STEPHEN C. FOX
Politicians, Issues, and Voter
Preference in Jacksonian
Ohio:
A Critique of an Interpretation
Two recent studies of the Jacksonian
era which devote either
substantive or exclusive attention to
Ohio, James R. Sharp, The
Jacksonians versus the Banks:
Politics in the States after the Panic of
1837, and Donald J. Ratcliffe, "The Role of Voters and
Issues in
Party Formation: Ohio, 1824," have
been welcomed as valuable
additions to our understanding of
political activity in an important but
long-neglected western state.1 Sharp's
book, of which the section on
Ohio constitutes approximately
one-fifth, concentrates on party
attitudes toward banking; Ratcliffe
contrasts "grass roots sentiment"
to the manipulative style of party
activists. Despite the contribution
of each interpretation, neither has
swept all others before it. There
are two principal reasons for this,
neither of which is unique to these
studies: first, both authors make
narrow assumptions about the roots
of political behavior; second, their
methodologies are frequently
careless and in contrast to those of
other contemporary historians,
generally unsophisticated. These faults
are most evident when Sharp
and Ratcliffe attempt to link economic
issues and the activities of
politicians to voters' preferences.
Dr. Fox, Associate Professor of History
at Humboldt State University, Arcata,
California, wishes to acknowledge the
financial assistance of the Mabelle McLeod
Memorial Fund, Stanford, California.
1. James R. Sharp, The Jacksonians
versus the Banks: Politics in the States after the
Panic of 1837 (New York, 1970); Donald J. Ratcliffe, "The Role
of Voters and Issues in
Party Formation: Ohio, 1824," Journal
of American History, LIX (March 1973), 847-
70. See Frank O. Gatell's review of
Sharp's book in Journal of American History,
LVIII (September 1971), 445-47. While
these studies do not account for the entire Jack-
sonian period in Ohio, they are the
first substantive published attempts to evaluate
politics throughout the state since
Francis P. Weisenburger, The Passing of the Fron-
tier, 1825-1850, vol. III of Carl Wittke, ed., The History of the
State of Ohio (Colum-
bus, 1941). Another recent study of
Jacksonian Ohio, more comprehensive than either
Sharp's or Ratcliffe's, is Stephen C.
Fox, "The Group Bases of Ohio Political Be-
havior, 1803-1848" (Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 1973), which found
the popular bases of political behavior
similar to the sociocultural differences among
Ohio legislators described in Herbert
Ershkowitz and William G. Shade, "Consensus
or Conflict?: Political Behavior in the
State Legislatures during the Jacksonian Era,"
Journal of American History, LVIII (December 1971), 591-621.
156 OHIO HISTORY
The strongest indication of the two
authors' shared assumptions is
that both Sharp and Ratcliffe rely too
exclusively on evidence of
economic self-interest and either
dismiss or fail to explore thoroughly
evidence imbued with cultural,
philosophical, and moral
overtones-qualities among any electorate
that historians ignore at
their peril. In short, Sharp and
Ratcliffe imply that even though
political spokesmen wrote and orated at
length on evidence of
moral "corruption" in their
society, when the opportunity came to
act-to vote-they, and presumably those
for whom they spoke,
shelved such abstractions and inner
convictions and sought,
figuratively speaking, to line their
pockets. Whether or not such an
assumption can be demonstrated, and it
cannot by the methods
employed by Sharp and Ratcliffe, it
clearly limits both the roles of
historical actors and an historical
investigation into the relationship of
non-self-interested rhetoric to that of
motivations other than greed.2
The second problem these studies share
relates to what Lee Benson
terms "single-factor
analysis."3 These studies confirm, the prodigious
efforts of Benson and others
notwithstanding, that single-factor
analysis remains seductively simple and
deceptive no matter how
semi-sophisticated (Sharp) or subtle
(Ratcliffe) its elucidation. While
both authors discount the interpretative
potential of their evidence
through their limited assumptions, their
methodologies restrict the
development of that evidence in another
way. Both assume that
socioeconomic class differences among
the electorate produced
predictable patterns of behavior, even
though Ratcliffe offers no data
to verify that assumption, and neither
scholar provides a comparable
means to assess clear deviations from
such expectations. Although
both accounts abound with suggestions of
non-economic motivation,
they are never delineated clearly.
Voters and Economic Issues
James R. Sharp's treatment of Jacksonian
politics in Ohio
exemplifies the weakness of any
assumption that political behavior
can be attributed solely to social and
economic factors rather than
broader cultural conflicts. Even though
he effectively and usefully
describes the variety of partisan
attitudes toward banks, especially
the intensity of Democratic anti-bank
sentiment, his explanation of
2. Gordon S. Wood, "Rhetoric and
Reality in the American Revolution," William
and Mary Quarterly, XXIII (January 1966), 31, urges historians to abandon the distinc-
tion between conscious and unconscious
motivation and to recognize that whether
rhetoric was factually true or not,
"it was always psychologically true."
3. Lee Benson, Turner and Beard:
American Historical Writing Reconsidered (New
York, 1960), 154-60.
