The Antimasonic Party in the United States, 1826-1843 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS175 of the boomer than the reporter in Olmsted's descriptions of German cotton-growing settlements in Texas. Letters reveal Olmsted's help and support for the free-soil newspaper in SanAntonio, andhis lobbying the New England Emigrant Aid Society to make Texas another Kansas. Fourteen months of travel in the South transformed Olmsted from an open-minded observer into a determined free-soiler. Historians of the Old South shouldnote this evolution when reading his work. The "early" Olmsted writings (before November 1853) contain the most useful material. The "Journey" books (edited as polemics) should be avoided in favor ofthe originalnewspaper articles. Finally, Olmsted's writings of the 1850s tell us something about his future career. Stung by the charge that the North could only produce a mudsill democracy, Olmsted felt the necessity of elevating the aesthetic taste of workingmen. His ultimate answer to the slaveholders was the creation of democratic wonders hke Central Park by using the previously aristocratic form of landscape architecture. James W. Oberly CoUege of William and Mary The Antimasonic Party in the United States, 1826-1843. By WiUiam Preston Vaughan. (Lexington: University Press ofKentucky, 1983. Pp. x, 244. $16.00.) Most historians remember the Antimasonic party for three reasons. First, it began as a protest movement over thekidnappingandprobable murder by Masons of the Masonicdefector, WiUiam Morgan; second, in 1831 its leaders organized the first presidential nominating convention ever held in the United States; and finally, itserves asanideal illustration of the paranoid, conspiracy-sniffing style of national pohtics. Now, as a result of William Preston Vaughan's The Antimasonic Party in the United States 1826-1843, we can move beyond these fragments and place the party in the context of American poUtical and social history. While he asks somenew questions, Vaughanalso corrects anumber of old misapprehensions about the Antimasons. He argues that the party attracted prosperous farmers and small-town merchants as well as the hardscrabble farmers previously considered its main support. Furthermore , he places the movement's origins in the pietistic Baptist and Presbyterian congregations of western New York. He adds women to those who opposed the Masons. Evidently lodge meetings and oathtaking , like taverns and alcohol, kept men away from their families too much. Vaughan's greatest contribution is to evaluate the process by which a single-issue moral crusade was transformed into a full-fledged political party. This story is a Uttle different in each state, but everywhere the Antimasons were puUed between the purists who pushed for legislation against extra judicial oaths and the accommodators who saw the party in more general terms. Like so many third parties, the Anti- 176CIVIL war history masons were eventuaUy victims of their success, for their Masonic enemies decUned in numbers during the 1830s and 1840s. Vaughan's monograph exhibits both the strengths and weaknesses of traditional political history. Proceeding with the rise, decline, and fall of the party state by state (with an interruption for the Antimasons presidential campaign in 1832), he offers a from-the-top down, event-fiUed description of the party's leaders, conventions, election results, and legislative efforts. As even the most begrudging opponent of the new political history will acknowledge, parties and politics are more than this. Vaughan, however,hasmadenouseoftechniquesdevelopedinthe last two decades. Sometimes this leads to questionable conclusions. For example, he compares two elections in Massachusetts, and assuming a standing decision on the part of Whig and Democratic voters, awards the Antimasonic vote to the latter, whose numbers had increased. This then is old-school political history with all its virtues and sins. Vaughan has read widely in the manuscripthterature; hehas researched carefully, and he answers fulsomely the question, what happened? But because he is so preoccupied with events, The Antimasonic Party in the United States lacks any governing interpretation orsynthesis thatwould expand our understanding of American poUtical behavior. Jean Baker Goucher College Drift Toward Dissolution: The Virginia Sfovery Debate of 1831-1832. By AUson Goodyear FreehUng. (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1982. Pp. xiv, 306. $30.00.) The Rhetoric of Conservatism: The Virginia Conventionof1829-30and the Conservative Tradition in the South. By Dickson D. Bruce, Jr. (San Marino, CaUf.: The Huntington Library, 1982. Pp...