Ohio History Journal

DONALD J. RATCLIFFE

The Experience of Revolution

and the Beginnings of Party

Politics in Ohio, 1776-1816

The American Revolution would scarcely be worth the name if it

signified nothing more than separation from Great Britain. In fact, it was

the beginning of an experiment to create a republic in which a free people

could be governed justly without resort to the traditional sources of state

power: hereditary right and ancient prescription. The new republic,

however, did not take shape overnight; as several recent historians have

argued, domestic politics even after 1800 were still preoccupied with

working out the problems posed by the Revolution. The new nation was

torn by internal rivalries and differing conceptions of what the charac-

ter of the republic should be; at the same time, the United States was

drawn into the revolutionary ferment that enveloped Europe after 1789.

Its integrity was jeopardized as much in 1812 as the colonies' had been

before 1775. Throughout this long period of crisis, Americans were less

united than they had been at the time of independence, and needed to

create a stable order that would hold the nation together without com-

promising the principles of the Revolution. As it happened, Americans

evolved a system of ordering their conflicts that would become the most

distinctive feature of political life in the United States: the American

system of mass political parties, in most of its essentials, was the

creation not of the Age of Jackson, but of the Age of Revolution.²

1. For the search for a "republic" during the Revolution, see Gordon S. Wood, The

Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 (Chapel Hill, 1969). The theme is continued

into the early nineteenth century by, among others, Roger H. Brown, The Republic in

Peril: 1812 (New York, 1964); David H. Fischer, The Revolution of American Conser-

vatism: The Federalist Party in the Era of Jeffersonian Democracy (New York, 1965);

Linda K. Kerber, Federalists in Dissent: Imagery and Ideology in Jeffersonian America

(Ithaca, 1970); and, especially, Richard E. Ellis, The Jeffersonian Crisis: Courts and

Politics in the Young Republic (New York, 1971).

2. For recent writings on the early party system, see, in addition to works cited below,

Joseph E. Charles, The Origins of the American Party System (Williamsburg, 1956);

William N. Chambers, Political Parties In A New Nation: The American Experience,

1776-1809 (New York, 1963); Paul Goodman, "The First American Party System,"

William N. Chambers and Walter D. Burnham, eds., The American Party Systems: Stages

of Political Development (New York, 1967); and Norman K. Risjord, ed., The Early

American Party System (New York, 1969).

Party Politics                                              187

Ohio's Revolution

Surprisingly perhaps, it is appropriate to speak of the Age of Revolu-

tion in Ohio. The state, of course, played no part in the political events of

the 1760s and 1770s, but, even so, the memory of the Revolution and its

ideals was strongly established in the territory by the pioneers from New

England, Pennsylvania, and the South who settled there in the late 1780s

and 1790s. Moreover, these memories were reinforced by the early

political experience of the region, which in many ways repeated the

original American Revolution.³

The first stage of Territorial government provided by the Northwest

Ordinance of 1787 established a system of colonial rule much like that of

the British Empire. It is true that the Ordinance gave a promise of

ultimate political equality and participation in the imperial (or federal)

government such as Great Britain had never given before 1776; yet,

initially at least, the Territory was ruled with a tighter grip than Britain

had ever managed. The governor and the Territorial judges were ap-

pointed by the federal government, and together they provided a

legislature which represented the nation as a whole rather than the

settlers it governed and taxed. Still, the pioneers in the Territory, like

their colonial counterparts, had reason to be thankful for the interest of

an external power for so long as they were threatened by hostile Indians

encouraged by the support of a rival European power. These restraints

were removed (as in 1759 and 1763) by the military and diplomatic

victories of 1794-1795, secured by the federal government through Gen-

eral Anthony Wayne and John Jay. In both the colonial and Territorial

cases, though, American success was ensured by the rapid increase in

white settlement, fostered by the liberal policies of the colonizing pow-

er.

When the second stage of Territorial government was finally reached

in 1798, the introduction of a locally elected representative assembly

merely heightened the parallel with the British colonial system. The

appointed governor was still the chief executive, enjoying full power to

convene, prorogue, and dissolve the assembly and to veto its legislation

as he thought fit. Moreover, since the federal government paid his

salary, the Territorial governor was more independent than most of his

colonial predecessors; but, like them, his influence with the metropoli-

tan government was countered by the appointment of a "colonial

agent"-in the Territorial case, a delegate who possessed the right to sit

3. The following discussion of Territorial politics is based primarily upon Randolph C.

Downes, Frontier Ohio, 1788-1803 (Columbus, 1935); it is supplemented by Alfred B.

Sears, Thomas Worthington, Father of Ohio Statehood (Columbus, 1958), 3-108; and

Beverley W. Bond, Jr., The Foundations of Ohio, vol. 1 of Carl Wittke, ed., The History of

the State of Ohio (Columbus, 1941), 396-476.

188                                                   OHIO HISTORY

and speak, though not vote, in the supreme legislature.⁴ The governor

often found himself torn between the conflicting demands of local in-

terests and those of the empire (or nation) as a whole, while he occasion-

ally chose to defend the interests of the underprivileged and of minority

groups against the demands of the powerful local landed and mercantile

interests which quickly learned how to make themselves heard political-

ly.⁵ In "colonial" Ohio as in the British empire, the demand for local

autonomy was voiced most effectively by self-confident and successful

men like Nathaniel Massie and Thomas Worthington, who had already

established their social and economic predominance.⁶

Protests in the Territory against this system of government echoed

colonial complaints against British rule. As early as 1793 newspapers in

Ohio complained that the Territorial government denied basic civil

liberties and imposed taxation without "the free consent of the people or

their legal representatives." Victims of executive tyranny quickly re-

sorted to "the Language of 1774-'75 of Liberty Privilege & ca & ca &

ca." In 1797 some Cincinnatians claimed that migration to the North-

western Territory had deprived them of rights they had enjoyed in the

East as citizens and ratifiers of the United States Constitution.⁷ As the

demand for statehood broadened after 1800, its main impulse came from

the desire to throw off the arbitrary rule of an executive unaccountable

to the people of Ohio, for Governor Arthur St. Clair had vetoed many of

the laws passed by the first Territorial legislature and had arbitrarily

prorogued the second. Early statehood was recognized as bringing some

disadvantages with it, notably extra financial burdens, but at least it

would make possible a government sensitive to its subjects and would

prevent the continuation of an aristocracy of office-holders appointed

by external authority. Understandably, the charges presented to Presi-

dent Thomas Jefferson in 1802 against the governor were reminiscent of

those against George III in the Declaration of Independence.⁸ As

Thomas Worthington said, the main issue in the statehood contest was

whether the Territory would become an "independent state" or remain

4. Bond, Foundations, 437-38.

5. William H. Smith, The St. Clair Papers: The Life and Public Services of Arthur St.

Clair (Cincinnati, 1882), 1, 191-92, 221-22, II, 425-26, 472-73, 480; Jacob Burnet, Notes on

the Early Settlement of the North-Western Territory (Cincinnati, 1847), 496-97; Beverley

W. Bond, Jr., The Correspondence of John Cleves Symmes (New York, 1926), 15, 22; and

Idem, Foundations, 422-23.

6. Sears, Worthington, 3-93; David M. Massie, Nathaniel Massie, A Pioneer of Ohio

(Cincinnati, 1896).

7. John D. Barnhart, Valley of Democracy: The Frontier versus the Plantation in the

Ohio Valley, 1775-1818 (Bloomington, 1953), 145-47; Downes, Frontier Ohio, 142,184-85.

8. Smith, St. Clair Papers, II, 563-70.

Party Politics                                                      189

"under the present arbitrary government, better fitted for an English or

Spanish colony than for citizens of the United States."⁹

In the end, however, Ohioans escaped from their "colonial system"

without a war for independence. They benefitted from exactly the kind

of revolution in the "metropolis" that colonial radical leaders had hoped

for, in vain, in the early 1770s.¹⁰ The triumph of Jefferson and his

followers brought to power in Washington a government sympathetic to

the statehood cause, and this new ruling party in Congress positively

thrust greatness on Ohio by means of the Ohio Enabling Act of 1802. Yet

even though, in the end, there was no imperial resistance to overcome,

the achievement of "independence" was still associated with something

akin to an internal revolution. The statehood party after 1800 appealed,

with its popular Revolutionary rhetoric, to the public at large, including

those who did not qualify to vote in assembly elections under the

restricted franchise laid down by the Ordinance.11 The statehood men

resorted to extra-legal actions which were sanctioned by public opinion

though resisted by the Territorial government, while the sentiments of

people unrepresented in the legislature were used to put pressure on key

decision-makers. This support from the people, as distinct from the

constituted authorities of the Territory, was ultimately the secret of the

statehood party's success in 1802.12

The opponents of statehood recognized the advantage that its propo-

nents gained from their rhetorical appeal to the memory of the Revolu-

tion. St. Clair's allies, to their embarrassment, saw many of their friends

turn against him. Even those who remained firm disapproved of his

arbitrary acts, but insisted that his offences were exaggerated by his

enemies. Similarly, they claimed that the evils of Territorial status were

bearable, and more than compensated for by the financial help given by

9. Thomas Worthington to Abraham Baldwin, November 30, 1801, reprinted in Sears,

Worthington, 64. For Worthington's reluctant turning to statehood as a result of St. Clair's

vetoes, see the letters quoted in Massie, Massie, 154, 193; and Israel W. Andrews,

Washington County, and the Early Settlement of Ohio: Centennial Historical Address

(Cincinnati, 1877), 28.

10. Pauline Maier, From Resistance To Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the De-

velopment of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776 (London, 1973), 228-70.

11. The franchise was restricted to adult males owning fifty acres freehold, or town lots

of equivalent value. Freeholders whose titles were in doubt were not allowed to vote, most

notably in the Symmes Purchase. Chilton Williamson, American Suffrage From Property

To Democracy (Princeton, 1960), 117, 212; Smith, St. Clair, I, 215, II, 436-38.

12. Downes, Frontier Ohio, 182-85, 205-16; Smith, St. Clair, 549-50, 560, 572. Some

writers, notably Smith, St. Clair Papers, I, 229, and William E. Gilmore, Life of Edward

Tiffin, First Governor of Ohio (Chillicothe, 1897), 35, 51, 62, 77-78, argue that statehood

was unpopular and that its advocates deliberately avoided reference to the people. This

view overlooks the success of the statehood petition campaigns, the plebiscitary nature of

the 1802 elections for the convention, and the final conviction of even Federalist politi-

cians that public opinion made any other course fruitless.

