Seeking the Middle in a Sectionalizing America: James Dinsmore and the Shaping of Regional Cultural Economies, 1816-1872 A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History of the College of Arts and Sciences by Catherine T. Collopy 2015 M.A. University of Cincinnati June 2003 Committee Chair: Christopher Phillips, Ph.D. Abstract This dissertation examines the evolving American landscape from the Early Republic to Reconstruction through the lens of one man’s life. During James Dinsmore’s lifetime, Americans experienced rapid change in all aspects of their lives. Industrialization created new opportunities just as the extension of democracy gave increasing numbers of white men decision-making powers within their government. As Americans like Dinsmore moved west to the frontier, they often confronted new conditions: economic, social, environmental, political, and cultural. How they, and he, chose to accommodate themselves to these new realities is fundamentally a story about creating cultural economies. Further, this dissertation analyzes Dinsmore’s migrations. Raised in New Hampshire, he moved to Natchez in the Mississippi Territory, Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, and Boone County, Kentucky. In choosing these locations he confronted new conditions that he either adapted to or he risked isolation. His early life in New England encouraged him to be proud of its imagined free heritage; nevertheless, he accepted plantation slavery in the Southwest and created a mixed labor force in the border region. These economic realities were accompanied by social and cultural influences that were not always compatible with Dinsmore’s own convictions, leaving him in an uncomfortable position. Dinsmore’s adaptations to the regions he successively inhabited and his subsequent discomfort, offer a unique perspective on how those regions were changing. Educated at Dartmouth College to appreciate the economic contributions of all sections of the nation, the transformation of that region into a more competitive, urban, and ii industrial society influenced his decision to move south. Natchez and Terrebonne Parish represented the transformation of the Old Southwest from a frontier to a plantation-based, hierarchical cultural and social economy based on the labor of large numbers of slaves. Boone County, Kentucky, with a mixed economy founded on yeoman-based agriculture, evolved from its former Whig-friendly cultural economy, based on diverse interests and compromise into a sectionalized, proslavery, Democratic, political economy. As a perpetual outsider, Dinsmore’s attempt to create compatible social and cultural economies in each of these places was only partially successful. He was never able to construct a middle space where he could feel content. A nationalist from his youth, he witnessed the growing sectionalization of those around him. Though he argued for the emancipation of slaves, others successfully argued for increased protections for their property. The Civil War, which engulfed his region, reinforced his status as an outsider. Always on the periphery of the regions he inhabited, Dinsmore’s failure to find a center attests to the varied and contested meanings of nationalism and regional cultures during this time period. iii iv Acknowledgements My gratitude first must go to my family who supported me in this project much longer than anyone should have and kept trying to motivate me to complete it. Without their encouragement and support I do not think I would have finished. Thanks especially to my son, Stuart, who willingly traveled around with me, reading books while I did my research and patiently listened to me talk about research and gave me very helpful feedback. My profound thanks extend to Chris Phillips for not giving up on me. His critiques of my work were extremely helpful in focusing my scattered ideas and, I believe, he helped to improve my writing in the process. Although the rather isolated path I took in writing this paper was not ideal, Chris was always there when I had questions or needed direction. I definitely owe thanks to the University of Cincinnati for the opportunity they have provided for me to learn so much about the profession from some wonderful professors. My sincere gratitude goes to my committee for taking time from their own busy lives to provide me with feedback to improve my paper: Wayne Durrill, Mark Lause, Jim Klotter, and Diane Mutti Burke. In the last ten years, I have traveled to many places and have met with kindness and assistance in all those places. I would particularly like to mention the Judge George W. Armstrong Library in Natchez, Mississippi, the Terrebonne Parish Library, in Houma, Louisiana, the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives in Frankfort, Kentucky, and the Local History staff and the Boone County Public Library in Burlington, Kentucky. And a huge debt of thanks goes to the volunteers at the Dinsmore Homestead v in Burlington, Kentucky, for never tiring of my incessant babbling