Voting in Jacksonian Ohio 157
the effect of the banking issue upon
mass political behavior fails to
show that (1) the voting public shared
anti-bank views similar to those
of politicians, (2) fiscal problems had
any measurable effect on mass
political alignment, or (3) county
electoral and demographic data can
demonstrate adequately any potential
connection. Finally, Sharp's
reliance on single-factor analysis
precludes our ability to determine
whether or not the bank issue was part
of a larger set of conflicting
moral perspectives.
Skepticism mounts from the moment Sharp
declares thematically
that a "high correlation"
existed between wealth and Whiggery in
Ohio, then acknowledges that
"there are important exceptions."4
Obviously no thesis is flawless, but
here we are concerned with the
author's failure to test the salience
of a particular kind of
"exception." For example, he
admits that the influx of Irish and
Germans into Ohio, especially Hamilton
County (Cincinnati), gave
the Democrats a solid base of support
in a wealthy commercial
constituency that had "all the
earmarks of a stronghold of
Whiggery."5 But it is
clear that there were a number of such
"exceptions"-too many, in
fact, to validate his thesis in Ohio. He
argues that in the Western Reserve, the
strongest National
Republican-Whig area of the state,
National Republican emphasis on
economic improvement had strong
partisan appeal. Nevertheless his
conclusion about actual political
alignment in the Reserve points to
another explanation. The area, he
claims,
was populated mainly by New Englanders,
who gave it an ethnocultural
homogeneity that no other section of the
state could match .... The appeal of
a fellow New Englander, John Quincy
Adams, an educated and cultivated
gentleman, as opposed to the seemingly crude and unlettered
Jackson, was a
powerful factor in molding political
habits in the 1820s.6
If the Reserve was
"powerfully" molded by ethnocultural
homogeneity, what role, exactly, did
economic self-interest play?
Were Reserve voters wealthy as well as
New Englanders? Did the
cultural differences of the
contenders-cultivation versus
crudity-appeal directly, or even
indirectly, to opposite
constituencies?
4. Sharp, The Jacksonians versus the
Banks, 168, 174. Sharp is not the first to make
such a declaration. Edgar A. Holt, Party
Politics in Ohio, 1840-1850 (Columbus, 1930),
9, stated that in Ohio "masses of
people, filled with the frontier dislike for banking
institutions, rallied behind Jackson ...
" This has been the accepted version of Ohio
politics, notwithstanding the fact that
Jackson lost support there between 1828 and his
veto of the Bank of the United States'
recharter and subsequent reelection in 1832. The
standard account of Ohio Jacksonism,
Weisenburger, The Passing of the Frontier, is
similarly oriented.
5. Sharp, The Jacksonians versus the
Banks, 168.
6. Ibid., 169-70 (italics added).
158 OHIO HISTORY
Sharp concedes that wealth was also a
poor indicator of political
alignment in the Miami and Muskingum
valleys. In the latter region,
he reports, "Democratic strength
appears to have come from
constituencies that were heavily
populated by persons of German
extraction, while Democratic support in
the five southwestern
counties [Miami Valley] seems to have
been generated both by a large
German population and a long-held
suspicion of banks." With
contradiction, then ironic resignation,
his argument travels full circle:
there is "no simple
explanation" for political behavior in his area, the
only common denominator being "a
firm attachment to the
Democratic party."7
Although these examples demonstrate
Sharp's awareness of the
potential political effect of
contrasting ethnocultural groups, he does
not subject their presence to the same
systematic examination he
reserves for economic indices. Where
Sharp does not specifically
identify ethnic groups he attributes
political alignment solely to
economic interest. In other words,
despite other remarkable
influences, his conclusion about the
source of political behavior rests
primarily on single-factor analysis.
Although other historians maintain
that the ultimate political impact of
economic factors-in this case
real property-requires a similar test
of other possible variables,
Sharp seems to get around this
criticism of his approach by claiming
that "statistical data concerning
the nationality and location of Ohio's
populace is not available."
Instead, his discussion is "enriched . . .
by an impressionistic consideration of
factors that do not lend
themselves to quantification, such as
... ethnocultural characteristics."8
Notwithstanding the difference between
evidence which he claims
is "not available" and
evidence that does not "lend itself" to
quantification, Sharp's method leaves
him unable to pursue even
significant impressionistic
"characteristics," in this case the
revelation that Charles Reemelin, a
German immigrant in Cincinnati
and important Democratic spokesman,
became a hard money
7. Ibid., 174, 177.
8. Ibid., 178, 342. It would be
more accurate to say that statistical data revealing the
nationality and location of Ohio's
populace prior to the 1850 are not available. It is
possible, however, to correlate national
origins data from the federal manuscript
population schedules of that year with
electoral data from 1848 without significant
interpolative distortion. If, in
addition, the researcher collects both prior electoral data
and impressionistic evidence of the
location of population groups, inferences can be
made about ethnocultural politics
throughout the Jacksonian period based upon the
1848-1850 correlations. The competitive
stability of the two parties in Ohio from 1834 to
1848 suggests that the location of
ethnic groups in 1850 was not significantly different
from earlier residential patterns.
Impressionistic sources such as county histories,
gazetteers, newspapers, travel accounts,
and personal reminiscences confirm the exis-
tence of these long-standing patterns.
Voting in Jacksonian Ohio 159
enthusiast because "he thought he
saw in the Whig party an
inclination toward puritanism which
was naturally repugnant to the
genuine German nature."9 How
many other German immigrants or
native Americans translated this kind of
cultural perspective into a
partisan identity? Sharp's analysis
provides no answer.