190                                                     OHIO HISTORY

the central government in paying the salaries of the officers of the

Territory. With the passage of the Enabling Act in 1802, however, the

terms of the argument changed. Now the opponents of statehood could

denounce Congress's action "as an act of legislative usurpation of

power properly the province of the Territorial Legislature, bearing a

striking similarity to the course of Great Britain imposing laws on the

provinces." Congress could be branded as ignoring the compact (i.e.,

the Ordinance) on the basis of which settlers had entered the Territory,

and as interfering in internal affairs over which it had had no legal control

since the beginning of the representative stage. Far better, said leading

opponents, for the people of the Territory to ignore Congress, form their

own government in their own time, and then apply for statehood on their

own terms. Not only would the new state benefit financially, it would

also avoid the onerous conditions that Congress was seeking to impose.

Such doctrines of prudence, though couched in the language of indepen-

dence, could, however, be too easily ridiculed as scantily disguised

subservience, and the people showed every bit as much impatience as

the statehood leaders "to throw off the shackles of colonial depen-

dence."¹³

The process of securing statehood, like independence two or three

decades before, resulted in increased public participation in political

decisions. Already the Territorial legislature had brought local govern-

ment and the administration of justice closer to the people, and had

extended the practical opportunity to vote by increasing the number of

polling places. This measure alone was expected to change the political

complexion of the Territorial legislature, should by chance statehood be

deferred and a new assembly become necessary.¹⁴ The legislature's

request that the Ordinance be amended so as to allow adult male tax-

payers to vote in Territorial as well as local elections was not, however

satisfied until Congress incorporated it in the Enabling Act of 1802. This

provision was then included in the new state constitution, which re

stricted the suffrage to whites but extended it to all required to work or

the roads, and so ensured that this taxpaying franchise amounted to

resident white manhood suffrage.¹⁵

13. Burnet, North-Western Territory, 321-22, 338-51, 361-69, 374-81, 494-501; Smith

St. Clair, I, 227-28, 239, II, 515-16, 571-72, 576, 581, 594-97; Julia P. Cutler, ed., Life and

Times of Ephraim Cutler (Cincinati, 1890), 59-61; Massie, Massie, 202; Sears, Worth

ington, 62-63. The quotations are from the protest of a Dayton public meeting, reprinted in

Burnet, North-Western Territory, 501; and from Zanesville Express, March 31, 1813.

14. Smith, St. Clair, II, 531, 560; Downes, Frontier Ohio, 207, 212, 244.

15. Williamson, American Suffrage, 216, 219, acknowledges that the increase in votin

places and the shift from freehold to tax-paying qualifications effectively democratized th

suffrage, but fails to recognize the significance of the clause (IV, 5) allowing the vote to a

who worked on the roads, as all adult males were to be obliged to do.

Party Politics                                                191

Embodying these democratic gains, the state constitution expressed

the best Revolutionary principles, occasionally in their most innocent form.

As with men of 1776, the Fathers of Ohio reacted against their experience of

executive tyranny by making the governor "a mere dummy," enjoying little

patronage and less power.¹⁶ Authority was concentrated in the bicameral

legislature, which controlled almost all appointments and was unrestricted by

executive veto. Both houses were popularly elected, the House annually and

the Senators and Governor every two years. This constitutional set-up was,

according to some, so thoroughly "bepeopled" that it denied the Founding

Fathers' preference of 1787 for a mixed or balanced government rather than a

simple democracy.17 In fact, the first great issue of state politics was to

concern the powers of this unrestrained popularly-elected legislature, for

what happened if it violated the constitutional safeguards of liberty, property,

and justice? By 1812 Ohio was to experience a reaction toward balanced

government such as the older states had undergone in the decades

following their Revolution.

One thing Ohioans had not done was to choose their national loyalty

and then fight for it. Living in a Territory of the United States, they had

no choice but to accept its sovereignty, and the achievement of state-

hood involved the acceptance of the United States Constitution. But

then in 1806 the Aaron Burr conspiracy offered the opportunity, as

Harmon Blennerhassett put it, of completing the American Revolution

and establishing a new western republic.¹⁸ The decisive action of the

state government convinced observers that the people of Ohio "will

cling to the assurer [?] of Safety, the Union of American States," though

Governor Edward Tiffin himself believed there were important pockets

of dissidence in the state.19 Loyalty to the nation was again tested as

relations with Britain came to a crisis. Ohio once more rallied, and was

claimed the firmest supporter of the War of 1812, after Kentucky. Yet

this war threatened Ohio's territorial integrity, even after the invasion of

Ohio by British troops and hostile Indians had been repelled in 1813; in

the peace negotiations of 1814, Britain attempted to transform her

overall military and naval superiority into specific advantages, including

16. As Governor Tom Corwin described the post in 1840. James H. Hitchman, ed.,

"John J. Janney's 'Recollections of Thomas Corwin,' " Ohio History, LXXIII (Spring

1964), 109.

17. Levin Belt to Paul Fearing, December 3, 1802, quoted in William T. Utter, The

Frontier State, 1803-1825, vol. II of Carl Wittke, ed., The History of the State of Ohio

(Columbus, 1942), 14.

18. Marietta Ohio Gazette, September 18, 1806; Marshall Smelser, The Democratic

Republic, 1801-1815 (New York, 1968), 116; Norris F. Schneider, Blennerhasset Island

and the Burr Conspiracy (Columbus, 1966).

19. Wyllys Silliman to Worthington, January 20, 1807, Edward Tiffin to Worthington,

January 25, 1807, The Papers of Thomas Worthington Ohio Historical Society

192                                                  OHIO HISTORY

the creation of an independent Indian state in northwest Ohio and the

territories to the west and north. With her future growth and security

threatened by such demands, Ohio could well see the war developing,

after its outbreak, into her own war for survival and independence.²⁰

Thus in the decade after statehood Ohio shared fully in the experience

of the nation, debating the relationship between judiciary and legisla-

ture, and fighting the nation's enemies. Moreover, throughout this

period the state had its first experience of party politics, an experience

which was more protracted than is usually recognized. Indeed, by the

time of the War of 1812 the supposedly defunct Federalist party was

undergoing a distinct revival in Ohio, sharpening the partisan conflict at

a moment of national crisis and raising questions about the fundamental

character of the republic. This development was perhaps the most

significant in the politics of the period, and signified that, forty years

after the Declaration of Independence, Ohioans were still debating the

mighty issues of the Age of Revolution.

The Crisis of Party Formation

The beginnings in Ohio of the great national division between

Federalist and Republican actually predated the contest over statehood.

As opposition began to express itself across the nation, first to Alexan-

der Hamilton's financial measures and then after 1793 to George

Washington's pro-British foreign policy, the orthodox New England

settlers in Ohio expressed their loyalty to the administration. At the

same time the extremism of the French revolutionaries in the crisis of

1793-1795, while horrifying conservatives, was defended by radicals in

Cincinnati, who toasted "The Sans Culottes of France and the cause of

Liberty triumphant."²¹ As divisive as events in Europe was the Whis-

key Rebellion in western Pennsylvania in 1794 which attracted sym-

pathy among many Pennsylvanian emigrants to eastern Ohio, but

sparked off the Federalist commitment of nationalists like the young

Charles Hammond.²² For most Ohioans, however, national party at-

tachments were first formed in the East and then conveyed to the West.

For example, young lawyers like Calvin Pease and Benjamin Tappan

had already taken their stand "on the democratic side" in the party

20. Muskingum Messenger, October 20, 1813, January 11, 18, 1815; Harry L. Coles

The War of 1812 (Chicago, 1965); Bradford Perkins, Castlereagh and Adams: England and

the United States, 1812-1823 (Berkeley, 1964).

21. Downes, Frontier Ohio, 178-80. See also William H. Smith, "A Familiar Talk abou

Monarchists and Jacobins," Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, 11(1888), 187

193-94, and St. Clair, 1,186-87, 203-05.

22. Roswell Marsh, The Life of Charles Hammond, of Cincinnati, Ohio (Steubenville

1863), 12; Edward T. Heald, Bezaleel Wells, Founder of Canton and Steubenville, Ohio

, 1806.

194                                                        OHIO HISTORY

commodate to St. Clair's Federalist views in order to win his favor: thus

men whose first instincts were Jeffersonian secured personal political

advantages by tempering their views and associating themselves with

Federalism in a way which confused both contemporaries and historians.²⁵

Moreover, the leading issue of Territorial politics after 1799 was

sectionally divisive and so also cut across party lines. Opposition to

early statehood came primarily from those who wished to see the boun-

daries of the future state altered for the sake of local advantage. Thus

Chillicothe's liking for a state defined like the modern one with a con-

venient capital on the Scioto, was countered by those interested in a

division along the line of that river, which would increase the chances of

Marietta's and Cincinnati's both becoming state capitals. For this reason

early Republican demands in Cincinnati for statehood became muted as

the city's leaders plotted with St. Clair and Marietta; in the area east of

the Scioto, sympathisers with Republicanism found themselves, some-

times to their embarrassment, forced to associate with extreme

Federalists who proclaimed the partisan advantages of dividing the ter-

ritory at the Scioto. Against this sectional log-roll the Chillicothe in-

terest could mobilize back-country areas, notably in Hamilton County,

which disliked the subjection of their local interests to those of estab-

lished county seats like Cincinnati.²⁶ However, in the long run the

dominant Cincinnati-Marietta alliance was doomed to fail, partly as a

result of the extension of voting facilities to the backcountry, but mainly

because its scheme of division ran counter to the prescription of the

Northwest Ordinance. Congressmen, regardless of party persuasion,

were inclined to regard that fundamental document as a compact, which

had guaranteed from the start that the first Northwestern state would

have a western boundary running north from the mouth of the Miami

River; even Federalists in Congress felt obliged, therefore, to accept

arrangements favorable to the Chillicothe party.²⁷

25. Supporters of Jefferson who at times were identified as Federalists include Samuel

Huntington, Jr., and George Tod from the Western Reserve, and William Henry Harrison

and William Macmillan from Cincinnati. Smith, St. Clair, II, 483, 488, 548; Burnet,

North-Western Territory, 342n; Elbert J. Benton, ed., "Letters from the Samuel Hun-

tington Correspondence, 1800-1812," Tracts of the Western Reserve Historical Society,

XCV (1915), 63-75; Cutler, Ephraim Cutler 67, 69; Gilmore, Tiffin, 31-32; Downes,

Frontier Ohio, 190, 194, 208n, 221; Sears, Worthington, 52, 61, 110-11; Dorothy B.