about the topic of my paper and for allowing me to bounce ideas off of them, all the while, feigning interest. vi Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements v Introduction 2 Chapter One: Between Worlds: The Unmaking of a New Englander 9 Chapter Two: The “Principle of Hope”: Exploiting Opportunities on the Periphery of the Old South 44 Chapter Three: Culture in the Old Southwest: Expanding the Boundaries of Southern Identity 79 Chapter Four: A “Happy Home amid the Deep Green Forests of the Glorious West”: Society on Slavery’s Border 114 Chapter Five: “To be once more free & enjoy a quiet mind”: The Social Economy of Slavery and Freedom 150 Chapter Six: At Home in Northern Kentucky: Finding Cultural Fulfillment Across the River 184 Chapter Seven: The Border of Unrest: Political Realignments on the Eve of War 216 Chapter Eight: “Be Tender of Pa’s Feelings”: The Civil War and Reconstruction in a Divided State 235 Conclusion 276 Bibliography 282 1 Introduction James Dinsmore grew up in New England with the Early Republic and died in a border state during Reconstruction. His life is a story of changes and accommodations. As the country around him expanded and developed, he relocated several times and was optimistic that he could adjust to the new conditions he met. Successfully adapting in some ways to the realities surrounding him, he was unable to completely accommodate his own values to the beliefs and practices of the regions he encountered during his life. Attempting to carve out for himself a space free from local and sectional prejudices, he was disappointed. Through his life, as he benefited from the country’s growth, he retained his love for the Union. His preference for leisure over labor allowed him to accept slavery as a means to wealth, but this preference made it more difficult for him to construct a middle ground in an increasingly sectional world. Born in Rockingham County, New Hampshire, he moved away in several brief steps after graduating from Dartmouth College: to northern New York, Lexington, Kentucky, St. Genevieve, Missouri, and then to Natchez in the Mississippi Territory. Befriended by the wealthy Minor family, he studied law and became the managing partner in a sugar and cotton plantation in southern Louisiana, where he then moved. But 2 the plantation lifestyle, with its correspondent debt and large enslaved labor force, did not suit him and he dreamed of a life of leisure on a diversified farm in Kentucky, where he could manage with a mixed labor force of slaves, tenants, and day laborers. Moving to Boone County, just hours downstream from the cosmopolitan city of Cincinnati, he strove to live out his dreams. At the age of seventy, he was drawn into the maelstrom of the Civil War, reaffirming his Unionism but threatening to destroy the world he had created. As the America that Dinsmore was born into grew and matured, political and economic freedom unleashed a new confidence in the ability of individuals to forge their own paths in life. The market revolution created favorable circumstances for opportunistic men seeking to attain the wealth and position that had eluded their forefathers. But as these changes opened up opportunities, they drew participants into an economic game of roulette where chance, as much as skill and education, fostered success.1 As an urban, middle-class manufacturing culture was spreading from the Northeast to the Old Northwest, a rural, slaveholding, patriarchal, and aristocratic plantation culture was likewise flowing westward in the South, spurred on by the invention of the cotton gin. Though both regions shared much, they increasingly emphasized their differences. Priding itself on free labor and progress, the North viewed the South as economically backward and violent. The South, meanwhile, ascribing more to a community-based understanding of honor and adhering to a rigidly Calvinistic evangelical Protestantism, interpreted northern society as infused with greed and impatience and unappreciative of the social hierarchies southerners deemed natural and 3 essential. Historians argue that in the South, this perception of differences evolved into a belief on the part of southerners that their institutions would be safest under their own separate government. Even as people of the North, South, and West perceived men and women of other parts of the country to be different, there were common attitudes that most Americans shared. Among them were republicanism, Christianity, white supremacy, and the importance of property ownership. Capitalism was expanding throughout the country, regardless of terrain or climate and it was affecting how a growing number of men transacted their business and lived within their community.2 As the country expanded, the white men who settled the West brought democracy and individualism with them. Aided by the accelerated flow of information, men and women followed regional and national events, and engaged in national debates that increasingly focused on sectional differences.