Chapter 11
Society, Culture, and Politics, 1820s-1840s
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Political Factionalism in the North
and West
 Emergence of the Whig Party
 Support among commercial farmers and new urban
commercial classes in cities and towns
 Grounded in market revolution, but supported broad political
agenda

Activist government, economic development, moral progress
 Emergence of the Democratic Party
 Appealed to cultural traditionalists who had gained little from
the market revolution and who had no use for Whig moralism
 Especially popular among Irish Catholics
 Opposed mixing of church and state that characterized Whig
moralism
Politics in the South
 Democrats strongest in up-country communities
 Folks who either were or hoped to be beneficiaries of the
market revolution
 Whigs strongest in plantation counties and areas
where their plans for internal improvement appealed
to ambitious farmers

Demanded minimal government, low taxes, little interference
with personal matters
 Unlike North and West, southern political divisions
had little to do with religion
The Politics of Economic
Development
 Party differences over the role of government
 Whigs favored activist government to support the market
 Democrats saw government as dangerous and wanted it
limited
 Banking question of central importance
 Whigs saw banks as agents of economic progress
The Politics of Economic
Development (cont.)

Democrats distrusted banks and wanted them abolished
 Partisan squabbling over internal improvements
 Democrats in Congress blocked federal involvement
 Whigs favored direct action by state government to fund
projects
 Democrats opposed any direct government action

Feared inequality, favoritism, privilege, debt, corruption
The Politics of Social Reform
 Political debate over public education
 Parties agreed in principle on public education
 Differed over extent and aims

Whigs favored extensive, expensive, and centralized system
– Called for character building rather than skills training
– Advocated state-level centralization
The Politics of Social Reform (cont.)
 Democrats preferred local control

Question of parochial education after the mid-1840s


Catholics demanded reforms of public schools or chance to form their
own schools
Opposed vehemently by Whigs
 Partisan disagreement over prisons and asylums for the insane
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Whigs favored institutions for rehabilitation
Democrats favored institutions that isolated deviants
Most state systems were a mixture of the two approaches
Whigs generally approved of expensive and humane moral
treatment facilities for the insane
Most Democrats opposed better treatment for the insane as too
expensive
Social Reform in the South
 Whigs and Democrats generally united in opposing


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efforts at “social improvement”
Region was culturally similar
Common rejection of big, activist government
Favorer individual moral improvement, not public
coercion
Reinforced personal independence and patriarchy
Temperance as a Political Issue
in the 1830s
 Whigs favored coercion rather than voluntarism
 End licensing system for local liquor sales
 Saw temperance as arm of evangelicalism
 Democrats rejected idea of government intervention
in people’s lives

Favored reliance on personal choice
The Politics of Race
 Sizable free black population in many northern
seaport cities


Took a variety of jobs
Discrimination became commonplace after the 1820s

Informal as well as official
 African Americans formed their own institutions
 Entertainment venues, often integrated
The Politics of Race (cont.)

Churches, schools, social clubs
 Racism in the democratic Party
 Incorporated racism into their political agenda
 The consolidation of racist thought
 Whites came to view blacks as treacherous and wicked
 Democrats saw blacks as unfit to be citizens of the white
republic
Emergence of an Antislavery
Ideology
 Not until the 1830s did many Americans actively oppose slavery
 Northern abolition was implicit condemnation of slavery in the
South
 William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator began publishing in 1831
 American Anti-Slavery Society organized in 1833
 Logical extension of middle-class evangelicalism

Yet attracted only a minority among middle-class evangelicals
 Demonstrated complicity of the Democratic Party in supporting
slavery
Gender Issues as Political
Questions
 Democrats accused of abjuring sentimental
domesticity
 Whigs embraced “traditional” values

Focused on improving the character of individuals rather
than institutions
 Role of women in social improvement campaigns
 Magdalen Society’s efforts to eliminate prostitution
 Replaced by Female Moral Reform Society
Gender Issues as Political
Questions (cont.)
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Commitment to raise “proper” boys
Campaign against the sexual double standard
Assumed responsibility for defining what was respectable and
what was not
Women’s rights movement


Assuming greater roles within the family
Played prominent role in antislavery movement
– Logical step to think, then, of women’s equality with men

Seneca Falls Convention, 1848
– Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions
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