Goebel, William Henry Harrison, A Political Biography (Indianapolis, 1926), 42-43,49-52;

Mary Lou Conlin, Simon Perkins of the Western Reserve (Cleveland, 1968), 14, 31, 59,

164.

26. Downes, Frontier Ohio, 177-239. See also Smith, St. Clair, II, 450, 482-83, 527-28,

547-48; Massie, Massie, 163-64, 166-68; Benton, ed., "Huntington Correspondence,"

69-72.

27. A Federalist-dominated Congress passed the Act of 1800 dividing the Northwest

Territory along this line, and Federalists joined Republicans in the Congress of 1801-1802

in voting down the territorial legislature's request that this dividing-line be moved east to

the Scioto Sears Worthington, 55-56, 77.

Party Politics                                              195

Even so, the statehood contest would finally be cast in partisan terms.

The most deeply committed Jeffersonians, convinced that Federalism

threatened the destruction of the republican system of government,

believed that the Territorial system was an embodiment of Federalist

ideals and had to be overthrown. Even in Cincinnati, then, the Republi-

can Societies were willing to prefer early statehood to an advantageous

division of the Territory.²⁸ Furthermore, the closely-contested Presi-

dential contest of 1800-1801 made partisans consider carefully the effect

that the admission of a new state would have on the fine balance between

the parties; all agreed that Ohio would probably be Republican.²⁹ Since

the Republicans by 1801 had secured control of both the Presidency and

Congress, the most effective tactic of the statehood forces was to

identify their cause with Democratic Republicanism, while their most

intelligent opponents tried to deny that it was a party question. When, in

the 1802 session, the "agents from Chillicothe" influenced the "Democ-

ratic members very strongly in their cause," they were "able to carry

any thing" through Congress, and so gained Congress' authorisation to

call a constitutional convention.³⁰ The campaign which followed was

fought primarily along party rather than sectional lines, with the

Federalists opposing not so much statehood as the terms offered by

Congress. Though on most issues the constitutional convention was

marked by harmony and consensus rather than bitter partisan disagree-

ments, the members were, for the most part, clearly identified as mem-

bers of particular political parties. As one member of the convention

remarked, "though it might not be expected that general politics would

have found their way across the Allegany [sic], yet the line that divides

parties in the States is as distinctly drawn here as there."31

This partisan conflict took place within a political system which was

rapidly becoming remarkably democratic. One sign of this was the

dramatic increase in the number of men voting in the decisive election

campaigns of 1802 and 1803, which were expected to determine the

future political character of the state. In Hamilton County, for example,

six times as many people voted in 1802 as two years earlier, the turnout

being of the order of eighty-three percent of adult white males. Over the

state as a whole, only thirty percent voted for a governor in January

1803, but in the more important race for congressman in the summer,

28. Downes, Frontier Ohio, 239-42. See also "Oration, 4th July 1801, Deld. at Hud-

son," Tappan Papers.

29. Smith, St. Clair, I, 238; Sears, Worthington. 64.

30. Paul Fearing to Cutler, January 18, 1802, reprinted in Cutler,Ephraim Cutler, 61-65.

See also Smith, St. Clair, II, 548, 557-59; Burnet, North-Western Territory, 331, 335-37.

31. Samuel Huntington, Jr., to Turhand Kirtland, December 3, 1802, reprinted in

Zonlin, Perkins, 53-54. See also Gilmore, Tiffin, 34, 68; Cutler, Ephraim Cutler, 68-80.

196                                                        OHIO HISTORY

more than seventy percent went to the polls.³² This surprisingly high

level of turnout reflected, of course, the broadening of the suffrage and

the extension of voting facilities, but it also indicated that the character

of politics was changing with the introduction of democratic, partisan

techniques similar to those developed on the seaboard during the previ-

ous four years.³³

Traditionally, political leaders had depended for electoral success

upon their connections with men of local influence. They had attracted

their support by satisfying their interests and by appointing them to

public office. By these means, and by appealing to the socially dominant

elite in the urban centers, St. Clair had secured reasonably pliable

legislatures, which had given a Federalist cast to the politics of the

Territory. In the "town and neighbourhood" of Cincinnati, that "den of

Aristocracy," the "officers of the colonial government were the monied

men" and bore down the interests of Republicans.³⁴ In eastern Ohio

immediately south of the Western Reserve, Federalist land speculators

and town proprietors were particularly influential, and Federalist vic-

tory there in 1802 was prophesied on the grounds that the governor's

"pets are chiefly in office," which "will give them a greater weight."35

For this reason the opposition campaigned strongly in 1800 and 1801 for

St. Clair's removal by the President; and his ultimate dismissal in

December 1802 was greeted by relief that St. Clair would at last be

"forsaken as he has not the loaves & fishes any longer at his disposal."

But if control of the patronage now passed firmly into Republican hands,

it served to reinforce their political position rather than to establish it,

for in the last resort the Republicans depended upon a broad appeal to

the voters for their electoral success.³⁶

32. Figures for 1802 taken from Downes, Frontier Ohio, 207, 246, and Massie, Massie,

171; and those for 1803 from Utter, Frontier State, 26, 30. In the latter case it was

necessary to work out what proportion of the total population would be adult white males.

Colonial historians traditionally assume the proportion to be about one-fifth, but in frontier

areas the proportion was undoubtedly much higher. Yet the official count of eligibles in

1815 suggested that the true ratio was not far off one in five. To be on the safe side, I have

assumed that two people out of every nine were qualified to vote in Ohio, which was what

Hezekiah Niles worked out the proportion to be in 1823. Niles' Weekly Register, X (June

29, 1816), 299; Ibid., XXV (September 13, 1823), 18.

33. Noble E. Cunningham, The Jeffersonian Republicans: Formation of Party Organi-

zation, 1789-1801 (Chapel Hill, 1957), 144-261.

34. William Goforth to Worthington, August 29, 1803, The Papers of Charles E. Rice

Ohio Historical Society. Smith, St. Clair, I, 242, 11, 538, 575, 442-43, 431-32, 484-85.

35. James Pritchard to Worthington, March 23, 1802, quoted in Downes, Frontier Ohio

217. The influence of Federalists in towns like Steubenville and Canton is suggested by

Heald, Wells, 1-100 passim.

36. John Smith to Massie, January 22, 1803, reprinted in Massie, Massie, 222. Downe

argues (Frontier Ohio, 216-25) that federal patronage played an essential role in building up

the Republican party, yet he does not reveal whether the applications for office which h

refers to were ever successful and he ignores the fact that most removals were made by th

President after the decisive elections of 1802.

Party Politics                                              197

St. Clair, it is true, initially believed that the power of the Chillicothe-

centred opposition arose from the influence which great landowners like

Massie could exert over their tenants and debtors. This was the reason

why he preferred a freehold franchise and advocated the ballot in place

of viva voce voting. But by 1802 he had come to see the enemy, not as

overmighty subjects, but as partisan organization directed at securing

partial interests and endeavoring to mislead the people.³⁷ Politics were,

in truth, becoming marked more by agitation than deference, while envy

of the wealthy and prominent was sometimes exploited against them. As

a large landowner on the Western Reserve complained in 1805, "we

have a singular kind of Republicanism in this County, i.e., that no man

whose property is above mediocrity (and if so much it is very dangerous)

is safe to be trusted."³⁸

The political system was, in fact, becoming dominated by the need to

win popular support, and the wishes of constituents increasingly gov-

erned the behavior of elected representatives. Even under the Territo-

rial government public opinion had made itself felt. Jacob Burnet, for

example, argued that the Territorial Assembly would never have al-

lowed the introduction of slavery in any shape or form, even had it had

the power, because of the "universal" hostility of the people.³⁹ Con-

stituents were able to exercise such power because legislative proceed-

ings were published and, at the request of any member, votes recorded;

Americans had already made what a writer of the Jacksonian era was to

describe as "the'glorious invention' of taking the yeas and nays ... this

strong link between representatives and constituents, and the happy

means of insuring that precious quality among republicans, RESPON-

SIBILITY."⁴⁰ In fact, liberal politicians considered that the representa-

tive was bound to follow the people's wishes. In December 1800 a

Republican committee suggested that, because the issue of statehood

had arisen since the elections to the second Territorial legislature, the

inhabitants of the area east of the Miami line should hold meetings to

decide their attitude toward statehood and then "instruct their represen-

tatives ... to govern themselves accordingly."⁴¹ Before the elections to

the constitutional convention in Ross and Hamilton Counties, candi-

dates were compelled to answer questions publicly defining their at-

37. Smith, St. Clair, 1, 218, II, 482, 505-06, 587-90, 593.

38. Simon Perkins to Benjamin Gorham, September 3, 1805, quoted in Conlin,Perkins,

57.

39. Burnet, North-Western Territory, 306, 332-33.

40. Niles' Weekly Register, XXXIII (January 12, 1828), 316. The Territorial legislature

instructed its delegate in Congress, regularly took the "yeas" and "nays," and issued

addresses to the people; Smith, St. Clair, I, 214, II, 451, 543-47.

41. Smith, St. Clair, II, 524-25, 565.

198                                               OHIO HISTORY

titudes to statehood, slavery, and the Republican party; and those

whose votes in the Convention gave dissatisfaction "lost much credit"

and were even defeated in the subsequent election to the state legisla-

ture.⁴² Consequently, legislative bodies became ever more conscious of

outside opinion, and their members accordingly spent much time "man-

ufacturing speeches . . . to fill the papers for their constituents."⁴³

The critical election of 1802, in which most voters first took their

stand, was marked by demagogic, populistic appeals. The various

candidates began early "to break ground in the electioneering field."