Beyond these exceptions to an economic
view, the book-at least
the material relating to Ohio-requires
reconsideration for another
reason: Sharp relies on data that seem
to verify his economic
hypothesis (if one ignores the
"exceptions"), but which in fact do
not. Assuming momentarily that his
belief in an economic basis of
politics is valid, and his reliance on
county data justified, the ultimate
contribution of the study is jeopardized
by the use of data and a
method that are not the most thorough.
In the monograph's appendix
he ranks average Democratic
strength per county between 1836 and
1844 (highest to lowest) alongside
aggregate county real estate value
per capita in 1840 (poorest to wealthiest), hoping to show that
Democratic support was strongest in
poorer counties. But more
comprehensive economic and demographic
statistics are available for
each presidential year from 1832 to 1848, both before and
after the
period of Sharp's survey; no averaging
process is necessary.10
Furthermore, in computing per capita
valuation, he overlooks the
greater precision afforded by Ohio's
quadrennial census of eligible
voters. Rather than apply per capita
wealth in 1840 to average
Democratic strength from 1836 to 1844,
the state census of 1831 may
be used to compute measures of wealth per
voter for 1832, the census
of 1835 for the election of 1836, and so
forth (see Table 1). Moreover,
because Sharp uses economic data only
from 1840 rather than 1836
and 1840, as well as averaging
Democratic strength, he obscures the
political effect of the Panic of 1837,
in spite of the monograph's title.
If Sharp's generalized method is
questionable, then we ought to be
wary of his conclusion. He finds a
positive "rank-difference"
9. Ibid., 183 (italics added). V. O. Key argued that
"deviant cases in any sort of
analysis may be of value in pointing to
particular correlates of political behavior," A
Primer of Statistics for Political
Scientists (New York, 1954, 1966),
120.
10. The comprehensive statistics are
"Merchants' and Brokers' Capital and Money
at Interest" and "Total
Taxable Property," Ohio, General Assembly, House of
Representatives, Journal of the House
of Representatives of Ohio, 31st General
Assembly, 1832, 28 ff.; Ohio, General
Assembly, Laws of Ohio, XXXV, 1837, 678 ff.;
Ibid., XXXIX, 1841, 35 ff.; Ibid., XLIII, 1845, 18 ff.;
and Ibid., XLVII, 1849, 54-57,
66-69. I am aware of the hazards in
census returns which indicate respondents'
evaluation of their assets. I assume,
however, that misleading or erroneous responses
were proportionate throughout the state.
For the importance of spatial data see Lee
Benson, "Research Problems in
American Political Historiography," Common
Frontiers of the Social Sciences, ed. Mirra Komarovsky (Glencoe, IL, 1957), 114;
Benson, Turner and Beard, 200;
and Samuel P. Hays, "Archival Sources for American
Political History," American
Archivist, XXVIII (January 1965), 17-30.
160 OHIO
HISTORY
TABLE 1
Pearson r for Democratic Strength, Merchants and
Brokers' Capital and
Money at Interest, and Total Taxable Property, per
Voter,
1832-1848
Pearson r
Capital and Property
and
N Democratic Democratic
Year Cases Strength Strength
1832 68 -.172 -.281
1836 70 -.164 -.204
1840 77 -.177 -.208
1844 79 -.179 .002
1848 81 __* -.266
SOURCE: Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Gazette, November
22, 1832; Walter D.
Burnham, Presidential Ballots, 1836-1892 (Baltimore,
1955).
*Data not comparable.
TABLE 2
Relative Occupational Status Scale, 1850, and
Democratic Strength,
1848 Presidential (P) and State (S) Elections
Farm Urban
1. Farm laborers, tenants, renters 1.
Unskilled
2. Farms worth up to $500 2.
Semi-skilled
3. Farms from $500-$1,000 3.
Skilled
4. Farms from $1,001-$3,000 4.
Service employees
5. Farms from $3,001-$5,000 5.
Sales
6. Farms from $5,001-$10,000 6.
Clerical jobs
7. Farms from $10,001 and up 7.
Managers, Officials
8. Proprietors
9. Professionals
Correlations
% of Potential
Groups Voters Pearson
r
Farm 1 14 .031
(P)
.039 (S)
Farm 1, Urban 1-2 35 .173 (P)
.163 (S)
Farm 1-2, Urban 1-2 39 .199 (P)
.193 (S)
Farm 1-3, Urban 1-2 43 .124 (P)
.109 (S)
Farm 1-3, Urban 1-4 75 .200 (P)
.219 (S)
SOURCE: Fox, "Group Bases of Ohio Political
Behavior," Appendix B.
Voting in Jacksonian Ohio 161
correlation of .428 between poorer
counties and Democratic strength,
seemingly validating his thesis. 11
But Pearson correlation coefficients,
calculated from the broader-based
interval data indicated above,
show that lower levels of capital
investment and diminished prop-
erty valuations were unrelated to
Democratic strength. There was a
slight, though statistically
insignificant, tendency for poorer units to
contain more Democratic supporters; only
property valuation and
Democratic strength in 1832 and 1848
correlate at a significance
(reliability) level of 95 percent. In
contrast to Sharp's conclusion,
then, the Pearson coefficients indicate
that partisanship was not a
function of rich and poor geographical
areas. This alternative
computation also reveals that the
financial crisis of 1837 and the
banking issues of the early 1840s caused
no discernible change in
voting habits.
