PRESERVING THE WHITE MAN’S REPUBLIC: THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN CONSERVATISM, 1847-1860 Joshua A. Lynn A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History. Chapel Hill 2015 Approved by: Harry L. Watson William L. Barney Laura F. Edwards Joseph T. Glatthaar Michael Lienesch © 2015 Joshua A. Lynn ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Joshua A. Lynn: Preserving the White Man’s Republic: The Democratic Party and the Transformation of American Conservatism, 1847-1860 (Under the direction of Harry L. Watson) In the late 1840s and 1850s, the American Democratic party redefined itself as “conservative.” Yet Democrats’ preexisting dedication to majoritarian democracy, liberal individualism, and white supremacy had not changed. Democrats believed that “fanatical” reformers, who opposed slavery and advanced the rights of African Americans and women, imperiled the white man’s republic they had crafted in the early 1800s. There were no more abstract notions of freedom to boundlessly unfold; there was only the existing liberty of white men to conserve. Democrats therefore recast democracy, previously a progressive means to expand rights, as a way for local majorities to police racial and gender boundaries. In the process, they reinvigorated American conservatism by placing it on a foundation of majoritarian democracy. Empowering white men to democratically govern all other Americans, Democrats contended, would preserve their prerogatives. With the policy of “popular sovereignty,” for instance, Democrats left slavery’s expansion to territorial settlers’ democratic decision-making. Democrats also applied democracy and individualism to temperance, religious liberty, and nativism. Democratic conservatism would protect white men against “fanaticism,” an ideology which countenanced governmental imposition of moral norms. Democratic principles united white men from the Slave States and Free States, Catholics and Protestants, conservative former Whigs, and native and foreign-born Americans with the promise of moral autonomy on issues iii like slavery. In addition to political principles, Democrats also ascribed to shared cultural prescriptions regarding whiteness, manhood, and domesticity. As became clear by the late 1850s, however, majoritarian democracy could actually destabilize racial and gender boundaries. Local democracy could undermine the white man’s republic, especially when marginalized Americans turned democracy to their own ends. In basing a conservative political order on the instability of democracy, Democrats failed to bulwark white supremacy and slavery, but did place American conservatism on a new, populist trajectory. The tenets of modern conservatism, culminating in the twentieth and twenty-first- century New Right, coalesced during the 1850s debates over white supremacy and slavery. Historicizing the conjunction of conservative thought and democratic practice reveals the point at which majoritarian democracy and “liberal” antistatism and individualism became the “conservative” means for upholding a specific racial and gendered order. iv To Darlene and Kevin v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have profited from the mentorship of an unparalleled group of educators, including Ray Glenboski and Jennifer Cox; at Marshall University, Chuck Bailey, Robert Behrman, Timothy Burbery, Lee Erickson, Dan Holbrook, Carlos López, Montserrat Miller, Bill Palmer, Robert Sawrey, Barry Sharpe, Chris White, and especially Donna Spindel and Jamie Warner; at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Vicki Behrens, Fitz Brundage, Jerma Jackson, and Lou Pérez. The members of my dissertation committee, William L. Barney, Laura F. Edwards, Joseph T. Glatthaar, Michael Lienesch, and Harry L. Watson, guided this project to completion. I hope they see their influence in whatever merit it possesses. Working with Joe Glatthaar has been one of my greatest pleasures at UNC. He taught me how to teach. Whether I went into his office obstinate, panicked, or flummoxed, Harry Watson responded with unfailing good cheer and soft-spoken reassurance. My adviser reaffirmed my work and the study of political history itself, even as he consistently challenged me. James Buchanan is certainly not Andrew Jackson, but Professor Watson allowed me to study him anyway, and I hope I have justified his indulgence. I will be fortunate indeed if the sensitivity with which Professor Watson approaches the past echoes in this dissertation. For their friendship and collegiality, I thank my fellow students, particularly Christina Carroll, Adam Domby, Shannon Eaves, Jeff Erbig, Joey Fink, Patrick Kent, Jen Kosmin, Liz Lundeen, Ashley Mays, Dwight Mears, Sari Niedzwiecki, Rob Shapard, Zach Smith, Paul vi Turner, Tyler Will, Tim Williams, and, of course, the political history Junto of Eric Burke, Robert Colby, Brian Fennessy, and Robert Richard. I hope that Tom Goldstein and Elizabeth Smith know how much their friendship has enhanced my time at UNC. Rupert Hemingway has been my most stalwart partisan at all stages of my education. David R. Woodward provided me with an example of an historian which I will always strive to emulate. My model academic is my friend Richard I. Lester, who has been my mentor longer than all the others. Harvey Curtis Fenimore Jr., Henry Lynn, and Jerry Stilp talked to me about history a long time ago, and I have never stopped wanting to talk about it since. Patrick H. Lynn, in addition to all the other ways in which he shaped my life, first turned my attention to the past. Support from the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan, the Virginia Historical Society, the Humane Studies Institute at George Mason University, the Graduate School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the UNC-CH Center for the Study of the American South, and the UNC-CH Department of History enabled me to conduct research and write this dissertation. The UNC-CH Writing Center is a special place, and I am happy to have had the opportunity to work and learn there. Words on a page may seem slight recompense for so much love, friendship, collegiality, and mentorship. But, as an historian who relies on such sources, I can think of no more fitting expression of gratitude. Thanks. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................................... x INTRODUCTION: CONSERVING THE HAPPY REPUBLIC ................................................................. 1 The Happy Republic ........................................................................................................................ 2 The Noise of the Democracy: Rhetoric, Ideology, and Culture ....................................................... 6 Conserving the White Man’s Republic .......................................................................................... 12 CHAPTER 1: THE NORTHERN MEN AND THEIR SOUTHERN PRINCIPLE: JACKSONIAN IDEOLOGY, POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY, AND WHITE MEN’S DEMOCRACY, 1847-1854 ........................................................................................................................ 19 The Jacksonian Overture to the 1850s ........................................................................................... 21 The Northern Men and Their National Principle ........................................................................... 38 Popular Sovereignty and Jacksonian Democracy .......................................................................... 56 Popular Sovereignty and White Men’s Democracy ....................................................................... 69 CHAPTER 2: CONSERVATISM AND FANATICISM: THE POLITICAL IDEOLOGY OF THE DEMOCRACY BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR ........................................................ 82 Progressive Individualism or Fanatical Centralization .................................................................. 88 Liberal Toleration or Fanatical Bigotry ....................................................................................... 103 National Diversity or Fanatical Uniformity ................................................................................. 117 Conservative Mastery or Fanatical Degradation .......................................................................... 128 CHAPTER 3: RESISTING REALIGNMENT: DEMOCRATS RESPOND TO PARTISAN AND RACIAL DISORDER, 1854-1855 ....................................................................... 151 “A Conglomeration of Antagonisms” in Indiana ......................................................................... 157 The Party of “Slavery, Drunkenness, & Infidelity” ..................................................................... 164 The Northern Politics of Slavery and Race .................................................................................. 170 Virginia and the South ................................................................................................................. 177 viii The Politics of Slavery in Virginia .............................................................................................. 182 The Politics of Religious Liberty in Virginia............................................................................... 188 Conclusion: The National Politics of Fanaticism, Slavery, and Race .........................................