One began "to preach, which is generally a symton [sic] of an election

not being far off." Others took to the "stump," though the phrase was

not used at the time. Chillicothe was reported as "glutted with hand bills

and long tavern harangues." Newspapers published appeals to the

voters, appeals directed to prejudice and passion as much as to reason.⁴⁴

At the same time the parties organized to stimulate voting and coordi-

nate action. In Cincinnati, as early as 1797, Republicans had organized a

committee of correspondence, which by 1802 had spawned seventeen

Republican Societies throughout the county. Each society was called on

to elect delegates to a county nominating convention which met in

August 1802 and named a ticket for the constitutional convention. Such

delegate conventions were, however, called by Republicans only in

counties like Hamilton and Belmont where the result was expected to be

a close run thing.⁴⁵

The Federalists, optimistic about their chances of success in 1802, did

not rely simply on their traditional advantages but also adopted more

populistic measures. Indeed, "the extraordinary exertions" made by

the Federalists in preparation for the 1802 elections were used by the

Republicans as justification for their own organized efforts. Federalists

in Washington County called the first delegate conventions in June 1801

and August 1802; even the second one met in advance of any Republican

convention in the Territory. In addition, they campaigned actively for

popular support, and certainly in Cincinnati and its vicinity they canvas-

sed from door to door. At times they descended to the level of scurrility,

as when they accused leading Republicans of wanting to introduce

slavery into Ohio. Such claims created "hot times about slavery" in

Athens County, where the Federalists, though weak, were said to be

42. Downes, Frontier Ohio, 199, 243, 247; Sears, Worthington, 104. See also Ratcliffe,

"Autobiography of Tappan."

43. Tiffin to Worthington, December 9, 1808, Worthington Papers.

44. Sears, Worthington, 86-87; Ratcliffe, "Autobiography of Tappan"; Smith, St.

Clair, 1, 242, II, 591.

45. Downes, Frontier Ohio, 182, 241-45.

Party Politics                                                       199

"damned saucy."⁴⁶ Furthermore, the Federalists were willing to mod-

ify their political stance in the light of public opinion: in the convention

all but one voted in favor of immediate statehood, almost certainly

because they were "influenced by popular motives."⁴⁷

Moreover, in the constitutional convention the Federalists worked

to establish a reasonably democratic form of government.

Already Federalists in the Territorial Assembly had supported

the extension of the suffrage, while even St. Clair had no objection to

popular participation through the ballot box; his main fear had been that

the Republicans would establish a government which was "democratic

in form and oligarchic in its execution. "⁴⁸ According to Ephraim Cutler,

the Federalist minority in the convention worked to give the constitution

"a strong democratic tendency" and establish a "perfect . . . republican

system, giving . . . complete individual freedom." They not only ap-

proved of the tax-paying suffrage requirements, but even fought to

deprive the governor of his veto and to provide cheap and convenient

justice for the people. Though some Federalist lawyers were sub-

sequently critical of the judicial arrangements, their leaders in the con-

vention were, in general, well pleased with the constitution. They un-

doubtedly differed with the Republicans on a number of issues, but

could not be called enemies of popular rights. Indeed, the Federalists

insisted the constitution should be submitted to the people for their

approval, but this "strictly republican" proposal was turned down by a

Republican majority eager for speedy admission to the Union.⁴⁹

Yet, despite this willingness to organize and campaign and accommo-

date, the Federalists, to their chagrin, found themselves thoroughly

defeated. The Republicans not only secured a four-to-one majority in

the convention but also achieved easy victories in the statewide elec-

46. Massie, Massie, 205-10; Smith, St. Clair, 1,241,242, II, 524, 529, 575, 588: Benton,

ed., "Huntington Letters," 80-81. Andrews, Washington County: Centennial Address,

27; Cutler, Ephraim Cutler, 54, 65-66. It should be stressed that the evidence used by

Fischer (Revolution of American Conservatism, 409) to show the organizational vitality of

the Ohio "Young Federalists," especially Ephraim Cutler, from 1802 through 1814 (so he

implies), is almost all drawn from 1802 rather than from a later period. Cf. Lisle A. Rose,

Prologue to Democracy: The Federalists in the South, 1787-1800 (Lexington, 1968); and

Cunningham, Jeffersonian Republicans, 1789-1801.

47. Jacob Burnet to Cutler, September 26, 1847, quoted in Cutler, Ephraim Cutler,

68-69; Burnet professed there was probably some higher motive, but could not think what

it was. Cutler, who cast the one negative vote, did so not only from personal conviction,

but also to express the views of his constituents.

48. Smith, St. Clair, II, 480; Bond, Foundations, 458-60, 465-66.

49. Cutler, Ephraim Cutler, 68-82, 59; Burnet, North-Western Territory, 356-59;

Downes, Frontier Ohio, 248-49. For an account of the convention stressing Federalist

conservativism, see Barnhart, Valley of Democracy, 152-59. The Federalists opposed the

extension of the suffrage to those who worked on the roads, while they provided firm

support for Negro rights; Ibid., 156-57.

200                                                  OHIO HISTORY

tions for governor and congressman in 1803. Even in Washington

County where the local interests of Marietta had ensured Federalist

success as long as the question of statehood was in doubt, the Republi-

cans succeeded thereafter by a two-to-one margin, at worst.⁵⁰ This

result partly reflects the fact that the process of migration tended, for

some reason, to bring more Republicans to Ohio than Federalists.

Pioneers from Pennsylvania and Kentucky were overwhelmingly Re-

publican, and so, surprisingly, were most New Englanders who came

after about 1799. Certainly the settlers of the Western Reserve were far

more prone to Republicanism than their fellows who stayed in New

England, while farther south a Marietta correspondent told Jefferson in

1801 that "these days there is not an Emigrant from Connecticut within

this county, but what is really a friend to your honor and a true Republi-

can."⁵1 This selective process of migration reinforced a general swing

against the Federalists on the part of previously uninvolved voters

everywhere, including Ohio. "High Federalist" extremism in national

affairs between 1798 and 1800 had identified the party with illiberal and

militaristic measures and, more disastrously, with high direct taxation.

Such policies turned most farming communities outside New England

toward the Republicans, who in 1801 and 1802 had reversed these

policies and established a government devoted to economy.⁵² In addi-

tion, they had rescued the people of Ohio from colonial status and given

them all the advantages of statehood. Those who had brought the state

the blessings of "independence" and full self-government were re-

warded with the continuing trust of the people.

The "Dual" Party System

This overwhelming Republican predominance was the main feature of

party politics in the first decade of Ohio statehood. Recognizing that in

any confrontation they would inevitably lose, the Federalists withdrew

from statewide contests-in other words, from elections for governor,

congressman, and also for presidential electors, since the general ticket

system was adopted from the start. As the Chillicothe Supporter com-

mented in 1809, "the federalists of Ohio not being ignorant that their

opponents outnumber them, I think I may say five to one, never have

made any general effort against their enemy."⁵³ Even at the county level

50. Utter, Frontier State, 26.

51. J. Cook to Jefferson, October 21, 1801, quoted in Fischer, Revolution of American

Conservatism, 218n; Smith, St. Clair, II, 556.

52. Fischer, Revolution of American Conservatism, 201-26; Manning J. Dauer, The

Adams Federalists (Baltimore, 1953).

53. Chillicothe Supporter, December 16, 1809. In the presidential election of 1804 the

Federalists polled only 364 votes. Basic references for this period are Sears, Worthington,

108-202, and Utter, Frontier State, 3-120.

Party Politics                                                   201

they faced defeat and exclusion from local as well as state and federal

office. The inevitable consequence was the withdrawal of Federalists

from politics in 1804 and their growing disillusionment at the political

prospects of the country.⁵⁴ No wonder men suspected Federalists in

Ohio of disloyalty and involvement in Aaron Burr's mysterious enter-

prise.⁵⁵

In these circumstances "party spirit" could not long endure "at its

meridian height" of 1802 and 1803.56 According to a Republican com-

mentator in 1806, "there has for the last two years been no party who

dared to make head against the republicans." As a result, the General

Assembly of that year had "one of the most agreeable sessions ever

experienced in this or any other State as there was not the least appear-

ance of any thing like party during the whole time."⁵⁷ In these cir-

cumstances voter turnout declined considerably in statewide elections,

while strict party voting probably became rarer than it had once been.

Yet this did not mean that party action had ceased or that the party

system was dead, on the contrary, party considerations continued to

dominate Ohio's politics. All that happened was that state political

questions soon began to create a line of partisan cleavage which did not

coincide with the more easily recognizable division arising from national

politics.

For the most part, the dominant Republican party maintained the

organization it had developed in the crisis of statehood. In areas where

the Republicans were easily predominant, as in Ross County, nomina-

tions were made informally by various party gatherings and by in-

terested individuals through newspaper announcements. On the other

hand, county conventions were more widely used than is usually as-

sumed, being the normal method of nomination not only in the Cincin-

nati region but also in many parts of eastern Ohio. Moreover, the

conventions ceased to represent members of the Republican Societies,

and instead were attended by delegates elected by the people in their

various townships at the time announced well in advance by the party

committee at the county seat.⁵⁸

54. Cutler, Ephraim Cutler, 84, 114; Rowena Buell, ed., The Memoirs of Rufus Putnam

(Boston and New York, 1903), 125; Heald, Wells, 45; Mrs. Charles P. Noyes, A Family

History in Letters and Documents (St. Paul, 1919), I, 272.

55. Sloane to Tappan, May 10, 1806, Tappan Papers; Peter Hoffman and Son to Clay,

December 18, 1806, in James F. Hopkins and Mary W.M. Hargreaves, eds., The Papers of

Henry Clay (Lexington, 1959), I, 263-64.

56. Steubenville Western Herald, August 23, 1806.

57. John Sloane to Tappan, January 1, January 30, 1806, Tappan Papers.

58. Cunningham, The Jeffersonian Republicans in Power, 1801-1809 (Chapel Hill,

1963), 196-200, which concentrates on the Cincinnati region. For examples from eastern

Ohio, see Marietta Ohio Gazette, September 18, 1806; Sloane to Worthington, August 20,

October 3, 1808, Worthington Papers; Western Herald, September 20, 1806, September

12, 1807.

202                                                OHIO HISTORY

The strength of political organization in this period was concentrated

primarily at the county level. Poor communications and regional rival-

ries guaranteed that problems of coordination would arise in statewide

elections. From the start the Republicans used legislative caucuses to

nominate candidates for these elections, as the one occasion when

representatives from all over the state had a chance to confer together

and then convey news of the decision back to their counties. The first

caucus was held toward the close of the constitutional convention and,

in effect, chose Edward Tiffin as first governor. At the close of the first

session of the General Assembly, Jeremiah Morrow was named as

congressional candidate "at the earnest solicitation of a large majority of

the republican members." Once it had been agreed "to support him in

the different counties," it was impossible to change the plan without

producing confusion among Republicans and risking the election of a

Federalist.⁵⁹ Morrow succeeded convincingly in 1803 and thereafter he

was regularly re-elected as Ohio's sole congressman down to 1812.

