UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Party Formation in the United States Adissertationsubmittedinpartialsatisfactionofthe requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science by Darin Dion DeWitt 2013 c Copyright by Darin Dion DeWitt 2013 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Party Formation in the United States by Darin Dion DeWitt Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science University of California, Los Angeles, 2013 Professor Thomas Schwartz, Chair This dissertation is about how political parties formed in the world’s first mass democracy, the United States. I trace the process of party formation from the bottom up. First, I ask: How do individuals become engaged in politics and develop political affiliations? In most states, throughout the antebellum era, the county was the primary unit of political admin- istration and electoral representation. Owing to their small size, contiguity, and economic homogeneity, I expect that each county’s active citizens will form a county-wide governing coalition that organizes and dominates local politics. Second, I ask: Which political actor had incentives to lure county organizations into one coalition? I argue that the institutional rules for electing United States Senators – indirect election by state legislature – induced prospective United States Senators to construct a majority coalition in the state legislature. Drawing on nineteenth century newspapers, I construct a new dataset from the minutes of political meetings in three states between 1820 and 1860. I find that United States Senators created state parties out of homogeneous counties. They encouraged cooperation among county-wide governing coalitions by canvassing annual county political meetings, drafting ii and revising a multi-issue policy platform that had the potential to unite a majority of the state’s county governing coalitions, encouraging individual counties to create county- wide committees of correspondence and vigilance, and, finally, organizing a permanent state central committee and regular state-wide conventions. I also show that alternative political actors lacked the incentives, resources, and long-term policy view necessary to build a state- wide party. Iconcludebyconsideringtheimplicationsofthisargumentfordebatesaboutthenatureof partisan affiliation, party cohesion, the formation of policy agendas, and the linkage between the mass public and the national government in a federal system. iii The dissertation of Darin Dion DeWitt is approved. Kathleen Bawn D. Roderick Kiewiet John R. Zaller Thomas Schwartz, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2013 iv For my family – Carolyn, Howard, Melanie, and Je↵ v Contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 UnitedStatesSenatorsandAmericanpartyformation. 3 1.1.1 The Nation-wide Democratic party and the election of Andrew Jackson 3 1.1.2 TheWhigpartyinstateandnation. 6 1.1.3 TheFreeSoilpartyinMassachusetts . 8 1.1.4 Lessons from history . 10 1.2 Aninstitutionalexplanationofpartyformation . 11 1.3 Claims . 15 1.4 Conclusion . 16 2 Party Formation in the Old South: North Carolina 17 2.1 Institutional and social setting . 17 2.1.1 The Constitution of 1776 . 17 2.1.2 The Constitution of 1835 . 19 2.1.3 Demographics, geography, and culture . 20 2.2 The county as a political unit . 21 2.2.1 The county as a unit of government in North Carolina, 1665 – 1860 . 22 2.2.2 County-level political organization . 23 2.2.3 Vote share for winning candidates at the county-level . 24 2.2.4 Cohesion of the county-level electorate . 24 vi 2.2.5 Conclusion . 26 2.3 State-wide political organization before mass parties, 1816 – 1840 . 26 2.3.1 Political organization . 27 2.3.2 Political entrepreneurs or common interest? . 29 2.4 TheUnitedStatesSenator: WilliePersonMangum . 30 2.4.1 Background . 31 2.4.2 The Senatorial election of 1830: Mangum builds a temporary coalition 32 2.4.3 Forging an agenda for a state-wide majority, 1833 . 33 2.4.4 Going public with an anti-Administration platform, 1834 . 38 2.4.5 Canvassing the state and creating a party organization, 1835–1836 . 42 2.4.6 Amajoritycoalitioninthelegislature,1838 . 45 2.5 State legislators . 49 2.6 Governors . 51 2.7 Presidents . 64 2.8 Socially prominent families . 65 2.9 Conclusion: Thomas Lanier Clingman and the rise of the state-wide Demo- cratic party . 66 3 Party Scholarship: Consensus, Gaps, and Mistakes 69 3.1 Consensus claims about political parties . 70 3.1.1 TrendsinAmericanpartydevelopment . 70 3.1.2 Howpartiesform ............................. 71 3.1.3 Whatpartiesdo.............................. 72 3.2 Gapsinthepartyliterature ........................... 73 3.3 Mistakes in the party literature . 76 4 Methods: Reconstructing Nineteenth Century Politics 81 4.1 Reconstructing nineteenth century politics . 