Political Culture and the Origins of a Party System in the Southern Ohio Valley: The Case of Early National Tennessee, 1796–1812

Political Culture and the Origins of a Party System in the Southern Ohio Valiey: Tbe Case of Early National Tennessee,17961812 KRISTOFER RAY T ennessee' s antebellum political leaders unquestionably stood at the forefront of the second American party system. Men such as Andrew Jackson, Hugh Lawson White,and James Knox Polk all played prominent roles either in the birth Or the expansion of the national Whig and Democratic parties. Moreover, these men drew directly from their experiences in Tennessee to form their political opinions and develop their election strategies. Scholars, for example, have noted that both proAndrew Jackson and antiJackson elements easily folded into the Whig/ Democrat party divisions that came to dominate the political interests of both the state and the nation during the antebellum era: Yet for all the literature on Tennessee's antebellum politics, very little has been written about its foundations in the early national era. Modern scholars usually have discussed Tennessee politics from 1796 to 1812 in a cursory manner,as a preamble to the time during which Andrew Jackson and his cohorts formed a potent national political force.2 Moreover,historians have tended to ignore Tennessee' s place within the larger historical context of the Ohio Valley. This is a mistake. Tennessee' s early political and economic development turned on key issues common to all of the Old Southwest, a region organized out of the Old Northwest Ordinance and connected by the Tennessee River directly to the Ohio Riven Andrew Jackson. ] obnson, Historian Simon Newman has argued that, over the course of the 1790s, Fry & Co., New York, 186 1. Cincinnati Museum ordinary people in America used nascent democratic understandings both to Center, Cincinnati join the political process and to establish links between local events and a Historical Society Library new national political culture.3 Tennesseans would have agreed only partially. Public political displays and newspaper debates after 1796 fully demonstrate WINTER 2004 3 POI. ITICAL CULTUR E AND THE ORIGINS OF A PARTY SYSTEM that power in Tennessee no longer resided exclusively in a single individual or even one or two groups. But, unlike other regions of the early republic, Tennessee could be considered almost universally Jeffersonian in its political opinions and practices. And this meant that,for a time after the Revolution, no meaningful opposition could emerge out of which a viable party system might emerge. This absence of parties meant that civic occasions like July fourth celebrations would be rituals of unity,not division. Tennesseans thus had to establish a political opposition through nonparty means if they were to have a party system at all. In short, although initially their efforts resulted in personalitydriven factions,nonpartisan politics ultimately led to popular divisions over specific economic policy issues,especially judicial reform related to land distribution, and debtors' rights connected with a lack ot specie and with President Thomas Jefferson' s embargo against trade with Europe. This essay follows Tennessee' s political development from elite control to popular democracy,the latter of which revolved around increasingly contentious economic divisions. Examination of this story will contextualize how Andrew Jackson, his allies, and his opponents all embraced the competing perspectives now called the Second Party System by historians on political power and economic development that dominated American politics between 1828 and 1846. It will also serve as a case study of the fornia tion of a party system in the Ohio Valley. Tennessee had its origins in the frontier exopular democracy and partisan division in perience. Historians Elizabeth Perkins and Ellen Eslinger have argued that life in the Ohio Valley during the late eighteenth century provided for a relatively democratic leveling of power. Specifically, a man' s " gentry" status meant little when confronted with the brutal reality of daily life on the frontien Common people conferred power,they argue, upon male leaders known for their physical courage and military prowess,as well as for their ability to create and enhance capital: Tennessee's experience certainly Thomas Jefferson. Tbe fits this mold. The state' s earliest leaders were uniformly speculators and surFilson Historical Society veyors,to be sure,but they became politically powerful only because settlers chose them as leaders when faced with attacks from the...