The decisions of the caucus, however, were not always well-

publicized, their authority was frequently questioned, and there was no

central committee authorized to make new nominations should the need

arise. In February 1804 the caucus named three candidates for presiden-

tial elector; in May the Cincinnati corresponding committee treated the

question as still being open to discussion by the various corresponding

societies; and in September the removal of one of the nominees to

Indiana caused great confusion as to who should be supported in his

place.⁶⁰ Frequently the official nomination had to be buttressed by the

publication of reports secured by the corresponding committee as to

whom other counties were intending to support. Thus in September 1806

the Marietta paper eagerly published news from Chillicothe that the

delegates from all the townships in Muskingum County, meeting in

Zanesville, had determined unanimously to support the caucus's

nominee for Congress!⁶¹ This need to confirm that the caucus decision

would be obeyed revealed organizational difficulties, and also the fact

that the lack of Federalist opposition reduced the pressure for common

action and allowed the assertion of local rivalries among the Republi-

cans.

59. Worthington to William Goforth, May 25, 1803, reprinted in American Pioneer, II

(1843), 89.

60. Tiffin to Worthington, February 17, 20, 1804, The Papers of Edward Tiffin, Ohio

Historical Society; David Symmes et al. to Worthington, May 31, 1804, Rice Papers;

Massie, Massie, 230.

61. Marietta Ohio Gazette, September 18, 1806. See also Wyllys Silliman to Worth-

ington, July 29, 1808, Worthington Papers.

Party Politics                                                203

A prime source of confusion arose from Cincinnati's continuing re-

sentment of Chillicothe's claims to political pre-eminence. In 1802 the

strongly organised Hamilton County party sought to secure the first

term as governor for one of their own men; Massie was thought to be

"the only Person (out of the County of Hamilton) who will be able to

command their votes."⁶² Though Tiffin finally secured their support,

they were unwilling to back Morrow for Congress and instead pressed

the claims of their own candidate. Similarly, in both 1804 and 1808 they

asserted a right to name one of the three electoral candidates, regardless

of the caucus's decision, though they were perfectly willing to accept

men they were not entirely happy with as the other two candidates,

"that we may be united on the day of Election throughout the State."⁶³

Marietta also could act independently, and in 1807 Chillicothe Republi-

cans felt that their candidate for governor could succeed only if he first

came to terms with Marietta's leading Republican, Return J. Meigs, Jr.,

especially as "by securing Meigs, we can have the Marietta press."

However, Meigs ran in competition with the Chillicothe candidate, and

in September received the support of the Cincinnati Republican Corres-

ponding Society.⁶⁴ The final contest appears the epitome of personal

and local rivalry, with each side accusing the other of partisan disloyalty

and the legislature ultimately deciding to disallow the election.

Regional resentments prevented unity even in national elections. In

1806, for instance, James Pritchard tried to exploit eastern Ohio's re-

sentment at its exclusion from the great offices in his unsuccessful bid to

contest Morrow's re-election. Similarly, in 1808 "a nomination of

[presidential] electors did not take place while the representatives of the

people were together," because of a disagreement between the Chil-

licothe politicians and those from elsewhere over one of the three

nominees.⁶⁵ At all levels local and personal rivalries tended to disrupt

party unity, and make log-rolling a prime form of political activity. On

the Western Reserve, for example, the dominant question became the

contest over county boundaries and the struggle between Warren and

Youngstown to become the county seat.⁶⁶

Yet out of these petty divisions among Republicans arose what

amounted to a new system of party conflict at the state level. As in New

62. Charles W. Byrd to Massie, May 20, 1802, reprinted in Massie, Massie, 205-06.

63. Daniel Symmes et al. to Worthington, May 31, 1804, Rice Papers; Sloane to

Tappan, October 1, 1808, Tappan Papers.

64. Tiffin to Worthington, February 5, 1807, Worthington Papers; Western Herald,

September 12, 1807. Meigs was regarded at this time as a sound regular Republican.

65. Western Herald, August 23, 1806; Worthington to Huntington, July 29, 1808, in

Benton, ed., "Huntington Correspondence," 121-22, 124.

66. Chillicothe Supporter, January 26, 1809; Conlin, Perkins, 55-59; Tappan to Nancy

Tappan, October 6, 1806, Tappan Papers.

204                                                     OHIO HISTORY

York and Pennsylvania, and at Washington, those Republicans who

were dissatisfied with the party's leadership began to be identified as a

coherent group dubbed "Quids." These men were considered to be

willing, for the sake of office, to divide the Republican interest and co-

operate with Federalists, thus risking everything gained by the victory of

1800.67 The existence of such a group was demonstrated at Chillicothe in

January 1807 when a "rank Federalist," Philemon Beecher, received

one-third of the votes cast by the assembly in an election to the United

States Senate, while a prominent moderate Republican was nominated

for the governorship by a caucus of Federalists and "Mongrel Republi-

cans."⁶⁸ Though only a handful of politicians were considered true

Quids-only five or six in the Assembly of 1807-1808-their amalgama-

tion with Federalists and their willingness to exploit dissatisfactions

made them a potentially dangerous force.⁶⁹ At last in 1808 the statewide

elections were seen as a contest between a true Republican and an

amalgamationist ticket for governor and congressman. Both the Quid

candidates tried to pass as friendly to Republicanism, but the known

Federalist failed for Congress while the Quid candidate to whom all paid

lip-service as a Republican, Samuel Huntington, was elected governor.

There was no doubt that his leading opponents were correct in consider-

ing Huntington the preferred candidate of the Federalists, who were

much gratified by his success.⁷⁰ The appearance of this hard-fought

gubernational campaign, which saw the number of votes cast double

over the election of 1807, rather contradicts Nathaniel Macon's earlier

belief that party contests as regards state affairs occur usually only

where the governor is allowed much power.71

If this breach within the Ohio Republican party arose as much from

personality as from principle, it aroused so much passion and interest

because it quickly became involved in a dispute over fundamental

issues. As Richard Ellis has argued, neither the Revolution nor the

Jeffersonian victory of 1800 had settled the difficult question of the role

67. Sloane to Tappan, October 1, November 13, 1808, Tappan Papers; Massie, Massie,

233-34.

68. Tiffin to Worthington, January 3, 6, 25, February 5, 1807; Silliman to Worthington,

January 6, 1807, Worthington Papers. The moderate was Massie, who certainly received

Federalist support in the election. Massie, Massie, 248.

69. Sloane to Tappan, January 25, October 1, 1808, Tappan Papers.

70. Sloane to Worthington, July 7, August 6, October 3, November 13, 1808, Silliman to

Worthington, July 29, 1808, Tiffin to Worthington, December 2, 9, 1808, Tappan to

Worthington, September 15, 1808, Worthington Papers; Sloane to Tappan, July 11, 1808,

Tappan Papers; James Hedges to J. H. Larwill, October 26, 1808, The Larwill Family

Papers, Ohio Historical Society; Huntington to Burnet, October 30, 1808, Rice Papers.

71. See Macon's letter of 1802 to Worthington, in Utter, Frontier State, 17-18, 48. Of

course, a stronger executive would have been more worth winning and so would have

encouraged fuller party organization.

Party Politics                                              205

and power of the judiciary in a republican society. In Ohio as in many

other states, much popular hostility endured against lawyers and a legal

system which seemed designed to boost professional fees rather than

secure justice and individual rights. The popular demand for cheap

justice in civil cases had been voiced in territorial days and had been met

by repeated extensions of the power of justices of the peace to hear cases

for the recovery of debts in their local courts, where decisions would be

quick and expenses low. Initially their power had been restricted to

debts below ten dollars; the level had been gradually raised during the

1790s; and the state legislature met popular demands by further raising

the level to fifty dollars in 1804, and even seventy dollars in 1809. But the

justices' decisions were often amateurish and certainly arbitrary, being

made without a jury, while the United States Constitution, ever con-

scious of the need to safeguard property, had forbidden trials without

jury in cases involving debts greater than twenty dollars. Accordingly,

in 1806 an Ohio state judge, Calvin Pease, declared the fifty-dollar law

unconstitutional, and, in so doing, made a claim to the right of judicial

review identical to John Marshall's innovative claim in the famous

Marbury vs. Madison decision in the United States Supreme Court in

1803.72

Such a claim offended many of the more extreme Republicans who

believed in the right of the people to political supremacy. Indeed, so

convinced were many politicians that this principle was what the party

stood for that they preferred to refer to themselves as "Democrats" and

to their constituency as "the Democracy." Before statehood a meeting

on the Western Reserve had lectured St. Clair on the duty of even a

Territorial governor to accept nominations made by popular meetings;

immediately after statehood the officers of the Hamilton County artil-

lery company, who had been appointed under the Territorial govern-

ment, resigned their posts and requested elections, because these good

republicans felt "impressed, that in all civil governments, particularly in

a republic like ours, the people ought to enjoy the privilege of appointing

their own officers." On exactly these grounds the Democrats justified

the use of delegate conventions for deciding party nominations: they

were the most appropriate means by which to "procure the sense of the

people" and "the will of the Populous [sic]."⁷³ From this arose the

72. For this issue nationally, see Ellis, Jeffersonian Crisis; and, locally, William T.

Jtter, "Judicial Review in Early Ohio," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XIV

1927), 3-24; and Idem, "Ohio and the English Common Law," Ibid., XVI (1929), 321-33.

for origins of the issue in Ohio, see Burnet, North-Western Territory, 311; Smith, St.

Clair, I, 191, II, 506; Downes, Frontier Ohio, 155-62.