81 vii 4.2 Case selection . 85 4.2.1 Newspapers ................................ 86 4.2.2 UnitedStatesSenators . 87 4.3 Building a dataset from newspaper archives . 90 5 Party Formation in New England: Maine 92 5.1 Institutional and social setting . 92 5.1.1 The Constitution of 1820 . 92 5.1.2 Laws and customs . 94 5.2 The county as a political unit . 95 5.2.1 Politically active citizens . 97 5.2.2 Cohesion of the county-level electorate . 97 5.2.3 Conclusion . 98 5.3 State-wide political organization before mass parties . 98 5.4 UnitedStatesSenators .............................. 100 5.4.1 General Joshua Wingate, Jr.: The formation of an opposition coalition, 1820–1829 . 101 5.4.2 Francis Ormand Jonathan Smith: Building a Jacksonian coalition, 1827–1841 . 107 5.4.3 Hannibal Hamlin: Putting the state coalition back together, 1841 – 1850115 5.4.4 William Pitt Fessenden: Building an Opposition Coalition, 1837–1856 119 5.5 State legislators . 126 5.6 Governors . 127 5.7 Presidents . 129 5.8 Socially prominent families . 130 5.9 Conclusion . 132 6 Party Formation in the Middle Atlantic: New Jersey 133 viii 6.1 Institutional and social setting . 133 6.1.1 The Constitution of 1776 . 133 6.1.2 The Constitution of 1844 . 135 6.2 State-wide political organization before mass parties, 1789 – 1829 . 136 6.3 UnitedStatesSenators .............................. 137 6.3.1 SamuelSouthard ............................. 137 6.3.2 Mahlon Dickerson and Garret D. Wall . 142 6.3.3 Senators versus governors or state legislators: A long coalition of na- tional policy resolutions . 142 6.4 State legislators . 143 6.5 Governors . 144 6.6 Presidents . 145 6.7 Socially prominent families . 146 6.8 Conclusion . 146 7 Conclusion 147 Bibliography 152 ix List of Tables 1.1 VotingAgePopulationinUnitedStatesCounties,1830 . 12 2.1 WillieMangum’sLongCoalition,1833–1838 . 35 2.2 Newspaper Editorials on the topics of distribution, deposit removal, and recharteringtheUnitedStatesBank,1833 . 37 2.3 Re-Election Rates in North Carolina State Legislature, 1820–1840 . 49 2.4 Policy Proposals in Gubernatorial Messages, 1830–1840 . 55 2.5 Policy Recommendations in Annual Gubernatorial Messages, 1830 – 1840 . 59 2.6 GovernorsinNorthCarolina,1815–1860 . 63 4.1 ThePapersofWilliePersonMangum,1830–1840 . 83 4.2 ListofReferencedNewspapers. 86 4.3 UnitedStatesSenatorsinNorthCarolina,1789–1860 . 88 4.4 Prospective United States Senators in North Carolina, 1825–1854 . 89 5.1 RatioofStatetoCountyTaxationinMaine,1821–1827 . 96 5.2 HannibalHamlin’sLongCoalition,1845 . 116 5.3 WilliamPittFessenden’sLongCoalition,1840 . 121 6.1 Re-Election Rates in the New Jersey State Legislature, 1829–1844 . 143 x List of Figures 2.1 Average margin of victory at county-level, 1830 – 1860 (N = 65 counties) . 25 xi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to the librarians and sta↵members at the American Antiquarian Society, Columbia University’s Butler Library, Maine Historical Society, New Jersey State Archives, North Carolina State Archives, Portland Public Library’s Portland Room, Rutgers Univer- sity Libraries, Western Reserve Historical Society, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Wilson Library, and UCLA’s Young Research Library for helping me locate and access avastarrayofnineteenthcenturynewspapersandpointingmeinthedirectionofhelpful contextual sources. I am particularly indebted to Robin Lowell and Thomas Ga↵ney at the Portland Public Library and William Barry, Nicholas Noyes, and Jamie Kingman Rice at the Maine Historical Society. They were hospitable, took interest in my project, and tracked down lost records. This made it possible to reconstruct the process of party formation in Maine during the 1820s and 1830s. Trudy Harpham nurtured my scholarly ambitions during a formative stage of my career by o↵ering judicious advice about the academic profession and embracing me as a collaborator. Trudy, I will celebrate the completion of my dissertation by reading your gift to me, Tove Jansson Rediscovered,andrevisitingtheworksofourfavoriteauthor. Thank you to my incredibly accomplished friends for o↵ering constant encouragement, providing welcome diversions, and being a bunch of everyday Huell Howsers. Sean Andrews, Christine Bolghand, Mark Cooley, Michelle Horejs, Jane Ginski, Joya Golden, Julia Kra↵t, Audra Kudirka, Naveen Lakshmipathy, Je↵Morse, Carmina Ocampo, Yusuf Osman, Willy Pauwels, Nendie Pinto-Duschinsky, Dalmacio Posadas, Nicole Seymour, Steve Tre↵ers, He- lene Valencia, Julie Van Winkle, Lutgarde Vandenberghe, and Stephanie Wong are kindred xii spirits who are always willing to venture far afield in search of Diner-saur parks, a fish that snacks on carrots, and desert modernism. As Huell Howser famously proclaimed “That’s amazing!” Throughout graduate school, Flori So always made time