Those who follow too exclusively such
things as party leadership,
economic elites, and issues have little
chance of telling scholars much
about voters. Further, though analysis
based on county data may be
accurate, many believe it less reliable
than results obtained from
smaller electoral units.l2 Table
2 shows the correlation of occupation
and real property valuation with
Democratic strength among potential
voters in fifty-one townships and wards
selected at random from
thirty scattered counties.13 These
correlations corroborate the
11. Sharp, The Jacksonians versus the
Banks, 336. Sharp's correlation and those
computed for this essay refer to
geographical areas, not individuals. For cautions in
using these statistics see W. S.
Robinson, "Ecological Correlations and the Behavior of
Individuals," American
Sociological Review, XIV (June 1950), 351-57.
12. I have collected nearly all the
extant township and ward electoral returns in the
state: 39 percent of those which once
existed from the period 1824-1848; 41 percent of
those from 1828-1848; and 57 percent of
the presidential returns from 1828-1848. Other
historians who support the use of data
from smaller constituencies are Lee Benson, The
Concept of Jacksonian Democracy: New
York as a Test Case (Princeton, 1961),
148;
Thomas B. Alexander et al., "The
Basis of Alabama's Ante-Bellum Two-Party
System," The Alabama Review, XIX
(October 1966), 243-76; Frank O. Gatell, ed.,
Essays on Jacksonian America (New York, 1970), 109; and Ronald P. Formisano, The
Birth of Mass Political Parties:
Michigan, 1827-1861 (Princeton, 1972),
21. Thomas A.
Flinn, "Continuity and Change in
Ohio Politics, Journal of Politics, XXIV (August
1962), 251, argues in favor of county
data because of "unavailable" demographic statis-
tics and the expense of manipulating
large numbers of units. The computer now pro-
vides significant compensation for the
latter. See also Austin Ranney, "The Utility and
Limitations of Aggregate Data in the
Study of Electoral Behavior," Essays in the Be-
havioral Study of Politics, ed. Austin Ranney (Urbana, 1962), 91-102; and Mattei
Dogan and Stein Rokkan, eds., Quantitative
Ecological Analysis in the Social Sciences
(Cambridge, MA, 1969).
13. The scaling procedure employed here
is somewhat modified since it was first
suggested by Ronald P. Formisano,
"Analyzing American Voting, 1830-1860:
Methods," Historical Methods
Newsletter, II (March 1969), 1-12. The scale is similar
to the five vertical status categories
developed by Theodore Hershberg et al.,
"Occupation and Ethnicity in Five
Nineteenth-Century Cities: A Collaborative
Inquiry," Ibid., VII (June
1974), 174-216.
162 OHIO
HISTORY
comprehensive county data summarized in
Table 1, and offer even
less support for a thesis that
different occupational groups or areas of
contrasting wealth supported opposite
parties.14 Fully 75 percent of
the potential voters surveyed were
middle or lower class (Farm 1-3,
Urban 1-4) and nearly equally divided
in their political allegiance,
including socioeconomic groups
traditionally associated with Andrew
Jackson's organization. The absence of
demonstrable economic
competition at the polls, however, does
not mean that American
political life or society was benign.
Certainly Donald Ratcliffe's
study hints at the depth of partisan
antagonism in Jacksonian Ohio.
Instead of showing, though, that Ohio
politics worked mainly on the
basis of perceived economic
self-interest (as he implies), Ratcliffe
indirectly reveals the dimensions of a
political conflict of a quite
different nature.
Voters or Party Organizations?
Superficially, it might appear that
Donald Ratcliffe's article on voters
and issues is less slavish to
single-factor analysis than Sharp's study.
A thorough examination shows that this
is not necessarily so, but
there are two interesting reasons why
his article could be accepted as
less inclined to favor an economic
analysis. First, Ratcliffe examines
no behavioral variable in any
systematic fashion, including economic
interest. Second, with justification if
not consistency, he admonishes
historians to modify Harry R. Stevens
and Richard P. McCormick's
emphases on institutionalized politics,
and to recognize that party
formation did not occur solely because
of the activities of politicians,
or as an outgrowth of constitutional
and legislative electoral require-
ments.15 Thus, by making an
apparent shift in focus from politicians
to voters, and by stressing partisan
continuity, Ratcliffe seems to put
14. The following also stress the
economic bipartisanship of the period and its
reflection at the polls: Marvin Meyers, The
Jacksonian Persuasion: Politics and Belief
(Stanford, 1957), 8; Benson, Concept,
142; Richard P. McCormick, "New Perspectives
on Jacksonian Politics," American
Historical Review, LXV (January 1960), 300; Harry
N. Scheiber, Ohio Canal Era: A Case
Study of Government and the Economy,
1820-1861 (Athens, OH, 1969), 156-58; Richard T. Farrell,
"Cincinnati in the Early
Jackson Era, 1816-1834" (Ph.D.
dissertation, Indiana University, 1967), 177-79, 223-25;
Walter S. Glazer, "Cincinnati in
1840: A Community Profile" (Ph.D. dissertation,
University of Michigan, 1968), 175-79;
and William G. Shade, Banks or No Banks: The
Money Issue in Western Politics,
1832-1865 (Detroit, 1972), 28, who
insists that until
1836 demands for western bank expansion
came from a bipartisan group of
entrepreneurs.
