Ohio History Journal

STEPHEN C. FOX

 

The Bank Wars, the Idea of "Party,"

and the Division of the Electorate

in Jacksonian Ohio

 

 

Among the recent interpretations that have reinvigorated Jacksonian

studies, two in particular have proved to be central to understanding that

period: first, that the Bank of the United States and banking in general were

issues with more political than economic significance; and second, that it

was during the Jacksonian era that Americans learned to accept the

legitimacy and competitive spirit of a two-party political system.

Exemplifying the first of these, Robert Remini's Andrew Jackson and the

Bank War describes the Jackson-Biddle confrontation in 1832 as political,

though the author acknowledges that the Bank's "octopus-like" tentacles

also reached into economic and fiscal policy, precipitated clashes between

individuals, classes, and sections, and juxtaposed the social and ideological

views of the major antagonists.' In another recent study of banking, The

Politics of Jacksonian Finance, John M. McFaul maintains that even

though banking was part of a pro verus antibusiness controversy,

economic interests remained subordinate to political interests, and that the

"significant event during the Jacksonian era was not the triumph of laissez

faire or a protoregulatory state but the emergence and establishment of a

new political party system."² In a final illustration, Banks Or No Banks:

The Money Issue in Western Politics, 1832-1865, William G. Shade

extends the political dimension of banking even further by arguing that

conflict over banking was only part of a broader struggle between political

"subcultures."³ As for the theme of party growth and competitiveness,

books and articles by Richard P. McCormick and Richard Hofstadter

have shown historians the importance of the Jacksonian years to the

development of America's two-party system.⁴

 

 

Stephen C. Fox is Professor of History at Humboldt State University, Arcata, California.

1. Robert Remini, Andrew Jackson and the Bank War: A Study in the Growth of

Presidential Power (New York, 1967), 9.

2. John M. McFaul, The Politics of Jacksonian Finance (Ithaca, 1972), 211.

3. William G. Shade, Banks or No Banks: The Money Issue in Western Politics, 1832-1865

(Detroit, 1972), 11, 18.

4. Richard P. McCormick, "New Perspectives on Jacksonian Politics," American

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254                                                           OHIO HISTORY

 

Yet none of these recent studies goes far enough. Surely if the key

political role played by the Bank and the acceptance of party competition

were as important to the Jacksonian era as historians suggest, then one

ought to be more curious about the timing of the two.⁵ The goal of much of

the economic policy of the 1780s and 1790s had been political; both

Alexander Hamilton and his opponents knew that real power belonged to

those who made economic decisions, and only secondarily to those who

might benefit from them. Was the fight over economic policy in the

Jacksonian era any less total? Since party realignment came so quickly on

the heels of the Bank Wars, perhaps the Jacksonian and Whig paties

represented more than a simple response to the Bank's fiscal policies. What

was the relationship between the Bank and renewed partisanship during

both periods? Were pro-Bank men also pro-party, and anti-Bank men the

opposite? The same? Or vice versa? Historians have not looked carefully

enough at the unique extent to which the Bank issue generated support for

the idea of "party" among some of the electorate, while leaving doubts

about the efficacy of parties in the minds of others.⁶ InJacksonian Ohio the

Bank did just that: it renewed the ideological debate and electoral

competition absent there since the collapse of the Federalist party in the

"era of good feelings." Moreover, because of this catalytic role, the Bank's

legacy is more appropriately a part of party history than of economic

history. It was pro- and anti-Bank spokesmen who, in the course of their

debate over the financial merits of the Bank, most succinctly voiced pro and

antiparty ideals, providing, in turn, the link between the Bank issue and the

electorate's assessment of the value of partisanship.⁷

 

 

Historical Review LXI (January, 1960), 288-301, and The Second American Party System:

Party Formation in the Jacksonian Era (Chapel Hill, 1966); Richard Hofstadter, The Idea of

a Party System: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1790-1840(Berkeley,

1969).

5. The coincidence of the Bank Wars(1818-1819 and 1832-1834) and party realignment has

led a number of historians to the conclusion that the political adjustments were due primarily

to economic grievances. See, 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; Kim T. Phillips, "The Pennsylvania Origins of the Jackson Movement,"

Political Science Quarterly, XCI (Fall, 1976), 489-508. For detailed comment on Sharp and

Ratcliffe see, Stephen C. Fox, "Politicians, Issues, and Voter Preference in Jacksonian Ohio:

A Critique of an Interpretation," Ohio History, LXXXVI (Summer, 1977), 155-70.

6. Tom Paine, the much-travelled revolutionary pamphleteer, strongly supported the fiscal

policies of the Bank of North America in the 1780s. But even he recanted his faith in

unicameralism when "party" considerations in Pennsylvania's legislature became the basis for

opposition to the Bank. See, Philips S. Foner, ed., The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine

(New York, 1945), 1247, 1255, 390, 409.

7. Details differ from place to place, but the contrasting attitudes toward partisanship

described in this study are not limited to a single state, or even to the Jacksonian era. Even

were this not the case, Ohio's political history has never been provincial. Both contemporaries

and historians have consistently acknowledged the controversial role of the BUS in Ohio and

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The Bank Wars                                                           255

 

Finally, the search for "consensus" in American history in recent years

has persuaded numerous historians that the resounding Whig triumph in

1840 was due to its acceptance of partisanship and Democratic

electioneering techniques, a "total transfusion of Jacksonian blood."⁸ But

as this essay shows, such a portrayal of Ohio Whiggery overlooks the

party's unique ideological roots and exaggerates its willingness to

compromise on matters of principle. Long after the Bank ceased to be the

focal point of Ohio politics, the continuing debate over "party," rekindled

by the Bank issue, left Democrats and their opponents looking much less

like "Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum" than has been thought. The

elevation of "principle" above party considerations in the case of the Bank

turned out to be an ominous dress rehearsal for the contest between

antislavery and party integrity which lay ahead.

Before turning in detail to the role of the Bank, however, it is necessary to

acquaint readers with the relationship between ideas about "party" and the

social sources of politics in Jacksonian Ohio.

 

The Social Sources of Pro and Antipartyism

William Shade's book on banking and western politics, as well as an

article he co-authored with Herbert Ershkowitz, describe the partisan

conflict generated by banking and related financial issues in the legislatures

of Ohio and a number of other states during the Jacksonian era.⁹ In each

study the authors come to the same conclusion: political turmoil stemmed

not so much from differing economic interests among legislators as from

 

 

the prominence of the state in the evolution of western and national politics. Recent studies

that pertain exclusively or in part to Ohio include: 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; Thomas Flinn,

"Continuity and Change in Ohio Politics," Journal of Politics, XXIV (August, 1962), 521-44;

Ratcliffe, "Voters and Issues"; Leonard L. Richards, "Gentlemen of Property and Standing":

Anti-Abolition Mobs in Jacksonian America (New York, 1970); Harry N. Scheiber, Ohio

Canal Era: A Case Study of Government and the Economy, 1820-1861 (Athens, 1969); Sharp,

Jacksonians versus the Banks; Harry R. Stevens. "Henry Clay, the Bank, and the West in

1824," American Historical Review, LX (July, 1955), 843-48, and The Early Jackson Party in

Ohio (Durham, 1957).

8. Lynn L. Marshall, "The Strange Stillbirth of the Whig Party," American Historical

Review, LXII (January, 1967), 463. Others who stress Whig imitativeness are Hofstadter,

Idea of a Party System; McCormick, "New Perspectives," who styles the Whig metamorphisis

as "Tippecanoe Democracy"; Perry M. Goldman, "Political Virtue in the Age of Jackson,"

Political Science Quarterly, LXXXVII (March, 1972), 46-62; John M. Rozett, "The Social

Bases of Party Conflict in the Age of Jackson: Individual Voting Behavior in Greene County,

Illinois, 1838-1848" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1974), 28, who argues that

the "cry of 'no party' was a sham, a rhetorical device used to lure unwary Democrats." In

Andrew Jackson: Symbol for an Age (New York, 1955), 81-91, John W. Ward

overemphasizes Whig pragmatism to the point of implying that William Henry Harrison was

"unprincipled."