73. Ratcliffe, "Autobiography of Tappan"; William McFarland et al. to Tiffin, June 20,

803, Tiffin Papers; Daniel Symmes et al. to Worthington,

206                                                     OHIO HISTORY

belief that the people's representatives were the supreme power in the

state and the only possible interpreters of a constitution established

through popular sovereignty. Hence Democrats were unwilling to ac-

cept that laws passed by the people's legislature could be declared

unconstitutional by "the Judiciary, [that] dictatorial court of infallibili-

ty, whose decision is paramount to [the] voice of the great mass of the

people and their constituent sages." They feared lest "the majesty of the

people . . . be dethroned and prostrated at the feet of our judges."⁷⁴

Not all Republicans agreed, however. A number of them believed that

Pease's nullifying of "a favorite law of many" was erroneous as a

decision, but legitimate as an exercise of judicial power. The House of

Representatives in 1807 divided evenly on the question of whether the

judiciary had absolute discretion in declaring laws unconstitutional.⁷⁵

Then, later in the year, the state Supreme Court itself nullified the

fifty-dollar law and so brought forth a newspaper controversy and a

stream of popular protests from the "upper and middle" parts of the

state. In the assembly of 1808 "the question relative to the unwarrant-

able conduct of the Judges was one that was more warmly contested than

any that has ever come before the legislature." Now the two houses

disagreed.⁷⁶ By the following session the Democratic faction gained a

majority which they used to impeach the erring judges, but the im-

peachment failed narrowly to gain the necessary two-thirds vote in the

Senate. The frustrated Democratic leaders, therefore, decided to use an

ambiguity in the state constitution to declare-by a simple majority-

that the terms of office of all appointive state officers had expired, and

then elected new Judges who possessed a proper sense of their own

subservience to the will of the people.⁷⁷ So arbitrary appeared this

Sweeping Resolution of 1810 that its opponents promised that "every

exertion will be used to produce a change in the sentiment of representa-

tions next session."⁷⁸ In many counties the old judges refused to with-

draw, the authority of new judges was resisted, and "the whole state

was thrown into utter confusion for a time."⁷⁹

74. Ephraim Quinby to Worthington, December 24, 1808, Worthington Papers; Sloane

to Tappan, September 4, 1807, Tappan Papers.

75. Tiffin to Worthington, January 3, 9, 1807, Worthington Papers. For this whole

paragraph, see Utter, "Judicial Review," 8-9, 12-15, 18, 22-24.

76. Sloane to Tappan, January 25, 1808, Tappan Papers.

77. Stephen Wood to Brown, January 6, 1809, The Papers of Ethan Allen Brown, Ohio

Historical Society; Ratcliffe, "Autobiography of Tappan."

78. John Thompson to J. H. Larwill, June 5, 1810, The Larwill Family Papers, Wester

Historical Manuscript Collections, University of Missouri.

79. Caleb Atwater, History of Ohio, Natural and Civil (Cincinnati, 1838), 185. See als

John W. Campbell, Biographical Sketches, With Other Literary Remains (Columbus

1838), 70-71; David Griffin to Samuel Williams, June 22, 1811, The Records of th

Ohio Historical Society.

Party Politics                                              207

This dispute quickly became identified with the growing cleavage

between the "regulars" and the "amalgamationists," though some indi-

viduals found themselves forced to change sides by the raising of the

issue. Even the 1807 gubernational election had a bearing on the dispute,

since the supposed Quid candidate had been one of the first to protest

against unconstitutional legislation, while in 1808 the successful Quid

candidate, Huntington, was himself one of the offending judges. In some

areas to oppose Huntington meant incurring "the displeasure of the high

Court party . . . and their sycophantic gentry."⁸⁰ And in the county

elections there was "a very great political struggle this fall: 'Law or no

Law,' 'Lawyer or no lawyer.' "81 The "Democratic" Republicans

found their popular support mainly among the debtor interest, long a

politically significant force, especially in Ohio where, before 1820, most

land was bought on credit. The "Judge Killers" also won support in the

middle counties settled by Virginians and Kentuckians, and in eastern

Ohio where there was "much of the Democracy of Pennsylvania," a

state which was experiencing similar contests. The conservative cause

probably suffered from the support it received from lawyers, since they

were considered interested parties, but it apparently appealed strongly

to settlers from New England, almost regardless of their politics. Most

Federalists, in fact, felt that the radicals were placing "the controversy

upon such grounds as left them no alternative but to oppose them," and

it was their intervention which probably gave the conservative side the

advantage in the elections of 1810 and 1811.82

Worried by the threats to their position, the Democratic leadership

reinvigorated, indeed rebuilt, their political machine. The Sweeping

Resolution threw open all the civil offices subject to legislative appoint-

ment, including the county courts, and enabled the regulars to put sound

men in positions of influence. In addition, Tammany Societies were

established in 1810, on the New York and Philadelphia pattern, to

provide a close bond of fraternity and co-operation for "citizens of

known attachment to the political rights of human nature." Their object

was "to make nominations and control elections. The elements of their

doings were secrecy and concert; and to insure the fidelity of members,

80. Sloane to Tappan, September 4, 1807, Tappan Papers; Ephraim Quinby to Worth-

ngton, December 24, 1808, Tappan to Worthington, September 15, 1808, Worthington

Papers.

81. John Thompson to J. H. Larwill, September 27, 1808, Larwill Family Papers,

University of Missouri.

82. Chillicothe Supporter, August 11, 1810; Campbell, Biographical Sketches, 70-71;

Conlin, Perkins, 58-59. See also Utter, "Judicial Review," 12, 13, 20-21, 24; and Ellis,

effersonian Crisis, 250-66.

208                                                      OHIO HISTORY

the obligations of an oath were imposed."⁸³ Besides working to ensure

the nomination and election of genuine Democratic Republicans, the

Tammany Society at the state capital also endeavored to keep the

legislature on the straight and narrow. Too often new representatives

had been misled in the early days of a session by designing "pretended

Republicans." Tammany, therefore, operated as a means of influencing

legislators elected in 1810 in those counties where the Sweeping Resolu-

tion had not been the critical issue, with the result that the attempts, in

the assembly of 1810-1811, to rescind the Sweeping Resolution were all

defeated.⁸⁴ Then in 1811, in order to strengthen the supporters of the

government "of this state as now administered," leading Democrats at

Zanesville, the temporary state capital, proposed the establishment of a

state newspaper to harmonize and unite the Democratic Republicans

and "GIVE A TONE TO OTHER REPUBLICAN PAPERS."⁸⁵

The Democrats were, in fact, attempting to preserve their position by

exercising control over the established party machinery and asserting

the duty of all Republicans to support regular nominations. They were

trying to use national party loyalties to gain factional advantage on a

local issue. As a consequence, the breach in the party induced many

Republicans to refuse to submit to party dictation, and they set them-

selves up as "Independent Republicans." Sometimes the authority of

delegate nominations was challenged; sometimes the factions struggled

to control the county convention, with the disappointed faction rejecting

the nomination and making an alternative one, sometimes by means of a

second convention. Even the "Independent Republicans" at times put

forward a full ticket containing anti-Tammany candidates for the most

minor county offices. If anything, voter interest now revived, with about

one eligible voter in three usually attending the polls.⁸⁶

83. "Constitution of the Tammany Society or Columbian Order," March 1810, Records

of the Tammany Society of Ohio; Campbell, Biographical Sketches, 71. For Tammany's

fortunes in Ohio, see Samuel W. Williams, "The Tammany Society in Ohio," Ohio Stats

Archaeological And Historical Publications, XXII (1913), 349-70, and William T. Utter

"St. Tammany in Ohio: A Study In Frontier Politics," Mississippi Valley Historica

Review, XV (1928), 321-40. The society's "Jacobinism" is perhaps demonstrated by it

dropping of the Christian calendar: its constitution is dated "Month of Worms, the year o

discovery 318," i.e. March 1810.

84. Sloane to Tappan, January 25, 1808, Tappan Papers; Utter, Frontier State, 59.

85. Political broadside signed by Isaac Van Horne et al., Zanesville, July 8, 1811, Ohi

Historical Society. For the Zanesville Tammany men's attempt to prevent the election

"disaffected men" in 1810, see Zanesville Express, August 3, 1815.

86. Lebanon Western Star, September 29, October 13, 1810; John F. Edgar, Pionee

Life in Dayton and Vicinity, 1796-1840 (Dayton, 1896), 92, 141, 148-49; Cunningham

Jeffersonian Republicans in Power, 198. It is difficult to assess voter turnout before 18

because of the lack of reliable estimates of the size of population. In addition, the on

which never in itself

Party Politics                                                    209

The rightfulness of party organization now tended to replace the

judicial question as the leading issue of the day. Party managers were

denounced as "aristocrats" endeavoring to control the votes of the

people, while "Independent Republicans" proclaimed the virtue of

allowing the people a free choice without "the few dictating to the

many"-a doctrine which naturally encouraged Federalist support.⁸⁷ In

particular, this campaign was directed against the Tammany Societies,

which were widely denounced as "secret, midnight, aristocratic-

political institutions." The "persecuting storms" which raged against

this secret organization, with its secrecy, rationalism and pseudo-Indian

ritual, are, in fact, reminiscent of the crusade against Freemasonry

twenty years later. By 1811 this controversy dominated the state politi-

cal scene. As a Chillicothe conservative reported in June:

the middle and western part of the State is in an uproar in opposition to the

Tammany Society. The establishment of this institution has produced more

warmth and division than anything that has occurred since the organization of

the State Government. The fears of the people have been justly excited against

this Infernal institution .... The Tammany scenes that were acted last winter

have been laid open to the people and justly exposed. Many good men that have

drawn into the institution are abandoning it. .. .The only names of distinction

now used are "Tammany & Anti Tammany."88

Faced by this popular revolt, the Democrats tried to defend "the new

order of things." They warned that "the opposition to the Tammany

Society originates from a concealed plan to pull down the leading Demo-

cratic Republicans, and with their seventy dollar law to rescind the

resolution, and give judges the unlimited right to set aside law."⁸⁹ The

current of popular feeling could not, however, be stayed. After a close

legislative contest, the Sweeping Resolution was repealed in January

1812, with men who were eager for popular support in the Congressional

elections shifting conspicuously to the opposition. The Democratic or

Tammany regulars had lost complete control of the state to their amal-

gamationist foes, and their radical constitutional doctrines never again

attracted much interest. In 1808, however, the governor began to be elected in the same

poll as the congressman and county officers, with the result that his election began to

reflect the interest provoked by contests for the other offices. My generalization is based

on county returns for the gubernational elections of 1808 and 1810, with the number of

eligibles being assessed as 2/9ths of the county populations reported in the census of 1810.