15. Harry R. Stevens, The Early
Jackson Party in Ohio (Durham, NC, 1957);
Richard P. McCormick, The Second
American Party System: Party Formation in the
Jacksonian Era (Chapel Hill, NC, 1966). Ratcliffe's criticism of
McCormick is similar
to that of Robert E. Shalhope,
"Jacksonian Politics in Missouri: A Comment on the
McCormick Thesis," Civil War
History, XV (September 1969), 210-25.
Voting in Jacksonian Ohio 163
some distance between himself and
historians who deal primarily with
economic conflict.
Nonetheless, the contribution of
Jackson's organization to
American politics is not wholly
dependent upon either McCormick's
view that the second party system
evolved from a pragmatic struggle
for office by similar personalities and
groups, or Ratcliffe's belief that
competing organizations, called into
being by differing economic
interests, became permanent features of
American politics as a result
of temporary campaign issues. If
Ratcliffe intends to revise
McCormick, readers should also know
that in a number of respects
Ratcliffe's assumptions and conclusions
reflect another tradition: his
thesis is unconvincing, in part because
it is inconsistent, but primarily
because it does not reconcile the roles
of economic self-interest and
ethnicity in effecting political
behavior. Though he is inclined to
emphasize economic self-interest, he
does not explain how it
polarized political constituencies of
similar economic structure and
outlook; he provides no systematic test
of economic self-interest or
ethnicity; and he mistakes rhetorical
moralism for self-interest by
excluding consideration of the
measurable realities from which that
rhetoric arose.
It is difficult to accept Ratcliffe's
thematic contention that "grass
roots sentiment" played a larger
role than the machinations of
politicians in fostering political
alignment, particularly since he
contradicts himself on this point. The
following statement illustrates
his emphasis on the passive role of
politicians:
They did not construct party coalitions
in the fashion that suited their fancy;
and they did not make personal alliances
and then produce the votes by
means of good organization and
propaganda. Rather the alignments they
formed were dictated by the prejudices
and interests of their constituents and,
above all, by the ways in which their
constituents responded to the issues of
the day.16
Yet, as seen below, Ratcliffe also
attributes party growth to an
aggressive, pragmatic, and cynical
political style:
The actions of... Clintonians brought a
welcome infusion of strength to the
Jackson party, and by energetic and
skillful organization they endeavored ...
by stimulating an unprecedented turnout
. . . to carry the state for Jack-
son.. . 17
These and other politicians
"taught" supporters to consolidate
national, state, and local political loyalties,
enabling the leaders "to
16. Ratcliffe, "Voters and
Issues," 848-49.
17. Ibid., 860.
164 OHIO HISTORY |
|
gain control of the state assembly, the main dispenser of state patronage." (The implicit logic is similar to McCormick's: constituents' "prejudices and interests" were neither ethnicity nor economics, but the spoils of office.) Then, "once a meaningful party division had [thus] been created, it began to develop a thrust and momentum of its own which enabled it both to extend its operation and to survive amidst changing political conditions."18 What independently creative role could any constituency's "prejudices and interests" play if those attributes were merely part of the "changing political conditions" which politicians manipulated for their own survival? Did politicians' tactics shut out further changes in voters' perceptions of politicians, issues, and their own preferences? Just how consistent is the process of party formation described by Ratcliffe with "grass roots sentiment"? There is another ambiguity in Ratcliffe's thesis: he provides no means to reconcile the roles of economic self-interest and ethnicity in effecting partisan alignments. Again, a careful reading of the thematic statement is crucial, for although the reader is told that partisan alignment was "dictated by the prejudices [ethnicity] and interests 18. Ibid., 865. |
Voting in Jacksonian Ohio 165
[canal policy and the Panic of 1819] of
. . . constituents," Ratcliffe
emphasizes that alignment was
influenced "above all, by the ways in
which . . . constituents responded to
the issues of the day." Indeed,
whether or not Ratcliffe pays homage to
the importance of a
psychocultural phenomenon such as
ethnicity, it is clear that by
"issues" he means
"interests," not "prejudices." Certainly he does
not believe that the political habits
of the Scotch-Irish or
Pennsylvania Dutch polarized voters. In
contrast, however, he
continually stresses the popularity in
Ohio of candidates who were
"western"-that is, candidates
who sought to stimulate particular
economic interest groups. Issues of
moral import are invariably
absorbed by self-interest in his
account. Henry Clay's attractiveness
as a western candidate, for example,
eventually overcame whatever
liability his southern connection
(slaveholding) once represented to
Ohio antislavery enthusiasts. John
Quincy Adams' appeal to the
"Universal Yankee Nation" was
similarly compromised, in
Ratcliffe's view, by the Adams
constituency's understanding of the
priority of the canal issue. Yet to say
that "It was logical in 1824 for
all people interested in promoting
western development to
concentrate their votes on the leading
sectional candidate" is neither
a demonstration that they did, nor the
only "logical" course
available. 19
Aside from the credibility of
Ratcliffe's implicit thesis that
economic interests were the decisive
political determinants in 1824,
he fails to explain how economic issues
polarized voters if each party
shared a "western" point of
view. What substantive economic
differences did voters find, for
example, between the Democratic
party, which he describes as depending
for its votes upon the "highly
commercialized corn and pork counties," and the National
Republicans and Whigs who attracted
counties which were "best
endowed with commercial prospects"?20
Ratcliffe's analysis is also flawed by
the use of unsystematized
county demographic and electoral data.