9. Shade, Banks or No Banks; Ershkowitz and Shade, "Consensus or Conflict?"

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256                                                           OHIO HISTORY

 

differences in their sociocultural backgrounds and contrasting attitudes

toward social reform. Yet, by design neither work examines the popular

response to issues and parties-behavior that was grounded in the same

cultural antagonism as that found by Ershkowitz and Shade among

lawmakers. The most striking aspect of that response was that Whig voters

were much less willing than Democrats to submit to party discipline. In

election after election rank and file Whigs dropped out of the political

process more readily than Democrats, despite Whig control of the state

throughout most of the Jacksonian era.¹⁰ Moreover, underlying voters'

behavior in this regard were long-standing religious, ethnic, and regional

idiosyncracies differing little from those of their representatives in

Columbus.

The Whig party drew its principal support from two interrelated

sociocultural groups: Yankees from New England and the "burned over"

district of New York, and religious denominations that emphasized piety

and revivalism (the evangelicals).11 Both groups provided ample numbers

 

 

10. From 1836 to 1848 Democratic gubernatorial candidates won only twice: in 1838 with a

majority, and in 1842 with a plurality. The point is not that Whigs were apolitical, but that

they were antipolitical. Whigs consistently fought elections with less enthusiasm and with less

relative success than Democrats, even though they won more elections.

11. Some supporting data and a note on methodology are necessary here. The Pearson

correlation coefficient measuring the relationship between the percentage of church

accommodations of the principal pietistic denominations in 1850 (Baptist, Congregational,

Presbyterian, Quaker), and the voting strength of the combined Whig-Free Soil* parties in

1848, is +.498; Catholic church seats and Whig-Free Soil strength, -.365. As for ethnic

background, in a statewide random sample of fifty-four townships and wards, a comparison

of the numbers of native Ohioans in 1850 and Democratic strength in 1848 shows no

correlation. However, the coefficient of Democratic strength and New Englanders-New

Yorkers is .442; of Democrats and Pennsylvanians-Virginians, +.334. And in two Cincinnati

wards in the same sample where the sizes of the native groups were not appreciably different,

other contrasts emerge: one ward was 88 percent immigrant (forty-eight times as many non-

English as English) and 71 percent Democratic in 1848; the other only 55 percent immigrant

(three and one-half times as many non-English) and 40 percent Democratic. In addition, the

first of these had twice as many non-English as the second, though the latter had ten times as

many English.

*Throughout this paper I combine Whig and antislave voters (Libertyites and Free

Soilers) because of their similar regional backgrounds, evangelical-reformist attitudes, and

the overwhelming evidence that antislave electoral support came almost entirely from the

ranks of Whiggery. This was particularly true of the Free Soilers in 1848. For example, in all

twenty-three counties where Van Buren received at least 10 percent of the presidential vote in

1848 (he got 11 percent statewide), Whig strength fell from its 1844 levels, while Democratic

strength diminished in only eighteen. In each county Whig losses were markedly greater than

Democratic: across the state the Democratic percentage of the vote fell .66 percent from 1844

to 1848, while the Whig percentage dropped by 7.6 percent more than ten times as much.

Similarly, the total number of Democratic ballots cast in 1848 rose by nearly 4 percent, while

Whig turnout dropped nearly 11 percent. Yet in the 1848 gubernatorial election, with no clear

third party candidate, the two parties split the vote nearly evenly, as usual. In 1852 the shift

was reversed: the Whig party registered a more marked increase in strength than the

Democratic, indicating that former Whig voters returned to old allegiances with the collapse

of Free Soilism in Ohio.

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The Bank Wars                                                            257

 

of men who rejected the "might makes right" implication of majoritarian

politics. Yet they too longed for something not that dissimilar from

political maj oritarianism-a moral American commonwealth based on the

cultural dominance of native American Protestantism and buttressed, if

need be, by the legal authority of the state.¹²

Those who bolstered the ranks of the Democracy offered an

unmistakable contrast. They came primarily from the South, Penn-

sylvania, and Germany, and were likely to be less religious and more

Catholic than Whigs. Not only were Democratic strongholds less religious

than Whig centers, but religious intensity (religiosity) and party strength in

the latter varied directly. Whig strength was most salient, for example, in

the Western Reserve where the evangelical crusade was most enthusiastic,

and where Yankeeism was the dominant demographic characteristic.

Furthermore, since the southern-oriented Ohio Democracy viewed the call

for American cultural homogeneity as New England's grab for power in the

West, they rallied behind a doctrine of social pluralism, countering Whig

activism with an aggressive laissez faire ethic.¹³ Paradoxically, however,

Democrats anchored their political goals to the rock of party discipline and

relinquished political individuality more willingly than Whigs.

These contending communal and individual values, carried into Ohio in

the minds of the earliest white settlers, were the bedrock of political conflict

 

 

 

In Illinois, Abraham Lincoln considered "Liberty-men" to be Whigs at heart, and referred

to those in New York who refused to vote for Henry Clay in 1844 as "whig abolitionists." See,

Lincoln to Williamson Durley, Oct. 3, 1845, in Roy P. Basler, The Collected Works of

Abraham Lincoln (New Brunswick, 1953), 1, 347.

12. T. Scott Miyakawa, Protestants and Pioneers: Individualism and Conformity on the

American Frontier (Chicago, 1964), 22, 31-32, 44, stresses the communitarianism of two

prominent evangelical sects, the Presbyterians and the Baptists. The commonwealth outlook

of New Englanders is also highlighted in Kenneth A. Lockridge, A New England Town: The

First Hundred Years; Dedham, Massachusetts, 1636-1736 (New York, 1970), 165, 169, 177,

who says of the future of 17th century "Puritan communal corporatism" that "the evolution of

a libertarian society in America was neither as rapid nor as direct as might be

thought .... elements of the communal ideal . . . remained alive in the towns of New

England and of the northwestern territories . . . even after the passing of Jefferson and the

coming of Andrew Jackson." The abolitionist movement is the most obvious example of the

progression from moral suasion to enforced state action typical of Whig types. Temperance

Whigs would no doubt have been heartened by Prohibition.

13. Both Paul Kleppner, The Cross of Culture: A Social Analysis of Midwestern Politics,

1850-1900 (New York, 1970), 75, and Ronald P. Formisano, The Birth of Mass Political

Parties: Michigan, 1827-1861 (Princeton, 1971), 103, emphasize this distinction between the

two major parties. Formisano's book, especially Chapter 6, is an excellent discussion of the

Democratic laissez faire ethic. A good example of Democratic laissez faire creed in Ohio is,

"The Democratic Party is the Liberal Party," in the Democratic Standard (Georgetown),

Sept. 12, 1843, in which the Democracy voiced opposition to organized reform movements

motivated by "ascetic law, force, terror, or violence," arguing that society should change

naturally, through the "light and love" of individual reflection instead of the activities of

religious zealots and social tinkerers.

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258                                                             OHIO HISTORY

 

in the state.¹⁴ Both contemporaries and         historians have noted how

easterners attempted to restructure their cultural and political pasts in the

West, a process that inexorably shaped the subsequent history of the

state. 15 Timothy Flint marveled at the cultural homogeneity of the Western

Reserve and its general resemblance to New England.¹⁶ Later, a county

historian claimed that New Englanders had plotted their lands "with

mathematical precision an emblem of the Federalist love of order," while

township lines in the southerners' region were "zig-zag and crooked,

suggesting the Republican love of freedom for the individual."¹⁷ Political

geographer William T. Hutchinson concluded that, "The Virginians gave a

portion of the state a southern attitude toward life and politics which

 

 

14. Evangelicalism, by no means a monolithic ideology, was marked by the ambivalence of

individualism offered through salvation outside formal church ritual, and the corporate ideal

of the selfless community. Similarly, the emphasis of a part of Lockean philosophy on the

"natural rights" of competitive individuals contrasted sharply with the ideal of a community

interest more important than any individual right.

