Antebellum Politics in Tennessee (review)

BOOK REVIEWS173 etiological burden ofbeing"theDaughter oftheConfederacy."Asagain fate would dictate, she fell in love with a young lawyer from Syracuse, New York. Davis would have none of it. Duty bound, she bowed to her father's demands. Thereafter her health declined. She never again feU in love and died at the age of thirty-four, "perhaps the last casualty of the Civil War" (p.93). Edward D. C. Campbell, Jr. Virginia Historical Society Antebellum Politics in Tennessee. By Paul H. Bergeron. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1982. Pp. xii, 208. $18.50.) This book treats Tennessee pohtics from the first presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson in 1824 through the election of 1860, in which another Tennessean, John Bell, ran for the presidency. The emphasis, however, is on the period of intense two-party competition between Whigs and Democrats. Beginningin 1836when Hugh LawsonWhiteand other erstwhile Jacksonians challenged Martin Van Buren as Jackson's successor, this period of Whig-Democratic rivalry persisted through the 1850s. Tennessee's antebeUum political development divides into three periods, Bergeron finds, roughly analagous to the decades of the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s; and he has structured his book accordingly. The late 1830s saw the creation of Tennessee's first effective two-party system, an intensely competitive arrangement in which, perhaps surprisingly, the Whigs won more often than the Jacksonians. During the "PoUtical Maturity" of the 1840s the Whig ascendancy continued, but within the framework of two nearly equal, highly organized parties. Bergeron entitles his chapter on the 1850s "Politics Transformed," but actually he recounts more similarities to early decades than transformations. Though Democrats became the predominantly successful party in the 1850s, close political competition existed throughout the period. The party known as Whig disappeared from the scene, but Bergeron is emphatic that in Tennessee the Know-Nothings and later Oppositionists were essentially the Whig party renamed. The book's principal theme is that Tennessee's antebellum parties were "essentiaUy electoral machines, not given to notable ideological differences" (ix). In addition to their ideological similarities, Bergeron reports that the parties' sociological and economic compositions also resembled each other. That is, slaveholding bore no significant correlation to either party, wealth divided about evenly between the two parties, and commençai interests tended only slightly toward the Whig party. Havingno largegroups offoreignborn, Tennesseepolitics lacked an ethnic dimension. Relying to a great extent on careful readings of studies by others, 174CIVIL WAR history Bergeron presents a clear, concise account of his subject. Some might wish for a more analytical treatment, especially formorecomparison of Tennessee pohtics to those of other states; but such objections largely fade when one pays close attention to the endnotes. Though one can regret that more of the material in the notes did not find its way into the main text, it is nevertheless important to conclude that, taken together, the notes and text represent a thoroughly researched, cogently argued account of Tennessee's antebeUum poUtical parties. John V. Mering University of Arizona The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted. Vol. 2, Sfovery and the South, 1852-1857. Edited by Charles Capen McLaughhn et al. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981. Pp. xxi, 503. $28.95.) Historians of late antebeUum slavery have found Frederick Law Olmsted one of the most acute contemporary observers of the Old South. Olmsted's credibiUty with scholars rests above aU on his promise to New York Times editor Henry Raymond to write only about matters personally seen. Raymond specificaUy hired Olmsted in 1852 as a man without an axe to grind on the slavery question. The effect of this book is to cast doubt on Qlmsted's reliability as a witness. Volume 2 of The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsteddiffers from most other pubhshed papers series in that it largely consists of previously published material. Olmsted's writings on the South first appeared in the Times or the New York Tribune and were later reprinted in various "Journey" books. After the outbreak of the CivilWar, Olmsted rehashed his earlier writings into the two-volume Cotton South. The editors of this volume perform a valuable service by skillfully annotating Olmsted's newspaper travel accounts. Charles Beveridge offers ahelpful introduction , giving important details of Olmsted...