The first of two examples
which follow show how such data fail to
resolve the ambiguity
between economic self-interest and
ethnicity; the second affirms the
difficulty of separating the formative
roles of voters from those of
politicians and party organizations. He
states that Adams' Ohio
support in 1824 centered either in the
main areas of New England
settlement or in regions which were not
dominated by New
Englanders but harbored deep misgivings
about the proposed state
19. Ibid., 857.
20. Ibid., 867.
166 OHIO HISTORY
canal system. Yet of five counties
along the "Sandusky [canal]
route," a region he claims was not
dominated by New Englanders, he
lists three as "Yankee," and
a sixth such county, Crawford, was
created in 1826 from one of those
"Yankee" counties.21
The assertion that Cincinnati was the
"dynamic heart" of the early
Jackson party in Ohio is similarly
misleading if voters and townships,
rather than party organizations and
counties, are used as criteria.
Jackson is known to have had a
formidable party apparatus in the
Queen City. In fact, Jackson and Clay,
the two "western" candidates
in 1824, received only 44 and 36
percent, respectively, of their
Hamilton county vote in Cincinnati. On
the other hand, Adams'
vote in the city-which was not
dominated by New Eng-
landers-amounted to 57.5 percent of his
county total.22 It seems
more appropriate to say that Cincinnati
was the "dynamic heart" of
the Adams movement in that part of the
state, at least among voters.
Finally, and most pertinent to the
thesis of this article, Ratcliffe
often mistakes rhetorical moralism for
self-interest and makes no
substantive attempt to discover what
realities lay behind such highly
vocal expression. Though he implies
that political behavior stemmed
from the economic effects of the Panic
of 1819, his sources and
certain conclusions suggest that there
were alternative motives.
Ratcliffe assumes that the political
rhetoric-he terms it
propaganda-accompanying the elections
of 1824 and 1828 related
more to economic considerations
("hardships") than to larger moral
concerns about either the relationship
of government to the economy
(e.g., the American System) or,
importantly, the "proper" role of
politicians. As Ratcliffe puts
it,"The experiences of the Panic. .. and
depression had created in Cincinnati a
widespread resentment against
all politicians who were in a position
to exploit public office for their
own advantage."23 (Does
this mean economic advantage, or
organizational advantage-i.e., spoils?)
Apparently his concern for
such resentment applies only to
pre-1824 incumbents since elsewhere
21. Ibid., 855-56.
22. Ibid., 857. For detailed
electoral statistics see Cincinnati Advertiser, November
3, 1824.
23. Ratcliffe, "Voters and
Issues," 860. Kim T. Phillips, "The Pennsylvania Origins
of the Jackson Movement," Political
Science Quarterly, XCI (Fall 1976), 489-508,
suffers from the same ambiguity, though
to a lesser extent than Ratcliffe. For example,
for Phillips to say that
"fundamentally shaping the course of [Jackson's] original
supporters was their conviction that the
once noble party of Jefferson had sunk into
moral and ideological bankruptcy"
(p.499), or that "Democrats of the Old School
predicted that unrestrained banking
would have disastrous moral and social
consequences," is not the same as
agreeing with Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., that
"economic reform [restraint of the
business community] was at the heart of
Jacksonianism" (p.491).
Voting in Jacksonian Ohio 167
he attributes the Jackson party's
ultimate triumph in 1828 to its ability
to capture the state's patronage
apparatus.24
Ratcliffe's confusion of rhetorical
moralism with self-interest is
evident in a number of other places. He
notes that Ohioans viewed
Clay's nomination by a state legislative
caucus as a product of "wire
working," believing that the
Kentuckian's supporters represented an
"aristocratical junto." From
this Ratcliffe concludes that "there can
be no doubt that the widespread
popular resentment of privilege and
governmental corruption . . . provided fertile soil in 1824 for the
cause of a candidate who was seen as a
strong-minded patriot hero
risen from the people and unconnected
with politics." The battle cry
became "No intrigue, no
corruption, Andrew Jackson." He also
indirectly reveals that moral concerns
had not abated by 1828: "By its
cries of corruption and
federalism and its promises of reform . . .
Jacksonian propaganda appealed directly
to popular antipathies and
suspicions." That same year the
"southwestern counties, as willing
as ever to believe in Clay's proclivity
for 'bargain and corruption,'
piled up even greater majorities for
Jackson."25 Yet all of these
statements, employed by Ratcliffe to
build a case for economic
dissatisfaction, are instead testimony
to a condition he seems reticent
to acknowledge: a profound sense of
moral anxiety among Americans
who were only beginning to grasp the
implications of the sweeping
revolutions in their social, economic,
cultural, and political worlds
that historians too casually refer to as
"Jacksonian Democracy."
After all, economic crises involved
fundamental political questions
from the beginning. As did others in the
West, many Ohioans
believed that their economic plight
subsequent to 1819 resulted from
24. This exemplifies a pro-Democratic,
pragmatic bias not unique to Ratcliffe.