15. The following describe Ohio's distinctive settlement patterns: John Kilbourn, The Ohio

Gazetteer or Topographical Dictionary .... (2nd ed., Columbus, 1816), 29, passim;

Timothy Flint, A Condensed Geography and History of the Western States, or the Mississippi

Valley, 2 Vols. (Cincinnati, 1828), II, 362; Lewis D. Stilwell, Migrationfrom Vermont, Vol. V

of the Growth of Vermont, ed. by Earle W. Newton (Montpelier, 1948), 143, 143n; Lois K.

Matthews, The Expansion of New England: The Spread of New England Settlement and

Institutions to the Mississippi, 1620-1865 (New York, 1909, 1962), 178n, passim; Daniel

Aaron, "Cincinnati, 1818-1838: A Study of Attitudes in the Urban West" (Ph.D. dissertation,

Harvard University, 1942), viii, who argues that the founding of Cincinnati was more a

triumph of collectivism than individualism; William T. Hutchinson, "The Bounty Lands of

the American Revolution in Ohio" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1927), 182,

passim; Richard F. O'Dell, "The Early Anti-Slavery Movement in Ohio"(Ph.D. dissertation,

University of Michigan, 1948), 31; Mary E. Moses, "Factors Influencing the Population and

Areal Growth of Selected Ohio Cities" (M.A. thesis, Ohio State University, 1954), 10. Both

Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans: The National Experience (New York, 1965), 52-53, and

Page Smith, As a City Upon a Hill: The Town in American History (New York, 1966), 17-20,

30, 32-33, 36, support the theory of communal development in the West. The earliest party

battles in the state reflected regional strife. See, Ruhl J. Bartlett, "The Struggle for Statehood

in Ohio," Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, XXXII (July, 1923), 472-505;

William T. Utter, The Frontier State, 1803-1825, Vol. II of The History of the State of Ohio,

ed. by Carl Wittke (Columbus, 1942); Donald J. Ratcliffe, "The Experience of Revolution and

the Beginnings of Party Politics in Ohio, 1776-1816," Ohio History, LXXXV (Summer, 1976),

186-230.

16. Condensed Geography, II, 362. My discussion of demographic patterns in Ohio is

based on examination of dozens of county and local histories, too numerous to be listed here.

(Readers may wish to refer to the bibliography in my doctoral dissertation, "The Group Bases

of Ohio Political Behavior, 1803-1848," University of Cincinnati, 1973.) These local histories

provide biographical sketches, detailed accounts of groups and settlement patterns, and

record the growth of towns and townships.

17. Martin R. Andrews, ed., History of Marietta and Washington County,

Ohio .... (Chicago, 1920), 100. Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The

Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (New York, 1970), 49, quotes a New

York Tribune correspondent's observations in 1857 on the contrast between New Englanders'

farms in the Western Reserve and those of Virginians and Kentuckians in other parts of the

state.

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contrasted sharply with other districts . . . settled so generally from New

England and the Middle States.¹⁸

Others believe it was the "frontier" that ultimately determined political

identity in Jacksonian Ohio. Robert E. Chaddock insisted that the success

of western settlement depended almost entirely on its reverence for

individuality: Scotch-Irish influence was more permanent because "border

life and struggles" had "accustomed" that people to the wilderness of a

place like southern Ohio which they rapidly filled with a "self-reliant

pioneer type ...." Chaddock chided that New England's contribution

was minimal, since emigration from that section had been too highly

organized.19 A more recent student of the westward movement confirms

that northerners generally traveled in groups while southerners journeyed

alone, concluding that "southern individualism-perhaps reinforced by a

streak of Jacksonian Democracy and fear of organized efforts of special

interest groups-stood in sharp contrast to the Yankee notions of

community, mission, and cooperation."²⁰ Nor was the disparity limited to

Ohio: John Rozett concludes that in Illinois the "relation of the individual

to social control became the paramount issue of the Jacksonian period,"

providing the "framework, the historical reality, necessary to interpret

Jacksonian politics."²¹

The ambivalent, and at times paradoxical, posture that Jacksonian

Ohioans assumed toward communal and individual values left them with a

dilemma that was particularly acute when it impinged on their view of the

 

18. Hutchinson, "Bounty Lands," 182. On differences between northern and southern

attitudes toward collectivity and individuality see, Charles S. Sydnor, "The Southerner and

the Law," Journal of Southern History, VI (Feb., 1940), 3-23; Stanley Elkins and Eric

McKitrick, "A Meaning for Turner's Frontier," Political Science Quarterly, LXIX (Sept.,

1954), 321-53, (Dec., 1954), 565-602; Phillip S. Paludan, "The American Civil War

Considered as a Crisis in Law and Order," American Historical Review, LXXVII (Oct., 1972),

1013-34.

19. Ohio Before 1850: A Study of the Early Influence of Pennsylvania and Southern

Populations in Ohio (New York, 1908), 52, 54. Among those who discount the effect of the

"frontier" are Aaron, "Cincinnati," vi; Wayne Jordan, "The People of Ohio's First County,"

Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, XLIX (Jan.-March, 1940), 1-40; Kenneth V.

Lottich, "The Western Reserve and the Frontier Thesis," Ohio Historical Quarterly, LXX

(Jan., 1961), 45-67.

20. James E. Davis, Frontier America, 1800-1840: A Comparative Demographic Analysis

of the Frontier Process (Glendale, Calif., 1977), 43. Other historians have raised related

questions: John Higham asks whether "the great cleavage in American history [is] the

outward one between haves and have-nots . . . or . . . an inward opposition

. . . between an ethic of communal responsibility and an ethic of unrestrained in-

dividualism?" See his "Beyond Consensus: The Historian as Moral Critic,"AHR, LXVII

(April, 1962), 623; and Rozett, "Party Conflict," 210-11, who points to the contrast in

Jacksonian America between those who valued "natural liberty," a laissez faire emphasis on

the free reign of individuals, and the supporters of "legal liberty" who sought positive laws to

shape community values and strengthen individual liberty. See also, James W. Hurst, Law

and the Conditions of Freedom in the Nineteenth-Century United States (Madison, 1956).

21. Rozett, "Party Conflict," 212.

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260                                                     OHIO HISTORY

 

role of political leaders, the legitimacy of partisan activities, and the power

of government: if individuality was so important to a free society, and few

were willing to admit that it was not, then how could it be maintained

through collective action? Might not the means-either moral suasion

turned state policy, or majoritarian democracy-destroy the end? De

Tocqueville said of Americans that "they want to be led, and they wish to

remain free. As they cannot destroy either . . . they strive to satisfy them

both . . ."22

Phrased in more familiar political terminology, the dilemma was still the

same: how was a democratic society to protect the rights of majorities and

minorities at the same time? As sympathetically as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

portrays the Jacksonian Democrats in his landmark book, The Age of

Jackson, he admits that they were "no more successful than [the

Jeffersonians] in resolving . . . the problem of the virtue of majorities,

and the problem of the evil of government."²³ After all, what was one to do

if virtue and evil appeared in the same garb? The stunning Whig victory in

1840 unquestionably raised doubts in the minds of enthusiastic

majoritarians principally Democrats-about the inherent "goodness" of

any majority. And waiting in the wings to receive these new skeptics were

many who were already convinced that the protection of minority interests

required not only a Bill of Rights, but close adherence to the

antimajoritarian structure of the federal constitution as well.

It would over-simplify matters to claim that majoritarians and anti-Bank

men filled out the ranks of one party, and minoritarians and pro-Bank men

the other. But in Ohio, in general, Democratic rhetoric and voting were

promajoritarian and anti-Bank; Whig rhetoric and behavior an-

timajoritarian and pro-Bank. And whether voters were native-born

Americans or immigrants, Protestants or Catholics, evangelicals or

nonevangelicals, pro- or anti-Bank, they quickly learned that as American

society became increasingly politicized the means to impose their

prejudices on one another lay in the political process. Sooner or later each

of them had to confront the issue of "party" head-on. What remains to be

seen is how the Bank question precipitated that encounter and defined its

evolution.