See n. 32.

87. Muskingum Messenger, September 4, 1811.

88. William Creighton, Jr., to George Tod, June 2, 1811, Benton, ed., "Huntington

Correspondence," 157-58. Opposition was particularly embittered in the Chillicothe and

Cincinnati regions; see John Hamm to Brown, June 7, 1811, Brown Papers; items for 1811

in Records of the Tammany Society of Ohio; and n. 99.

89. Chillicothe Scioto Gazette, July 10, 1811.

210                                                       OHIO HISTORY

held sway in Ohio.⁹⁰ The regulars quickly dropped the issue, apparently

because of their concern to maintain party unity during the war against

Britain. In 1814, for example, Tammany men in Cincinnati publicized

their desire "to harmonize the Republicans of the state generally" over

the coming gubernational election by supporting the most widely ac-

ceptable man. Yet the cleavage in the party still survived, and some

Tammany Societies persisted, until at least 1819 in Cincinnati and 1821

in Butler County.91 In Coshocton County the local elections of 1814

were fought between Tammany and the opponents of "the Great Coun-

cil Fire." In neighboring Muskingum County, the war years were

marked by a continuing internal conflict between the champions of

"regularity" and the amalgamationist protagonists of "indepen-

dence."⁹² If statewide politics were no longer a contest between two

"state parties," the Republicans were clearly still far from united upon

local questions.

Indeed, for some time leading radical Republicans had feared that the

conflict at the state level would undermine Ohio's Republicanism on

national questions. After all, in 1808 Huntington's supporters were

associated with a Federalist candidate for Congress and with opposition

to Madison's presidential candidacy; for a time some Republicans

feared that the confusion surrounding their party's electoral nomination

might enable Federalists and dissidents to secure one of Ohio's electoral

votes for Madison's rivals. However, public sentiment made such a

result unlikely. Huntington himself supported Madison and all the mea-

sures of the administration, including the Embargo, while at least some

supporters of Monroe and Clinton, when they found "what public

sentiment is," were "very noisy for Madison."⁹³ Again in 1812 a Demo-

cratic leader feared that opposition to the Sweeping Resolution "will

eventually give the Federalists an ascendancy in the Election of Mem-

bers to Congress. My principle [sic] ground of hope, however, is that in

90. See letters from Zanesville to Worthington, December 1811, January 1812, Worth-

ington Papers; Ratcliffe, "Autobiography of Tappan."

91. Daniel Symmes et al., "Circular," Cincinnati, August 11, 1814, political broadside,

Ohio Historical Society. Items relating to the Cincinnati society, 1810-1819, are in the

Records of the Tammany Society of Ohio. For Butler County, see "Friends To Liberty,"

September 24, 1821, political broadside, Ohio Historical Society.

92. C. Johnston to Jeremiah McLene, October 13, 1814, The Papers of Othniel Looker,

Ohio Historical Society; Zanesville Express, 1812-1815, and Messenger, 1813-1815. The

returns for the election of 1814 in Muskingum reveal a relatively high degree of ticket

voting; Messenger, October 19, 1814. In the state legislature the factions still struggled to

elect U.S. Senators. Van Home et al. to Brown, December 7, 1814, Brown Papers.

93. Benton, ed., "Huntington Correspondence," 121-24, 134-35; Silliman to Worth-

ington, July 29, 1808; Sloane to Worthington, August 6, October 3, 1808, Worthington

Paners: Sloane to Tappan, July 11, October 1, 1808, Tappan Papers.

Party Politics                                                  211

the selection of Candidates, they and the Quids may split." In order to

promote this end the Democrats introduced a loyal address to the

President, which, however, failed to divide their opponents since even

supposed Federalists decided to vote for it. 94 The Federalists and Quids

clearly recognized that the overwhelming majority of Ohioans remained

loyal to the national Republican administration, and that nothing could

destroy that allegiance on national issues. Significantly, in the presiden-

tial election of 1812 each "state party" named its own electoral ticket

pledged to Madison; the voters, while for the most part rejecting Tam-

many candidates for other offices, overwhelmingly preferred the ticket

offered by the "regulars," for their loyalty to the administration could

not be impugned. Clearly, however much Ohio Republicans had divided

over matters of political organization and governmental powers, most of

them still agreed on national questions and regarded themselves as

members of the same party. In other words, Ohio possessed that surpris-

ingly common American phenomenon, a "dual" party system.⁹⁵

The Federalist Revival

But what stood in the way of a fuller and more complete reconciliation

between "Quids" and "Feds"? What prevented the absorption of the

Federalist minority into the two Republican "state parties"? It was not

merely the prejudice of the Republicans, as Homer C. Hockett

suggested; for the Republicans on both sides were willing to welcome

apostates from Federalism and even place them at the head of their

tickets.⁹⁶ The truth was that most Federalists, especially at the grass-

roots, refused to be absorbed, feeling ever more certain that the disas-

trous policies of the Republicans must be opposed. Indeed, Federalism,

as David H. Fischer has demonstrated, was undergoing a considerable

revival in Eastern states after 1807 and seemed capable even of threaten-

ing Republican predominance nationally.⁹⁷ This revival served not

merely to buoy Federalist hopes in Ohio, but also to teach Republicans

the danger of risking Federalist success in national elections.

94. Van Home to Worthington, January 4, March 11, 1812, John Hamm to Worth-

ington, December 2, 1811, Worthington Papers.

95. The term is borrowed from Richard P. McCormick, The Second American Party

System: Party Formation in Jacksonian Era (Chapel Hill, 1966), 11, though he considers

"no-party" to be a better description of politics in Ohio before 1824. Ibid., 257-61.

96. Homer C. Hockett, Western Influences on Political Parties (Columbus, 1917), 62.

For typical comments on the Republican reception of apostates, who included John Stark

Edwards, Ebenezer Buckingham, Jr., and William Woodbridge, see Zanesville Express,

February 16, August 3, 1814, October 5, 1815.

97. Fischer, Revolution of American Conservatism; Sloane to Worthington, July 7,

1808, Jeremiah Morrow to Worthington, January 16, 1810, Worthington Papers.

212                                                     OHIO HISTORY

Even in Ohio Federalism was becoming conspicuously more active.

In 1807 and 1808 newspapers were established in Marietta and Chil-

licothe which were frankly Federalist in sentiment, and although the

former soon collapsed, it was quickly replaced by Caleb Emerson's

embittered Western Spectator, which for over two years (1810-1813)

was the only paper published in Marietta. After 1812 at least three more

Federalist prints appeared, at Franklinton, Zanesville, and St. Clairs-

ville. The last was the most formidable of all, the Ohio Federalist, edited

by the talented Charles Hammond, whose command of the language of

argument and abuse made him a cruel enemy and formidable critic of the

administration and its policies. Such papers were, in fact, innovative in

that they contained more editorial comment than was customary.⁹⁸ As

Federalists became more vociferous, so they became passionately in-

tolerant, even in religious and social matters. Republican devotees of St.

Tammany were ejected from the Methodist Church in Chillicothe, while

in Steubenville Federalist ladies refused for a whole year to call on a

newly-arrived lady of means and accomplishment who happened to be

married to a Republican.^"99

Contemporaries had no doubt that this Federalist revival derived from

discontent with the policies of the national administration. Intelligent

Republicans bemoaned the fact that patriotism had declined since the

Revolution, for men were unwilling to undergo the material deprivations

necessary in order to preserve the country's independence of foreign

tyrants; in other words, the administration's attempt to exert diplomatic

pressure by means of the Embargo had produced a politically dangerous

degree of economic suffering.¹⁰⁰ Marietta, for example, had developed

since 1801 an important ship-building industry, which produced ships

even for the Mediterranean trade. According to a distinguished local

Republican and historian, the restrictions on overseas commerce after

1807 ended ship-building, rope walks, and hemp growing. "Town prop-

erty, as well as farms, sunk in value; a stop was put to improvements in

98. Information, not altogether accurate, may be found on these newspapers in Utter,

Frontier State, 37, 98-100; Osman C. Hooper, History of Ohio Journalism, 1793-1933

(Columbus, 1933), 24-46; Arthur S. Mink, Union List of Ohio Newspapers Available in

Ohio (Columbus, 1946). See also extant original copies, and Marietta Register, May 15,

June 12, October 30, 1863. For Hammond, see Francis P. Weisenburger, "Charles

Hammond, the First Great Journalist of the Old Northwest," Ohio State Archaeological

and Historical Quarterly, XLIII (1934), 344-48. Fischer, Revolution of American Conser-

vatism, 409, errs in describing David Everett, who founded the Marietta American Friend

in 1813, as a Federalist. He had previously edited the Boston Yankee and Pilot and was

firmly Republican. Zanesville Express, April 21, 28, 1813; American Friend, April 24,

1813.

99. Muskingum Messenger, September 4, 1811; Samuel W. Williams, Sketches of Early

Methodism in Ohio (Cincinnati, 1909), 187-214; Ratcliffe, "Autobiography of Tappan."

100. Silliman to Worthington, July 29, 1808, Worthington Papers.

Party Politics                                                       213

building and Marietta . . . retrograded as fast as it had ever advanced."¹⁰¹

The local Republican press supported government policies, and Repub-

lican candidates suffered. The Federalists came within a whisker of

carrying the county in 1811, and, in a special election for state senator in

December 1814, they actually did so.¹⁰²

Dissatisfaction with the conduct of foreign relations became even

more pronounced in southeastern Ohio with the outbreak of war in 1812.

In some counties in this area local Republican politicians feared

that the departure of volunteers-almost certainly Republican-would

jeopardize continued party success; hence some Federalists claimed

that the authorities resorted to the draft in order to remove Federalist

voters as well. 1⁰³ Antagonism to the war was most pronounced in areas

settled by Quakers; traditionally Federalist when not apathetic, the

Quakers had been willing to support Republican attempts to preserve

peace.¹⁰⁴ Once war broke out and the General Assembly refused to

allow Quakers exemption from military duty, they opposed the war,

refused to serve, and became Federalists "as a matter of course." 1⁰⁵ In

Belmont and Jefferson Counties Quaker votes elected Federalist rep-

resentatives to the Assembly, where they protested vigorously against

the war. 1⁰⁶ As late as 1816, the Federalists in Jefferson were considered

unusually heated, while in Belmont they were still "as a party" running

their own candidates for the legislature-and winning.¹⁰⁷

The Federalist revival was most obvious not only in the Quaker areas,

but also in those communities settled by orthodox New Englanders.