Charles and Mary Beard, The Rise of
American Civilization (New York, 1927),
evidenced their ambivalence toward
democratic idealism and democratic pragmatism as
well. Like Ratcliffe, the Beards were
disinterested in the moral threat inherent in the
changing natures of parties and politicians'
traditional roles. When John Quincy Adams
reportedly sought to keep public service
"untainted by the vulgar odor of loot and
spoils," they accused him of being
"out of lockstep in matter[s] of political patronage"
(p.551). Legislative caucuses, they
said, were "submerged in the tossing waves of
democracy" (p.546); yet, "the
grand convention was ruled mainly by officeholders and
aspirants for office. While election of
the President was vested in the people legally, the
choice of candidates . . . passed from
the congressional monopoly to professional
politicians" (p.547). The Beards
and Ratcliffe's resignation to what Richard Hofstadter
terms the "mastery and
control" of politicians may be founded in the Democrats' own
ambivalence, for as Ronald P. Formisano,
"Political Character, Antipartyism, and the
Second Party System," American
Quarterly, XXI (Winter 1969), 685, notes, "If there
is a paradox about [Democrats] it lies
in their passion for laissez faire in government
and society combined with pragmatic
submission to the Organization. ..."
25. Ratcliffe, "Voters and
Issues," 860-61, 865-66 (italics added). Meyers, Persua-
sion, 18-24, suggests that the use of the word
"aristocracy" did not necessarily refer to
a socioeconomic class, but implied a
moral quality.
168 OHIO HISTORY
the inadequacy of western representation
in Washington, especially
with regard to the conduct of the Bank
of the United States. In their
view caring for the Bank's ills required
taking a political cure as well,
though one must remember that a
political remedy might not unite
anti-Bankites and potential Jacksonians.
Though some historians,
including Ratcliffe, may believe that
universal anti-Bank sentiment in
Ohio gave western candidates there an
edge, proposals for the reform
of "king caucus" did not have
a similarly unifying effect. Many who
sought to exorcise the caucus system did
so because it seemed to
them to jeopardize independent political
activity, as well as maintain
western underrepresentation. Of course
from a purely pragmatic point
of view the end of the caucus
"revolutionized" political style and led
to the successful candidacy of Andrew
Jackson. But if both the Bank
and "king caucus" were equally
unpopular in Ohio, "reform" of the
latter proved much more difficult. It
does not necessarily follow that
those who cried for "reform"
in 1824 meant economic reform, or that
such men followed Jackson into the
Democratic party after 1828.
Many opponents of the Bank had little
interest in replacing legislative
and congressional control of politics
with another variety of inviolable
party dominion; as westerners they still
felt unfulfilled when political
power seemed merely to have passed from
one "king" to another.
Conclusion
Two important phenomena have been
observed in considering
these recent studies of Jacksonian Ohio.
First, too many scholars,
Sharp and Ratcliffe among them, refuse
to consider seriously the
possibility that the people of whom they
write often believed and
acted upon the things they said whether
or not those historians are
willing to relate "mere talk"
to realities other than economic
aggrandizement. A major problem of
Ratcliffe's analysis is not only
that he ignores the testimony of his
actors, but that he places their
words in a context of his, not their,
choosing. Second, even among
those who profess to have considered
factors other than economics in
their analyses, initial assumptions
about political behavior and
methodological simplicity qualify their
overall success. Historians
ought first to ask: how credible is any
rhetoric, particularly if it does
not refer directly to economic
self-interest? Second, what other
realities might evoke rhetoric of remarkable
intensity and polarity
when economic self-interest is not
evident? Once these initial
questions are posed requisite
methodologies will follow.
Still, care must be taken. It will be
remembered that Sharp's
economic data are misleading and that he
excuses his reliance on
single-factor analysis by asserting that
ethnocultural statistics for
Voting in Jacksonian Ohio 169
Ohio are unavailable. Because Ratcliffe
does not systematically
locate ethnic groups in the state or
account for their cultural
ideologies he can only speculate about
their political predilections.26
His assessment of the role of ethnic
groups would be enhanced if he
pursued the likelihood that their
political homogeneity and persistent
attitudes toward many issues, including
finance, slavery, and
partisanship itself may have derived
from complementary cultural
perspectives.
To discount automatically the
credibility of rhetoric which
encompasses elements of cultural and
moral philosophy because it
does not always coincide with economic
self-interest or because other
realities (e.g., ethnicity) seem vague
and difficult to measure, is to
ignore the distinct cultural
perspectives of voters, leaving an
interpretative vacuum vulnerable to methodological
simplicity. The
case of Ohio illustrates that when
historians concentrate on one rather
than a series of elections-1840 in
Sharp's case, 1824 in
Ratcliffe's-they are likely to fall back
on a single-factor analysis and,
hence, to separate rhetoric from
reality. In contrast, illustrations of
the links between the voting patterns of
defined parts of the electorate
and the expressed ideas of political
spokesmen, newspaper
editorialists, clergymen, and other
rhetoricians ought to underscore
the necessity of developing a healthy
skepticism about the degree to
which individual politicians, or
fleeting issues, determine political
history.27 Though detailed
correlation analysis of electoral behavior in
Jacksonian Ohio from 1832 to 1848
discounts the relationship of
wealth to voting, it does reveal
significant partisan contrasts between
resident Yankees and Southerners,
between immigrant groups,
between natives and immigrants, between
evangelicals and other
Protestant denominations, between
Protestants and Catholics, and,
significantly, a marked contrast in the
degree of partisanship between
Whigs and Democrats. Whig rhetoric not
only evinced a strong
religious and moralistic anti-party bias
based upon such ties, but these
men also acted as though they meant it.