The Bank and the Role of Parties

Donald J. Ratcliffe's recent article on party conflict in Ohio prior to the

 

 

22. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. by Henry Reeves, ed. by Phillips

Bradley, Vintage Books, 2 vols. (New York, 1945), II, 337. More recently, historian Daniel

Boorstin has posed the problem in his preferred context: "Communities were expressly

created to serve private interests, and private interests were preserved only by the express

construction of effective communities." See, Boorstin, National Experience, 72.

23. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Jackson (Boston, 1945), 403.

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The Bank Wars                                                       261

 

first Bank War in 1818 shows that Ohioans were already prophetically

ambivalent about parties, and were in fact operating under a kind of "dual"

political system: rather than two equally competitive parties doing battle,

politics consisted in large part of pro and antiparty idealists debating the

"rightfulness" of having party organizations at all. From 1812 to 1816, as

Ohio Federalism passed into history, its spokesmen, and others, warned

that the Jeffersonian reverence for partisanship (exemplified in Ohio by the

Tammany societies) was bringing about the "degeneration" of American

society.²⁴ But partisanship did not succumb, even though many non-

Federalists may have wished for its demise as well. For one thing, the

Federalists' parting shot undoubtedly struck a lot of people as "sour

grapes." And, in addition to lingering doubts about "party" still harbored

within the Republican "consensus" of the "era of good feelings," the then

popular antiparty slogan, "Measures and not Men," only thinly disguised

the conviction of some of its most vocal renditioners that merely the wrong

kind of consensus reigned.25 Shortly thereafter, of course, the Bank of the

United States shattered the fragile stalemate by bringing the debate over

"party" out into the open again.

Both the Jacksonian "revolution" of the early 1820s and Whiggery's

response in the early 1830s coincided with the uproar over the BUS largely

because the frontal assault on the Bank had the secondary effect of

arousing old feelings about "party." It is difficult to separate the Bank from

the question of political reform. In 1818, Ohioans were preoccupied with

reports of the Bank's financial woes and the withdrawal of specie from

western bank vaults to make good Philadelphia's debts. At the same time,

they were equally concerned about the future of the caucus nominating

system. Ohioans, like other westerners, believed that it was due largely to

their underrepresentation in Washington that the Bank was able to impose

its hated policies-in other words, because of the political "corruption" of

the caucus system. Caring for the Bank's ills mandated a political cure as

well.

Nevertheless, the eventual political remedy, a shift toward strict party

discipline and majoritarianism, did not necessarily unite economically

aggrieved anti-Bank men and nascent Jacksonians; for while the attack on

the Bank and the collapse of the congressional caucus paved the way for

Andrew Jackson's political success, not everyone in Ohio who detested

 

24. Ratcliffe, "Party Politics," 200-11, 219. In 1794, during the "Whiskey Rebellion,"

George Washington viewed what he called "self-created" Democratic Societies with similar

misgivings. See, James T. Flexner, George Washington: Anguish and Farewell, 1793-1799

(Boston, 1969), 182-92.

25. "Measures and not men" is an excellent example of the difficulty many Federalists had

in separating idealism from pragmatism. The slogan seems to be anti "men," but "measures"

are, after all, no more than the deeds of "men." Obviously, what exponents of the slogan

sought was not so much "measures" as distinct from "men," but a particular breed of "men."

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Bank policy was inclined to be a Jacksonian partisan.²⁶ It was the local

banking establishment that opposed the BUS in the first place, and most of

these men were prominent ex-Federalists or future pro-bank Whigs.²⁷

Indeed, by 1825 the once-outlawed BUS had reestablished its branch office

in Cincinnati, despite the humiliation of the state's having looted it under

the guise of a so-called "Crowbar Law."²⁸ Thus by the time Jackson's fame

as a military hero and defender of the "common man" began to manifest

tangible political results, the Bank had largely recovered its standing in

Ohio and, for the moment at least, was becoming a less visible political

target.

The question of a replacement for the caucus system, however,

continued to haunt Ohioans; for the discussion of a way to reform "king

caucus" opened the Pandora's Box of party legitimacy. Many opponents of

the BUS in the early twenties shied away from replacing legislative and

congressional control of politics with the kind of "party" foretold by the

Bank struggle. What anti-Bank, anticaucus, anti-Jacksonians objected to

in 1818 was the political conduct of the anti-Bank party disciplinarians.

Wherever attention focused on the BUS from 1818 to 1819, especially in

Hamilton and Ross counties where the Bank's branches were located, the

most politically-minded anti-Bank men created rudimentary, but deter-

mined electoral machines, drafting what they called "reform tickets,"

"delegate nominations," or simply "anti-Bank nominations." Like the

caucuses, these emerging organizations openly manipulated candidate

selection, but they now were opposed by more circumspect organizations

supported by men already skeptical of disciplined partisanship.²⁹

As the old system, symbolized by the distant Bank and caucus, began to

collapse, the most aggressive anti-Bank men implored voters to thoroughly

scrutinize candidates for any office, giving particular attention to their

position on the Bank. One ambitious anti-Bank hopeful even called for the

 

 

 

26. Ratcliffe, "Voters and Issues," prematurely concludes that those who called for

"reform" in 1824 meant economic reform, and that such men followed Jackson into the

Democratic party after 1828. Furthermore, he fails to pursue the antipolitical sentiment

reflected in his own phraseology, such as: "widespread resentment against all

politicians . . . in a position to exploit public office for their own advantage"; "widespread

resentment of privilege and governmental corruption"; and "cries of corrup-

tion . . .and . . . promises of reform," 860-61, 865-66.

27. Utter, Frontier State, 281, 297; Kenneth E. Davison, "Forgotten Ohioan: Elisha

Whittlesey, 1783-1863" (Ph.D. dissertation, Western Reserve University, 1953), 45.

28. Niles' Register, XVIII, May 14, 1825. For details of Ohio's "war" on the BUS see,

Daniel J. Ryan, "Nullification in Ohio," OAHQ, II (June, 1888), 413-22.

29. Cleveland Gazette and Commerical Register, Oct. 13,1818, Aug. 3,1819; Liberty Hall,

Sept. 28, Oct. 15, 1819; Charles T. Greve, Centennial History of Cincinnati, 2 vols., (Chicago,

1904), 1, 574; Supporter (Chillicothe), Sept. 22,27, Oct. 6, 1819; Niles' Register, XVII, Nov. 6,

1819; American Friend (Marietta), Oct. 5, 1821.

• 11
 

264                                                         OHIO HISTORY

 

resurrection of the "'peoples' right of instruction."³⁰ Although these

"innovations" eventually undermined the caucus system, if not the Bank,

many people still questioned the relevance of the Bank issue to the conduct

of all political offices, and wondered aloud whether the "new" politics was

any more advantageous than the "old" to independent judgment and

minority interests. Their objection to the caucus, after all, had not simply

been that it limited western representation, but that it also curtailed

individual political activity.31 They wanted the system opened up, not

closed again by the new majoritarians of the Bank War. As westerners they

still felt unfulfilled when, in the aftermath of the Bank-caucus fight,

political power seemed merely to have passed from one "king" to another.

 

Ohio politics reached a second watershed in 1832 when nascent Whigs,

alarmed at President Jackson's enhancement of executive authority by his

veto of the Bank recharter and his reliance on "party" to sustain him,

employed the same consensual sentiment as their ideological predecesssors

in attacking "King Andrew." Now, however, "Measures . . ." meant

specifically that the General himself had neither talent nor principle, and

was using "party" in a contrived assault on the interest of the "whole

people"-a sound, functioning, Bank of the United States. For Elisha

Whittlesey, who later became an important Whig leader in northeast Ohio,

Jackson's attack on the BUS came as a self-fulfilling prophecy. He had

fretted privately in 1828 that the possibility of Jackson's election amounted

to a national emergency: "We live in a time," he wrote a sympathetic reader,

"when public office and distinction dwindle to nothing . . . compared to

the salvation of the Republic."³²

As the new Bank crisis gathered momentum, the President's "in-

novations," as well as those of his party, worried a good many Ohioans. By

then the state had adopted the so-called "slip-ticket" ballot, an allegedly

"democratic" measure, but one that nevertheless severely restricted the

 

 

30. Western Spy (Cincinnati), Aug. 17, 1820; Liberty Hall, Aug. 19, Sept. 6, Oct. 7, 1820;

Niles' Register, XV, Oct. 24, 1818. Niles, in advance of later Whig ideology, attacked the idea

of instruction throughout 1820, and editorialized against the caucus system until its demise in

1824.

