The University of Maine DigitalCommons@UMaine Electronic Theses and Dissertations Fogler Library Spring 5-13-2017 Party Development and Political Conflict in Maine 1820-1860 From Statehood to the Civil War Lee D. Webb University of Maine, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/etd Part of the American Politics Commons, American Studies Commons, Human Geography Commons, Political History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Webb, Lee D., "Party Development and Political Conflict in Maine 1820-1860 From Statehood to the Civil War" (2017). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2653. http://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/etd/2653 This Open-Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UMaine. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UMaine. PARTY DEVELOPMENT AND POLITICAL CONFLICT IN MAINE 1820-1860 FROM STATEHOOD TO THE CIVIL WAR By LEE WEBB B. A. Boston University, 1963 M.A. Goddard College, 1974 Ph.D Union Institute, 1976 A DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (in History) The Graduate School University of Maine May 2017 Advisory Committee Richard Judd, Advisor, Professor of History Jay Bregman, Emeritus Professor of History Amy Fried, Professor of Political Science Nathan Godfried, Professor of History Elizabeth McKillen, Professor of History PARTY DEVELOPMENT AND POLITICAL CONFLICT IN MAINE 1820-1860 FROM STATEHOOD TO THE CIVIL WAR by Lee Webb Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Richard Judd An abstract of the Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (in History) May 2017 This dissertation is a history of politics in Maine during the state’s formative period, the years from statehood until 1860. The history focuses on party conflict and on the development of organized political parties, particularly the Democratic and Republican parties. It concentrates on the structures and processes that politicians built, including party newspapers, county conventions, state conventions, legislative caucuses, and ultimately state committees and the office of state committee chair – all to compete effectively for power. During this 40-year period, parties also develop powerful new messages, campaign strategies, and developed leaders with the skills to accomplish these tasks. I also argue that to understand these changes, it is necessary to be familiar with the “deep forces” that channeled Maine’s political and economic development. These are the state’s geography and its constitutional order. These forces produced in Maine a deeply fragmented state within in which both political party leaders and government leaders struggled. Organized political parties first appeared in Maine in 1832, 12 years after Maine became a state. The force that pushed Democrats and the Whigs to create parties was their competition for patronage. In fact, the battle to control patronage would energize Maine’s political parties throughout this period. It was the Democrats who first pioneered the development of new political structures and party organizations. In the 1830s and 1840 they dominated Maine’s politics. In the late 1840s and early 1850s it was the single – issue movement (prohibition, anti-slavery, and anti- Catholicism) that created political organizations that shook the Whigs and the Democrats to the very core. After absorbing the single-issue movements in 1856, the Republican Party would dominate the state. Republican men like Hannibal Hamlin, John, L. Stevens, and James G. Blaine created a new Republican Party: centralized, professional, and disciplined. With annual mass state conventions, an army of state and national patronage office-holders, a well-funded party treasury, a compelling single-issue message, a strong state committee, and powerful state chairman, Maine would emerge as a “model” for Republican Parties in the North during the Civil War and the Gilded Age. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER I: THE FORCES THAT SHAPED MAINE’S HISTORY AND POLITICS ........... 12 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 12 The Force of Geography ..................................................................................................... 15 The Complexity of Geography .................................................................................... 16 Physical Geography ..................................................................................................... 18 Locational Geography .................................................................................................. 24 The Force of the Constitutional Order ................................................................................ 27 The 1819 Convention ................................................................................................... 28 Universal Suffrage ....................................................................................................... 31 A Dominant Legislature ............................................................................................... 32 Apportionment: Who Will Hold Power? ..................................................................... 33 Unintended Consequences ........................................................................................... 37 The Consequences of Constitutions ............................................................................. 42 CHAPTER II: THE 1820S: FROM DEFERENCE TO POPULAR MANDATE ....................... 44 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 44 Population Changes in the 1820s ........................................................................................ 48 Economic Changes in the 1820s ......................................................................................... 49 Maine’s Junto and Pre-Party Politics .................................................................................. 55 The Junto Takes Control of the New State’s Politics and Government ....................... 55 The Legislatures in the Junto Era ................................................................................. 61 The Junto Stumbles ...................................................................................................... 64 Calls for State Organization ......................................................................................... 68 The Junto Offers the Eastern Argus to Jackson ........................................................... 71 iii Deference Collapses in the Face of Popular Politics ................................................... 74 Maine’s First State Political Convention ..................................................................... 80 Maine State Government at the End of the 1820s........................................................ 84 Popular Politics Comes to State Elections ................................................................... 85 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 88 CHAPTER III: THE 1830s: JACKSON AND THE ORIGINS OF MAINE’S POLITICAL PARTIES ...................................................................................................................................... 95 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 95 Population Changes in the 1830s ........................................................................................ 98 Economic Changes in the 1830s ....................................................................................... 100 Andrew Jackson and the Birth of Political Parties ............................................................ 106 Factions Begin to Act Like Parties ............................................................................ 106 New Voters................................................................................................................. 109 Smith and his Jacksonians Take Over the Democratic Party ..................................... 114 A New Participatory Civic Culture ............................................................................ 116 The “Party Ticket” System of Voting ........................................................................ 118 Politics Becomes a Profession ................................................................................... 120 F. O. J. Smith as Party Leader .................................................................................... 121 Jacksonianism on the Inland Frontier ........................................................................ 124 Martin Van Buren: the Architect of the Democratic Party ........................................ 127 The Democratic Party Organization in the Middle of the 1830s ............................... 129 The Whig Political Organization in the Middle of the 1830s .................................... 134 How the Two Parties Looked at Government ...........................................................