Whig voters, despite being
supporters of the state's majority party
throughout the Jacksonian
period, were historically less stable
partisan followers and less
committed to "winning" than
were Democrats, even after their
26. "Why Jackson attracted the
support of the 'Pennsylvania Dutch' in 1824 remains
a mystery," Ratcliffe, "Voters
and Issues," 863.
27. Samuel T. McSeveney, "Ethnic
Groups, Ethnic Conflicts, and Recent
Quantitative Research in American
Political History," The International Migration
Review, VII (Spring 1973), 14-33, discusses recent multivariate
electoral studies; Allan
G. Bogue, "United States: The 'New'
Political History," Journal of Contemporary
History, II (January 1968), 5-27, is an earlier description and
evaluation.
170 OHIO
HISTORY
alleged conversion to Democratic
electioneering techniques in 1840.
In addition, Whig anti-partyism varied
directly with the strength of
evangelical Protestant denominations and
Yankee ethnicity.28 These
patterns of behavior strongly suggest
that those who keep track of
politicians, issues, and voters ought
not to be influenced unduly by
the now infamous contemporary slogan,
"watch what we do instead
of what we say"; scholars should also heed history-makers who
implore them to "watch what we do as
well as what we say."
28. Preliminary exposition of these
conclusions may be found in Fox, "Group Bases
of Ohio Political Behavior," and
more concisely in two unpublished manuscripts by
Fox, "Lee Benson's Ethnocultural
Hypothesis: A Postscript from Ohio" and "Parti-
sanship and the Bank of the United
States in Jacksonian Ohio."
Donald Ratcliffe, "The Experience
of Revolution and the Beginnings of Party
Politics in Ohio, 1776-1816," Ohio
History, LXXXV (Summer 1976), 186-230, is far
more attentive to the moral sensitivity
of Ohioans than the article under inspection
here. He acknowledges that many
Federalists and Republicans were disillusioned with
partisanship prior to 1824; that many
such men opposed the peoples' "right of
instruction" for moral reasons;
that the word "aristocracy" was often used to denote
officeholder tyranny rather than
socioeconomic status; that much of Jacksonian politics
arose from earlier, non-economic issues;
and that the conflict between party regularity
and antipartyism was itself a
"dual" party system.
STEPHEN C. FOX
Politicians, Issues, and Voter
Preference in Jacksonian
Ohio:
A Critique of an Interpretation
Two recent studies of the Jacksonian
era which devote either
substantive or exclusive attention to
Ohio, James R. Sharp, The
Jacksonians versus the Banks:
Politics in the States after the Panic of
1837, and Donald J. Ratcliffe, "The Role of Voters and
Issues in
Party Formation: Ohio, 1824," have
been welcomed as valuable
additions to our understanding of
political activity in an important but
long-neglected western state.1 Sharp's
book, of which the section on
Ohio constitutes approximately
one-fifth, concentrates on party
attitudes toward banking; Ratcliffe
contrasts "grass roots sentiment"
to the manipulative style of party
activists. Despite the contribution
of each interpretation, neither has
swept all others before it. There
are two principal reasons for this,
neither of which is unique to these
studies: first, both authors make
narrow assumptions about the roots
of political behavior; second, their
methodologies are frequently
careless and in contrast to those of
other contemporary historians,
generally unsophisticated. These faults
are most evident when Sharp
and Ratcliffe attempt to link economic
issues and the activities of
politicians to voters' preferences.
Dr. Fox, Associate Professor of History
at Humboldt State University, Arcata,
California, wishes to acknowledge the
financial assistance of the Mabelle McLeod
Memorial Fund, Stanford, California.
1. James R. Sharp, The Jacksonians
versus the Banks: Politics in the States after the
Panic of 1837 (New York, 1970); Donald J. Ratcliffe, "The Role
of Voters and Issues in
Party Formation: Ohio, 1824," Journal
of American History, LIX (March 1973), 847-
70. See Frank O. Gatell's review of
Sharp's book in Journal of American History,
LVIII (September 1971), 445-47. While
these studies do not account for the entire Jack-
sonian period in Ohio, they are the
first substantive published attempts to evaluate
politics throughout the state since
Francis P. Weisenburger, The Passing of the Fron-
tier, 1825-1850, vol. III of Carl Wittke, ed., The History of the
State of Ohio (Colum-
bus, 1941). Another recent study of
Jacksonian Ohio, more comprehensive than either
Sharp's or Ratcliffe's, is Stephen C.
Fox, "The Group Bases of Ohio Political Be-
havior, 1803-1848" (Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 1973), which found
the popular bases of political behavior
similar to the sociocultural differences among
Ohio legislators described in Herbert
Ershkowitz and William G. Shade, "Consensus
or Conflict?: Political Behavior in the
State Legislatures during the Jacksonian Era,"
Journal of American History, LVIII (December 1971), 591-621.