31. Ohio Federalists had opposed the congressional caucus as early as 1816. See, Ratcliffe,

"Party Politics," 218.

32. Whittlesey to Joshua R. Giddings, July 21, 1828, quoted in James B. Stewart, Joshua

R. Giddings and the Tactics of Radical Politics (Cleveland, 1970), 19-20. Historians should be

careful in dismissing the fears of Whittlesey and others (particularly when expressed privately)

as isolated instances of rhetorical overkill, or as the shrewd manipulation of voters. Close

scrutiny of the relationship between the Bank and electoral activity in Ohio, together with the

state's past experience with a "dual" system of politics, provide a striking view of the

continuity of the debate over "party" throughout the first four decades of the nineteenth

century.

• 12
 

The Bank Wars                                                           265

 

independence of split-ticket voters. Again, however, anti-Bank

Jacksonians embraced the principles of popular instruction and party

regularity more enthusiastically than anyone.³³ And at least one Ohioan

was convinced that these encroachments, along with Jackson's decision to

remove the government's deposits from the BUS and his "immoral"

dismissal of cabinet members who had the temerity to disobey that order,

gave birth to the state's Whig party. "This whole procedure," he concluded,

"shocked the public mind." Following that, Whigs placed "opposition to

arbitrary power" at the top of their list of priorities, ahead even of their

traditional desire to legislate "for the 'general welfare,' em-

bracing . . . finance, industry, and commerce."³⁴ During the banking

debates of the 1840s, Lewis Tappan, a prominent Ohio Whig and

evangelical abolitionist, wrote in a similar moral tone to New York's

William H. Seward that economic questions such as the Bank were less

important to "a better state of things" than "men . . . who value

posthumous fame [and] the favor of God more than the applause of

officeseekers . .   ."³⁵ Undoubtedly many, both then and now, would

discount the sincerity of such abstractions. But it must have been harder in

1836 to deny the practical moral logic of a Jacksonian defector: "If it was

right to elect Gen. Jackson because he was a favorite citizen, and not the

candidate of the officeholders, it is right to elect Gen. [William Henry]

Harrison on the same principle."³⁶

Still, there were many who favored Jackson's Bank initiatives and

believed, furthermore, that in killing the "monster" Jackson had also

struck a blow at lawmakers who "disobeyed" the "will" of the people.³⁷ But

an equally adamant constituency refused to equate Jackson's veto and the

subsequent behavior of his partisans with their own conception of

 

 

33. Laws of Ohio, XXIX, 1831, 44-56; Charles Reemelin, "Reminiscences of Moses

Dawson," Cincinnati Commerical, Dec. 27, 1869, Jan. 19, 1870.

34. E.D. Mansfield, Personal Memories: Social, Political, and Literary . . . 1803-1843

(Cincinnati, 1879), 284. McFaul puts the communitarian view another way, saying that "the

issue of money in nineteenth century America perpetrated a moral exchange between

members of society about the meaning of life." See, The Politics of Jacksonian Finance, 213-

14. Richard Hofstadter explained it like this: "people often oppose certain economic policies

not because they have been or would be . . . hurt by such policies, or even because they have

any carefully calculated views about their economic efficacy, but because they disapprove on

moral grounds of the assumptions on which they think the policies rest." See his The Paranoid

Style in American Politics and Other Essays, Vintage Books (New York, 1967), 89-90. See

also, Shade, Banks Or No Banks, esp. 197; Ershkowitz and Shade, "Consensus or Conflict?",

614-17.

35. March 18, 1842, quoted in Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Lewis Tappan and the Evangelical

War Against Slavery (Cleveland, 1969), 274.

36. Reported in Ohio State Journal, Oct. 15, 1836.

37. Resolutions of Sundry Friends of the Administration, Columbiana County, Ohio, in

Favor of the Measures of the Executive Against the BUS, June 24, 1834, 23rd Cong., 1st Sess.,

Doc. 475, typifies Jacksonian anti-Bank sentiment.

• 13
 

266                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

democracy. They found it difficult, for example, to accept the view of

Cincinnati's foremost Jacksonian rhetorician, Moses Dawson, that

"democratic" politics amounted to nothing more than "THE TICKET,

THE WHOLE TICKET, AND NOTHING BUT THE TICKET," and

were themselves "appalled" to discover that an 1834 convention of

Hamilton County Jacksonians committed itself to national party

regularity this time through a series of questions asked of potential

congressional and legislative nominees. Although the convention's

selectees were expected to take the "proper" Jacksonian economic view of

the BUS (the ostensible reason for the inquisition in the first place), most of

the questions put to them avoided direct reference to the Bank, focusing

instead on party discipline: nominees were to (1) adhere to the right of

instruction or resign; (2) pledge their support for the President's Bank veto

and other administration measures; (3) bestow patronage only on the party

faithful; and (4) endorse no one but the convention's selections.³⁸ One

senses from this how easily the requirements of the pledge and the religious

symbolism of the title given to it by detractors-the "Cheviot

Catechism"  might evoke a Protestant-Whig, antiparty response.

Historians have long maintained that the Bank issue was inextricably

linked to the rise of "Jacksonian Democracy," but they generally

overemphasize the extent to which people turned first to the Jacksonian

and then to the Whig party because the Bank had somehow unhinged their

economic lives. It is now evident that the most important connection

between the Bank and the development of the second party system in Ohio

can be found in the debate over "party" rather than in transitory economic

concerns. It is "party," for example, that helps to explain how men who

opposed both the Bank and the caucus system in 1818 could, in 1832, come

to the defense of the former, but not Jackson's replacement for the latter.

The Bank issue was never simply an economic one. Even William Henry

Harrison, the symbol of triumphant Whiggery in 1840, had dissociated

himself from the BUS during his 1819 congressional campaign.³⁹

There were others for whom little had changed between 1818 and 1832,

or, for that matter, between the years of the battle against the Republican

St. Tammany organization and the latest "party" crisis. By the early 1830s

they were quite sure that President Jackson intended to make recharter of

the Bank the litmus test of party regularity. Regardless of what such men

thought of the Bank's financial merits (and they were by no means agreed

about that), they believed it to be an issue about which reasonable men

could differ; they claimed to find no such liberalism in the umbrella-like

 

 

38. Reemelin, "Reminiscences of Dawson," Cincinnati Commerical, Dec. 6, 1869, Jan. 27,

1870; Niles' Register, XLVII, Sept. 6, 1834.

39. Niles' Register, XVII, Oct. 30, 1819; Liberty Halland Cincinnati Gazette,Oct. 15, 1819.

• 14
 

The Bank Wars                                                           267

 

party orthodoxy under which Bank opponents inevitably took shelter.⁴⁰ It

was this feature of Democratic behavior that continued to arouse the

greatest anxiety among nascent Whigs and led to their organized

opposition. Furthermore, during the 1830s and          1840s, when Moses

Dawson's partisan prescription and the "Cheviot Catechism" typified

Democratic electoral methods, the Whig party never wholeheartedly

embraced such tactics, even at the height of its popularity and power.⁴1

Whigs by no means agreed on every issue. But like Ohio Federalism,

Whiggery's close ties to New England's commonwealth outlook imbued

the party with a tradition of Whiggish constitutionalism-the belief that

power, particularly arbitrary executive power, could only be held in check

by a balanced constitutional structure. To Whigs like those above,

majorities that had been seduced by such executives (i.e., Jackson) were no

less arbitrary themselves. They warned that centralized party structure and

ideological orthodoxy like the Democrats' left little room for independent

political judgment and minority interests. One might even separate the two

parties in Ohio on the basis of those who sought to stabilize democracy

through Constitutional decentralization (federalism), and those who

desired to exercise broader public control over government through

centralization of the extra-Constitutional sovereignty of popular ma-

jorities.⁴²

Although it was the Bank issue that helped to crystallize these differing

ideas of "party" in the minds of various spokesmen, their words were only

part of the emerging contrast between the Democratic and Whig parties.

