The Age of Andrew Jackson

Chapter Three: Historians and the Nature of Party Politics in Jacksonian America

wade shaffer 36 Chapter Three Historians and the Nature of Party Politics in Jacksonian America Wade Shaffer The origins of the modern American political system can be traced to the events of the 1830s and 1840s. Strict party discipline, the spoils system, political nominating conventions, elaborate electioneering, and the presidential ticket all originated with the second party system. It should not be surprising, then, that historians have long sought to understand the essential nature of politics in the Jacksonian period. Did it usher in the age of the common man? Were the party battles between the Democrats and the Whigs epic struggles between the forces of democracy and aristocracy? Should the period be viewed as the Age of Jackson, or has his influence been exaggerated? Finally, historians have argued over the connection, if any, between the political activities of the era and the coming of the Civil War. The history of Jacksonian politics, still fiercely contested, has produced some of the best and most important historical writing of the last sixty years. Modern scholarship on Jacksonian politics begins with Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.’s The Age of Jackson.1 Schlesinger reframed the debate over Andrew Jackson and the second party system by portraying Jackson as the hero of the “common man” who fought valiantly against the moneyed elite. The Democratic Party that Jackson and Martin Van Buren created squared off against Henry Clay’s and Daniel Webster’s Whig Party, which represented the interests of Historians and the Nature of Party Politics 37 conservatives and the wealthy. Heavily influenced by the Progressive historians Charles Beard and Frederick Jackson Turner and by the New Deal, Schlesinger saw class and ideology as the central dynamic of the era. Jackson—like Washington, Lincoln, and FDR— came to power during a period of great turmoil and uncertainty and became a great statesman by rising to the challenges of the day. His greatest victories came in ending the threat of nullification and breaking the economic death grip that the Bank of the United States held on the country. Under Jackson’s leadership, the United States became a fairer, more democratic society where the average man had a chance not only to survive but to flourish. Schlesinger’s account of the period, beautifully written and full of wonderful anecdotes and keen insights, remains essential reading. But it is also deeply flawed because Schlesinger essentially ignored race, class, and gender in his discussions. His “common man” was an adult white male, and Schlesinger had little to say about the willingness of Jackson and of both parties to allow slavery to thrive in a democratic society. Schlesinger’s work quickly drew responses from other historians . Richard Hofstadter devoted two chapters of The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It to the Jacksonian period.2 Rejecting the idea that Jackson stood at the head of a “radical leveling movement,” Hofstadter insisted that when Old Hickory and his supporters went after the Bank of the United States, they did so because they sought more credit and less control from the powerful national institution. As “expectant capitalists,” Jacksonians included “rural capitalists and village entrepreneurs” who articulated the “philosophy of a rising middle class.” The values of Democrats and Whigs were not that different; both were committed to capitalism and equalitarian democracy. Hofstadter’s book helped spark consensus history, although he was never completely comfortable with that label. Louis Hartz’s influential The Liberal Tradition in America: An Interpretation of American Political Thought since the Revolution also emphasized the similarities between the Democrats and the Whigs.3 According to Hartz, the Lockean liberalism that permeated political wade shaffer 38 thought in America profoundly influenced members of both parties ; the Whigs were merely the “wealthier, conservative strand in the liberal movement.” The period was marked by two impulses, one toward democracy and the other toward capitalism. Since capitalism is “bound to be democratic,” writes Hartz, these impulses should have operated hand in hand rather than touching off the bitter party battles and “massive confusion of political thought” that marked the era. Hartz’s liberal synthesis fits nicely with Hofstadter’s consensus interpretation, and both were widely accepted for decades. Marvin Meyers continued the assault on Schlesinger’s assertion that the spread of democracy and class consciousness were the keys to explaining the period. In The Jacksonian Persuasion: Politics and Beliefs, Meyers focused not on partisan rhetoric but on the...