in the state. The opposition ideology of the North Carolina Whigs and older, but popular, Republican political ideas allowed the party to organize rapidly and capture the state from the Jackson Democrats. The Whigs' opposition to executive power was the most important aspect of their ideology, emphasized in all their campaigns from 1836 to 1844. Most important, the North Carolina Whigs evolved from a primarily Old Republican states’ rights party to a party combining Old republicanism with Whig nationalism. This evolution was critical to sustaining the ascendancy of such an opposition-oriented party. At both the national and state levels of politics, though, success raised expectations of governance, increased regional and personal rivalries, and revealed ideological conflicts within the Whig party. Conflicts over President John Tyler’s strict constructionism and President Zachary Taylor’s anti-party appeal emerge as key episodes in the state’s political development. A political culture of opposition could not remain ascendant under such tensions. This dissertation, then, seeks to account for political continuities between the decades of the early republic and the antebellum decades that most historians have ignored, particularly the links between Old Republican ideology and Southern Whig ideology. It also complicates traditional interpretations of antebellum Southern politics by showing that North Carolina’s politics did not simply reflect a parochial regionalism but was the result of a negotiation between state and national political ideals. 1. Introduction In 1954 Charles Grier Sellers, Jr. asked the readers of The American Historical Review, “Who Were the Southern Whigs?” Answers have been slow in coming. Despite half a century of historiography, few historians have tackled this enormously important question and even they have not yet fully examined the Southern Whigs’ ideology. In particular, they have failed to comprehend fully how much the origins of Southern Whigs’ ideology lay in “old” Republican ideology – the doctrines, or, principles, of the Jeffersonian Republicans – first articulated by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and their fellow Republicans during their heated political struggles with the Federalist between 1798 and 1800. Because of an over emphasis on the Northern Whigs, historians of antebellum politics have largely failed to understand that the Southern Whig ideology was fully as influenced by Old Republican ideas as was the ideology of the Southern Democrats.1 The course of Old Republicanism and the Whig Party in North Carolina show these ideological developments and the important interaction of state and national politics through the state’s Republican and Whig Parties. This study seeks to examine the origins 1 Charles Grier Sellers, Jr., “Who Were the Southern Whigs?” The American Historical Review 59 No. 2 (Jan., 1954). The tendency of most historians has been to assert that the Old Republicans only influenced the Jacksonian Democrats without noting that many Jackson Democrats in the South were founders of the Southern Whig party in their states, not just National Republicans. See, for instance, Richard Ellis, The Jeffersonian Crisis: Courts and Politics in the Young Republic (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1971), 283-284. 1 of the Southern Whig ideology in Old Republicanism; the interrelation of the Whigs’ ideology with the course of the Whig Party in the state; the foundations of the Carolina Whigs’ decade-long ascendancy, particularly the changes in the Whigs’ ideology as they came to enthusiastically support Henry Clay in the 1840s – one of the chiefs aspects of their success in the state; and the reasons for the decline of the Whig Party.2 With a focus on the political careers of Nathaniel Macon and Willie P. Mangum, North Carolina lends itself to such a study of Southern Whig ideology and the course of the Whig Party in an important Southern Whig state.3 North Carolina is an ideal state for this study. In the 1790s, North Carolina was already a