To complete the portrait, one must also match the kind of political rhetoric

seen here with voters' behavior.

 

 

 

 

40. Marshall, "Strange Stillbirth," 449-50, concludes that "proto-Whigs . . . recognized

that the [Bank] veto message and its direct orientation to voters represented a new approach

to politics and new roles for political leaders. It . . . produced their carefully

planned . . . alignment." See also, Remini, Jackson and the Bank War, Chap. 3.

41. Federalist-Whig-Republican parties have not had the same reputations for "machine"

politics as has the Democratic party. There is no small amount of historical continuity

reflected in journalist Henry Fairlie's recent comment that while today's Democrats

"acknowledge the preeminence of politics over other forms of social action," the Republican

party opposes political action, opposes winning elections, and is "opposed to itself as an

instrument of political will." See, "The Democrats: By Politics Possessed," The New Republic

(Oct. 30, 1976), 26, and "Party Without a Country," ibid. (Sept. 11, 1976), 18, 19.

42. Whig skepticism of political centralization is a principal theme of Moisei Ostrogorski's

Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties, ed. by Seymour M. Lipset, Anchor

Books, 2 vols. (Garden City, N.J., 1964), 11, 33-36, 41-42, 54, 278-79, 288-89. For evidence in

Ohio of the National Republicans' reluctance to merge national, state, and county issues see:

Cincinnati Gazette, Oct. 7, 1827; Western Cornet (Xenia), Oct. 19, 1827; Richard T. Farrell,

"Cincinnati in the Early Jackson Era, 1816-1834" (Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University,

1967), 205.

• 15
 

268                                                        OHIO HISTORY

 

The Partisanship of the Electorate

As late as 1850 a Whig editor in the Western Reserve wrote with all too

typical resignation that

We are always glad when Election is over. Upon the review of the contest we all of us

find matters to regret, and have occasion to rejoice that we may once more settle

down to our ordinary pursuits. For ourselves, though we have felt deeply anxious

for the triumph of our principles and the success of our candidates, we have not

designedly injured the feelings of any one. If we have offended any we regret it, and

trust that such will make all due allowances. We have done what we could for an

honorable triumph.⁴³

 

Earlier press reports provide some evidence that, in general, Demo-

cratic and Whig voters acted on the basis of the contrasting views of

"party" held by such spokesmen. Like the Federalists, Whigs really only

gestured at being political. Their party apparatuses were weaker than the

Democrats'; in many counties Whigs often failed to field full or even partial

slates of candidates; Whigs had less hesitation in reverting to "independent

candidacies"; and, in marked contrast to their opponents, Whigs invariably

suffered large drops in turnout during off-year elections.⁴⁴ But beyond

these impressions, systematic analysis of the electorate's response to

partisanship from 1836 to 1848 confirms that to a major degree the reality

of Ohio's politics (i.e., grass roots voting) matched the rhetoric of its

politicians. The data that follows confirms the accuracy of those

newspapers that reported both the respective rhetorical distinctions drawn

by Democratic and Whig spokesmen between "party" and "no party"

ideals, and the contrast in actual Democratic and Whig enthusiasm for

politics.

Unfortunately, there is no way to determine how individuals voted in

antebellum America. Nor can one say with complete certainty that within

relatively large and somewhat heterogeneous counties, Whig-antislave

voters did one thing, and Democrats another. But if it can be shown that

 

 

 

 

43. Portage County Whig (Ravenna), Oct. 16, 1850.

44. Examples are: Liberty Hall (Cincinnati), Oct. 5, 1837; Ohio Repository (Canton), Oct.

3, 1839; Guernsey Times (Cambridge), Oct. 14, 1837; Ohio Statesman, (Columbus), Oct. 15,

22, 1839; Ohio State Journal(Columbus), Oct. 18, 22, 1839; Scioto Gazette, Oct. 3, 10, 17,

1839; Circleville Herald, Sept. 29, 1839. Very often, when Federalists were outnumbered and

saw little hope for success they withdrew from electoral contests or simply deposited blank

ballots. But in contrast to the Whig party in the 1830s and 1840s, the Federalists were truly a

minority party during the first decade of the century. In light of the similarity between some

Federalists' principled objections to "party" and Whig antipartyism, caution ought to be

exercised in attributing Federalist electoral lethargy exclusively, or even primarily, to "sour

grapes." On Federalist tactics see: Charles Cist, The Cincinnati Miscellany, 2 vols.

(Cincinnati, 1845-46), I, 60; Ryan, "Nullification in Ohio," 413-14; Ratcliffe, "Party Politics,"

200-01, 217.

• 16
 

The Bank Wars                                                       269

 

voting patterns fluctuated significantly in electoral units dominated

overwhelmingly by one party, or that such counties switched partisan

allegiance more often than counties controlled by the other party, then it is

at least arguable that party lines among the majority in the former were less

tightly drawn than in the latter.⁴⁵

Table 1 illustrates the first of several points. One can see in column two

(Average Index of Stability) that voting regularity (cohesion) in Whig-

antislave counties was less reliable than in Democratic counties, and that

this pattern of relative instability characterized all of the units dominated

by Whig-antislave parties, whether it was by as much as 78 percent, or as

little as 51 percent. Note, too, that as the counties neared greater political

heterogeneity (party strength closer to 50 percent), lessening one's ability to

relate behavior principally to one group of voters, the difference in the

index narrows. (If, however, only the next six Whig-antislave units instead

of all nineteen are matched with the remaining six Democratic counties in

order to equalize the comparison in terms of party strength, the Whig-

antislave index increases from 23.9 to 25.)

 

 

 

Table 1

Whig-antislave and Democratic Counties with Indices of Stability,

1836-1848

 

Average          Average

Party Strength Index of Stability

(%)                         (%)

 

Strongest Whig-antislave (10)                                       66.1                         28.5

Strongest Democratic (10)                                            62.4                         25.1

 

Second Strongest Whig-antislave (10)                          59.5                         23.4

Second Strongest Democratic (10)                                55.7                         20.3

 

Remaining Whig-antislave (19)                                     56                            23.9

Remaining Democratic (6)                                            52.4                         22.3

 

 

45. This section is based on sixty-five counties in continuous existence, with some

boundary changes, from 1832 to 1848. The new counties (sixteen more by 1848) created from

adjacent townships introduce some bias, but the unavailability of consistent township data

(see below) makes such distortion unavoidable. Still, the more important question regarding

boundary changes or migatory patterns is not whether they had a destabilizing effect that

• 17
 

270                                                             OHIO HISTORY

 

Table 1 also shows the inverse relationship between Whig-antislave

strength and stability, a contrast that challenges the view of some historians

that Whigs failed to vote as regularly as Democrats because they pictured

themselves as a hopeless minority, doomed to inevitable failure no matter

what they did on election day. Furthermore, the fact that the disparity

between strength and stability pervaded Whig-antislave counties at all

levels suggests that political disenchantment was a habitual Whig state of

mind, not an anomaly or symptom of overconfidence.⁴⁶

Table 2 summarizes two additional trends related to the religious basis of

antipartyism: first, the total percentage of evangelical church accom-

 

 

might be confused with antipartyism, but whether such shifts affected each party differently.

The consistency of the results found in all three dimensions of this study-by party, across the

state, and through time-suggest that they did not.

To establish an "index of stability" (average total shift of votes, by county, from 1836 to

1848), the changes in party percentages were summed and divided by the number of elections

(e.g., the shift from the 1836 state to the national election, plus the shift from the 1836 national

to the 1838 state election, and so forth, divided by eleven); the higher the fluctuation, the more

politically unstable the county. (As for shifts due to nonvoting, perhaps the clearest symptom

of antipartyism, contemporary newspapers consistently reported that this phenomenon was

far more characteristic of Whigs than Democrats. See note #44.)

This test assumes that the stronger the party in a county, the more politically homogeneous

the county, and that therefore the strongest units offer the best basis for comparing large

numbers of units over time. Note that the "index" could reflect a shift in either party, since

fluctuation in Whig-antislave voting is merely the reciprocal of change in the Democratic

percentage, and vice versa. Given this, the correlation of strength and stability in all counties

has a diluting effect since fluctuation in weaker counties (majorities close to 50 percent) cannot

easily be attributed to one party or the other. Although a correlation coefficient of .08 reflects

little association between average (Democratic) strength and average fluctuation in each

county, it also does not accurately reflect the disparity in party support in counties with large

majorities. For that reason it is necessary to turn to each party's strongest counties where

tendencies toward stability or instability would be more likely to characterize the behavior of

the dominant group.

Of course, township data would make the test even more reliable since smaller electoral

units are more politically homogeneous than larger ones. But Ohio township data is too

incomplete to use exclusively for this period. Only 40 to 60 percent of the state's township

election returns are available, and all township religious statistics gathered during the 1850

federal census are lost. Nonetheless, the results reported here are consistent with a similar

analysis of available townships (see note #47).

Finally, it is conceivable that close competition between parties caused higher rates of

fluctuation. To test this possibility, I calculated the rank-order coefficient of correlation of

counties with the slimmest majorities (most competitive), and those with the highest

fluctuation (most unstable). However, the result obtained by ranking the counties from 1 to

65, with the highest ranked being those with majorities closest to 50 percent, and matching

that order with the position of each county according to its total fluctuation, highest to lowest,

shows that there was little relationship (-.18).

46. Rozett, "Party Conflict," 21, 23, does not agree that Whig losses were attributable to

antipartyism. Instead, he argues that Whigs suffered periodically from low morale,

particularly in 1846 and 1848 when their popularity was undermined by opposition to the

Mexican War. Nonetheless, his argument rests on a very narrow base (Greene County,

Illinois), and he does not explain why only Whigs, but never Democrats, suffered "morale"

problems, or why Whigs, but never Democrats cried "no party." He admits, however, that

Democratic voters were "somewhat" more loyal to their party.

• 18
 

The Bank Wars                                                271

 

modations (seats) averaged nearly 43 percent in those twenty strongest

Whig-antislave counties, but only slightly over 30 percent among the

Democratic counties; second, correlation of evangelicalism and party

strength in the same forty counties shows that the strongest Whig-antislave

counties contained directly proportionate evangelical strength (+.34),

while the relationship was decidedly indirect (-.48) in the strongest

Democratic units. (The association between pietistic denominations and

Whig-Free Soil strength in all counties in 1848 was +.498.)

 

 

Table 2

Strongest Whig-antislave and Democratic Counties and Evangelical

Church Accommodations, 1836-1848

 

Strongest Whig-antislave (10)

and Avg. % Evangelical                         46.1

Second Strongest Whig-antislave (10)

and Avg. % Evangelical                         39.5

42.8 Total (avg.)

Pearson r (20)                                 + .34

 

Strongest Democratic (10)

and Avg. % Evangelical                         24.4

Second Strongest Democratic (10)

and Avg. % Evangelical                         35.9

30.2 Total (avg.)

Pearson r (20)                                  -.48

 

 

 

Finally, the relationship between instability and Whig-antislave strength

typified even the smallest political units. In the 282 townships and wards

compared in an additional test, both inter and intraparty instability proved

to be greater in the Western Reserve, the hub of Yankee-Whig-

evangelicalism, than in townships throughout the rest of the state.⁴⁷

 

 

But what about voters and the BUS? The task of assessing the role of

voters vis a vis the Bank in Ohio is hindered by the absence of any referenda

 

47. From 1836 to 1848, 1.4 times as many townships in the Western Reserve as those

• 19
 

272                                                           OHIO HISTORY

 

on Bank issues; the electorate had no avenue for an unambiguous response.

But as has been noted, there was more to the Bank question than just the

Bank. The voting habits of Jacksonian Ohioans described above confirm

that the rank and file of the two major party groups, Democrats and anti-

Democrats, behaved, over a period of time, in fundamentally different

ways; and with regard to the BUS, that pattern strongly suggests that both

the moralistic posturing of political leaders on the subject of the Bank,

together with the predispositions of Ohioans toward "party" values, had

considerable bearing on voters' actions. Voters took their political cues less

from passing concerns like the BUS than from the way in which such issues

evoked traditional attitudes. Like no other political episode of the

Jacksonian era, the Bank controversy had not only once, but twice put a

match to the dry tinder of partisanship. Only something with the

immediate anxiety-producing impact of Bank policy, coupled with the

decline of deferential political habits, could have had that effect. And it was

precisely this unique feature of the Bank Wars in Ohio that makes it easier

to see how the broader dimension of the struggle, the one pitting "party"

against "no party" men, conditioned the partisanship of the electorate as

well.

When voters went to the polls in Jacksonian Ohio, they did not behave

simply as pro- or anti-Bank men with only their pocketbooks in mind.48

Certainly they gave some thought to the value of the Bank as a financial

institution and the effect of its policies on their lives. But they also must

have known that voting for pro- or anti-Bank candidates would remove the

issue from the realm of economics and put it squarely into the political

arena. There, majority coalitions with more on their minds than the BUS

would determine a great deal more than just the future of the Bank. In the

larger sense the central issue of the Bank Wars was not whether the BUS

was "good" or "bad," but whether one ought to trust organized majorities

of unknown persuasion with the power to settle the issue. It was a question

of democratic faith, a great "leap in the dark" not yet acceptable to

 

 

outside it switched party allegiance, and more than two and one-half times as many units in

the Reserve showed significant fluctuation (at least 20 percent per year). Twenty percent is an

arbitrary figure, but it is large enough to emphasize major changes. The units employed in this

test were not selected at random, but they are all of the units for which complete state and

presidential election returns are available to 1848. Foner, Free Soil, 108-09, 147, finds that

during the 1850s radical Republican strength in Ohio was centered in the Western Reserve,

and that partly loyalty "was not the radicals' forte."

48. Sharp, Jacksonians versus the Banks, 336, attempts to show a statistical relationship

between poor counties and Democratic strength in Ohio. But correlation of available indices

of per capita wealth ("Merchants' and Brokers' Capital and Money at Interest" and "Total

Taxable Property") and Democratic strength from 1832 to 1848, as well as correlation of

occupational status and Democratic strength in townships and wards in 1848, does not

demonstrate that wealth, status, or occupation had much to do with voters' discrimination

between parties. See, Fox, "Politicians, Issues, and Voter Preference," 160.

• 20
 

The Bank Wars                                                        273

 

everyone, but one that nonetheless made the BUS the sounding board for a

lot of moral talk about "party" and continued to divide the electorate

during the years of the second party system.

 

Conclusion: Rhetoric and Reality

Although Ohio's Democrats complained everlastingly about the power

of so-called "aristocratic" social and cultural groups (i.e., the BUS and its

supporters) over individuals, they, in turn, exhibited little respect for

individualism when it came to political camaraderie. Whigs, as has been

noted, displayed quite another attitude toward politics. Yet, the Whig

notion of how "party" ought to be used shows that one of the most puzzling

of American political paradoxes is the party organization that competes

fiercely, but remains, ideally, "above it all," even at a time when the purpose

of politics is increasingly being defined as "winning." Nonetheless, the

rhetoric of many Whig spokesmen and the behavior of most Whig voters in

Ohio corresponded to Richard Hofstadter's recent definition of the

antiparty party as one that believes that "parties are evils that can be

avoided or absorbed or suppressed, even if this must be done,

paradoxically, through the temporary agency of a party of national

unification."⁴⁹ Party activists who came to that conclusion thought of

themselves as patriots, not mere political functionaries. When everyone

else had accepted their "truth," parties would no longer be necessary. Thus

the success of Jackson's party convinced men who harbored lingering

doubts about the efficacy of parties that if the Republic were to be "saved,"

they had no other choice than to fight fire with fire. A Whig editor took this

view of "party" in 1840, ironically on the eve of his own organization's

greatest triumph:

[the] great Whig party . . . have been battling . . . against the introduction and

perpetuation ... of party tactics .... We have fought . . . for freedom of

opinion and election .... Not for this or that set of men-or for this or that

party-but for exemption from the usurpations of all men, and from the restraints

and tyrannies of all parties .... If in the union of a Party there is strength-in

the union of a People there is greater strength ....50

 

In order to appreciate the contrast in partisanship between Whigs and

Democrats, and at the same time to sense how aggressive, practical politics

 

49. Hofstadter, Idea of a Party System, 16-17. Bernard Bailyn, The Origins of American

Politics (New York, 1968), is a good starting point for an explanation of the antiparty ideal.

This theme has received increased attention in recent years, most notably and ably by Michael

Wallace, "Changing Concepts of Party in the United States: New York, 1815-1828,"

American Historical Review, LXXIV (Dec., 1968), 453-91; Ronald P. Formisano, "Political

Character, Antipartyism, and the Second Party System," American Quarterly, XXI (Winter,

1969), 683-709, and Mass Political Parties, Chap. 4.

50. Scioto Gazette, Nov. 5, 1840.

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274                                                      OHIO HISTORY

 

might complement rather than contradict negative attitudes toward

"party," one must look beyond the activities of party leaders, party

apparatuses, legislative voting, and traditional electoral issues. After all,

the quandary in accounting for antiparty partisans is that inevitably they

seem to adopt the tactics of the "enemy." Leonard Richards shows, for

example, that it was the organizational success of antislavery that made it

so threatening to established political leadership and accepted canons of

political behavior.⁵¹ Yet, antislavery, antimasonry, and nativism, all

closely associated with Whiggery, were largely manifestations of organized

religious emotion, and all were antithetical to Andrew Jackson's emerging

Democracy in that idealistically, at least, they were meant to be the

harbingers of a nonpartisan American consensus. Certainly, for a great

many men the impetus to organize included more than a quest for "spoils";

historians must learn to be less cynical about this. They must attune

themselves to the intellectual and cultural sources of political rhetoric, as

well as the record of voters, and be prepared to distinguish between

organizations with primarily political goals and those with purposes

encompassing a cluster of"moral" concerns. The resulting impression will

very likely resemble what John McFaul suggests: that Democrats

moralized politics, while Whigs attempted to politicize morality.⁵²

If Whigs at all levels party leaders as well as voters-were more

enthralled with evangelicalism than were their political opponents, it

should not be surprising to find that vocalized doubts about self-justifying

political organizations also matched Whig rather than Democratic

behavior. After all, political independence, a cardinal tenet of Ohio

antipartyism, called for "right behavior," a guide for the political

community that closely paralleled the goals of evangelical Protestantism.⁵³

Indeed, nothing was more damnable to evangelicals from a political

standpoint than the threatened displacement of God-given individual

judgment, either by secularly designated men or the "will" of popular

majorities. Nor did challenges of this type go unanswered:

The motto and rule of action of the real republican party of this country, has been,

and it is hoped will continue to be, 'Principles and not men.' This is the political

golden rule .... in a late instance . . . instead of principle designating party,

the name of a man, is the rallying point .... republicans . . . should wear the

 

 

 

 

51. "Gentlemen of Property and Standing," 58-62, 159-60.

52. McFaul, "Expediency vs. Morality: Jacksonian Politics and Slavery," Journal of

American History, LXII (June, 1975), 38.

53. Aileen S. Kraditor, Means and Ends in American Abolitionism: Garrison and His

Critics, 1834-1850, Vintage Books (New York, 1969), 25-26, stresses the antimajoritarian

thrust of abolitionism. See also Charles C. Cole, Jr., The Social Ideas of the Northern

Evangelists, 1826-1860 (New York, 1954), 151.

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The Bank Wars                                                         275

 

harness of no man-they ought not to subject themselves to be gathered

together .... But if there shall be organized opposition to us, in these

particulars, we must sustain them by similar organization. 54

 

In Ohio, as perhaps elsewhere, "Principles," or "Measures and not

Men," had been the quintessential slogan of the "era of good feelings." But

its symbolic use did not end there, for the struggle between those who were

increasingly committed to "party for party's sake" out of frustration with

the BUS and those who adamantly opposed that kind of political

"revolution" did not end in the 1820s with the flush of economic recovery,

in the 1830s with the "solution" to the second Bank crisis, nor even by 1840.

The Bank issue merely brought old cultural and ideological antagonisms to

the surface.

On the one hand, most of the Pennsylvania Scotch-Irish, southerners,

non-English immigrants, Catholics, and non-evangelicals supported Old

Hickory's pluralist assault on the establishment. They saw political

majoritarianism as a bulwark against Whig elitism. Paradoxically,

however, Democrats believed the best way to achieve social and economic

individualism was through "the party, the whole party, and nothing but the

party."

Ohio Whiggery, on the other hand, drank deeply from the cup of New

England communitarianism. In sharp contrast to the Democrats'

individualist "America," enforced by "party," theirs would be nonpartisan

and consensual. Ideally, the Whigs were a party with a difference-in effect,

a counter-organization.⁵⁵ Moreover, unlike the Democrats' pragmatic, no-

questions-asked approach to winning elections, Whigs seemed only to need

an "honorable triumph" from time to time. All too often this distinction

eludes historians. Many scholars look upon Whig lethargy at the polls and

their reluctance to solicit votes from "workingmen" or Germans as

demonstrations of insincerity, opportunism, even hypocrisy; rarely do

historians attach these stigma to Democratic methods. Perhaps the

salesmanship that Democrats found so congenial was more difficult for

Whigs as a matter of"principle," something that modern political cynicism

too readily denies past generations.

 

54. Western Herald and Steubenville Gazette, Dec. 4, 1830.

55. Richard Hofstadter said of a subsequent generation that "The Progressives . . . did

not seriously propose to dismantle . . . society .... Nor did they always make the

mistake of thinking that the revolt against organization could go on without itself developing

new forms of organization. They were trying, in short, to keep the benefits of the emerging

organization of life and yet to retain the scheme of individualistic values that this organization

was destroying .... Of course the struggle . . . could not take place without the benefit

of some form of counter-organization; but it was characteristic of this style of thought to

conceive of these counter-organizations as private organizations based upon high principles

rather than . . . interests ...." See his The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F. D. R.

(New York, 1955), 214-15, 257.

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276                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

Nonetheless, while differences in the rhetoric and behavior of political

groups in Jacksonian Ohio were significant, there is always danger in

portraying any subject with broad brush strokes. Not all Whigs were

immune to the sirens of strong partisanship, and it can be argued that both

parties moralized in one way or another. Moreover, the most competitive

Whigs often ignored the signs of permanence in their own party. Many

were ambitious, disciplined partisans, who stood toe-to-toe with

Democratic rivals on the stump. But if power was congenial to some Whig

politicians, it was not to all of them, nor to many Whig voters. Even though

some Whig and Democratic politicians might sound equally partisan,

careful attention to what all of them said, especially in conjunction with

what voters did, reveals a marked disparity between the two party groups.

The evidence offered in this essay should caution analysts of antebellum

politics to be more wary of assumptions resembling George Wallace's

assessment of modern parties; not only was there a "dime's worth of

difference" in the rhetoric and behavior of political groups in Jacksonian

Ohio, keyed in major part by the Bank, but their conflict typified

Americans' historic and tortured ambivalence over communal and

individual values. On the basis of what was said and done, on the

congruence of rhetoric and reality, parties and voters in Jacksonian Ohio

cannot be likened easily to "Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum," either in

regard to how the Bank of the United States affected attitudes toward

"party" or in how those views were registered at the polls.

• 24