Places like Granville, Putnam, and parts of Franklin County were all

marked by acute opposition to the Republicans, whereas the more

heterodox and less developed settlements of New Englanders on the

101. Samuel P. Hildreth, Genealogical and Biographical Sketches of the Hildreth

Family, 1652-1840 [Marietta, c. 1911], 191-97; Andrews, Washington County: Centennial

Address, 64.

102. Marietta Ohio Gazette, March 14, May 11, June 16, 23, 1808. In 1811 the Federalist

candidate for the House lost the county by 20 votes; the candidate for the Senate carried it

413-346, but ran 107 votes behind in the associated Athens County. In the regular elections

of 1813 and 1814 Federalists ran less well, taking about 42% of the vote. Marietta Register,

June 12, 1863, and American Friend, October 30, 1813, October 22, 1814. For the special

election, see Zanesville Express, January 5, 1815.

103. History of Washington County, Ohio (Cleveland, 1881), 133-34. See also Marietta

Western Spectator, May 12, 1813; Nahum Ward to Caleb Emerson, April 11, 1814, The

Caleb Emerson Family Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society.

104. Sloane to Worthington, August 6, 1808, Worthington Papers.

105. William Cooper Howells, Recollections of Life In Ohio, 1813-1840 (Cincinnati,

1895), 17, 33-34; Conlin, Perkins, 77; Zanesville Express, January 6, 1813; Ohio General

Assembly, Senate Journal, 1812-1813, 187-90.

106. Senate Journal, 1813-1814, 340-44; Utter, Frontier State, 113.

107. Hammond to John C. Wright, September 19, 1816, The Papers of Charles Ham-

mond, Ohio Historical Society; Steubenville Western Herald, September 20, 1816.

214                                                         OHIO HISTORY

Western Reserve remained loyal to the administration.¹⁰⁸ Throughout

eastern Ohio south of the Reserve the Federalists began to become more

active and so revitalized the party system. As early as the presidential

election of 1808, Federalists there turned out better than Republicans

and seemed well-drilled in how to vote in order to deprive Madison of an

electoral vote.¹⁰⁹ Their support was angled for by dissident Republi-

cans, as in Coshocton in 1812,110 and they no doubt helped to produce

the statewide "amalgamationist" successes of 1808-1812. But more

significant was their willingness to run their own candidates in local

elections, for this aroused the Republicans to coordinated efforts and

revived party conflict like that of 1802-1803. In Washington County, for

instance, there was a series of strict party contests which lasted from at

least 1811 until 1815. Each party named a full party ticket, which was

voted for with the strictest regularity on both sides.111 In those eastern

counties where Federalists threatened success, voter turnout now pas-

sed the fifty percent level and even rose past seventy percent, a level

maintained as late as 1816. Indeed, bitter partisan feeling continued

briefly after the war, with both parties striving to establish strictly

partisan newspapers, especially at Columbus, the new state capital.

Further, after the July Fourth celebration in Zanesville in 1815, some

drunken Republicans fired a cannon loaded with rocks at the Federalist

celebration across the river in Putnam.11³

The Federalists of eastern Ohio even tried to capture a congressional

seat during the war. The reapportionment of 1812 had increased Ohio's

congressional representation from one to six, and the Assembly decided

108. Henry Bushnell, The History of Granville, Licking County, Ohio (Columbus,

1889), 12; Norris F. Schneider, Y-Bridge City (Cleveland, 1950), 48-49, 59, 65, 70, 178;

Utter, Frontier State, 113; Conlin, Perkins, 90-94,99. Elections on the Reserve at this time

were marked by local preferences rather than partisan or ticket voting. Poll books for

Ashtabula County, October 1813, Vertical File Material, Ohio Historical Society.

109. Sloane to Worthington, November 13, 1808, Tappan to Worthington, September

15, 1808, Worthington Papers.

110. William Craig to James Pritchard, September 8, 1812, Tappan Papers.

111. Marietta American Friend, October 30, 1813, October 22, 1814.

112. Voting figures have been taken from newspapers and also, in the case of guber-

natorial elections, from the General Assembly journals. Turnouts for 1815 and 1816 were

assessed on the basis of the census of adult white males carried out in 1815 to 1816. The

number of eligibles for 1810 was assessed on the basis of 2/9ths of the population in each

county, as revealed in the census of 1810. A constant rate of increase in the population was

assumed in order to estimate the number of eligibles in any intervening year. See n. 32.

113. Zanesville Express, July 13,27, August 10, 1815; Messenger, March 29, 1815. The

Western Herald at Steubenville was revitalized under James Wilson in 1815, and the Ohio

Monitor was established at Columbus by David Smith in 1816. These Republican succes-

ses were countered by the establishment of a moderate Federalist press at Canton, the

Ohio Repository, and by an abortive attempt to set up a paper called the Columbian

Gazette at the new state capital. Express, April 20, 1815.

Party Politics                                             215

to elect these congressmen by districts rather than by general ticket.

This decision immediately encouraged Federalist ambitions in the dis-

trict stretching from Steubenville through the Quaker regions to

Coshocton and Zanesville. Yet both parties were embarrassed by a

sectional conflict within the district over the routing of the National

Road: the northern area wished the Road to strike the Ohio River

opposite Steubenville, while the southern portion, from St. Clairsville to

Zanesville, preferred Wheeling. In 1812 and 1814 the Federalists nomi-

nated the distinguished Bezaleel Wells of Steubenville, who received

much support in both northern and southern parts of the district. The

Republicans, even in the Steubenville region, supported the official

nominee, James Caldwell, who was identified with southern interests,

although Republican candidates from Steubenville had offered to run.

Standing united, the Republicans carried the day on both occasions, and

it is significant that in 1812 this was the only congressional election in

which the party as a whole accepted Tammany leadership; as in the

presidential contest, Federalist opposition strengthened the hand of the

regulars. This willingness to ignore local interest and accept official

party nominations offers the best proof of the force of the national party

division in eastern Ohio during the War of 1812. Partly as a result of it,

the National Road was built to Wheeling, and Steubenville Republicans

found they had made "a great sacrifice at the altar of party."¹¹⁴

In this struggle of the old parties, Republican nominating machinery

regained, or preserved, much of its prestige and authority. Throughout

eastern Ohio south of the Reserve delegate conventions were regularly

summoned, and their nominations were well supported wherever the

Federalist threat seemed serious. Even after 1816 delegate conventions

continued to be called in several of these counties, and, if their nomina-

tions were less consistently supported as time went on, politicians

clearly felt that the traditional machinery had an authority which influ-

enced the voting behavior of many loyalists. Indeed, during this decade

local conventions began to be almost as fully developed as ever in the

Jacksonian period. In 1812 the first Congressional district convention

was called. In 1812 the district convention's authority was accepted,

though in 1816 it failed to hold the party together in the face of sectional

strains. Moreover, in both district and county conventions, seats and

votes began to be allotted according to the size of population in each

constituent unit. Such means ensured that the people's will could be

114. Western Herald, September 20, 1816. See also letters of August and September,

1812, Tappan Papers; Zanesville Express, September28, 1814, April 11, 1816; Messenger,

October 5, 26, 1814.

216                                                     OHIO HISTORY

accurately determined, and that the people's votes could be concen-

trated behind the candidate most acceptable to the "democracy."115

By 1816 some Democrats even began to consider the desirability of

using delegate conventions to nominate presidential candidates. Fol-

lowers of the doctrinaire Pennsylvanian William Duane argued that

caucuses ought never to make a nomination, since all nominations

should directly represent the popular will. Congressional caucuses were

particularly objectionable, since the nomination was tantamount to

election and congressmen were not only often directly interested but

also far removed from their constituents. When the Steubenville news-

paper argued on these lines, it was shrewdly answered by the "regular"

argument that not only was party integrity the prime consideration, but a

national convention might be no freer from objections:

The mode of nominating a candidate by the Republicans in Congress I have

thought (if not the least exceptionable) the least inconvenient to them as a party;

and I may add, the most likely to meet the public sentiment-for if we should

adopt the mode of sending delegates from each state for the express purpose, the

inattention of some, and the intrigues of others, would be more likely to excite

irritation & scism [sic], and consequently less liable to meet the public opin-

ion.116

For the time being, national conventions were no doubt difficult to

organize because of transportation difficulties, yet there could be no

doubt that the dictation of the congressional caucus was now widely

regarded "with a kind of sullen and silent contempt." In 1816 it was

tolerated, so some said, because it had merely confirmed the favorite

choice of the people. As one commentator said after the 1816 election,

"the caucus business is now in its last stage. I do not believe our next

President will be nominated by a caucus."¹¹⁷

If the Ohio Republicans were on the point of fully realizing the party

institutions of the Jacksonian period, the Federalists of the war years

found themselves in an ambivalent situation. Cooperation with Republi-

can amalgamators usually required the denunciation of party proce-

dures. Hence they preferred to nominate their candidates in private

meetings rather than use delegate conventions. Yet, whenever success

115. Hammond to J. C. Wright, September 19, 1816, Hammond Papers; Western

Herald, September 20, 1816. The organization of conventions and their theoretical justifi-

cation is fully revealed in the Muskingum Messenger and Western Herald during the

campaigns of 1816, 1817, and, to a lesser degree, 1818.

116. Van Horne to Tappan, February 16, 1816, Tappan Papers. See also Western

Herald, May 10, 31, July 5, 1816, for Republican criticism of the caucus; and Zanesville

Express, January 25, 1815.

117. St. Clairsville Ohio Federalist, December 12, 1816; Muskingum Messenger, April

17, June 13, 1816.

Party Politics                                               217

seemed within their grasp, they were willing to adopt Republican

techniques. In Marietta, for example, the Federalists were urged to act

with greater discipline and outdo their opponents in loyalty to the official

ticket.¹¹⁸ Most notably, the Federalists introduced the Washington Be-

nevolent Society, a Federalist counterpart to St. Tammany. Devoted

ostensibly to promoting humanitarian welfare, this organization was

openly described by its members as an attempt to promote the Federalist

cause, at least by encouraging cooperation if not by actually electioneer-

ing. The Society "for the County of Washington and State of Ohio" was

founded in August 1813 in Marietta, and immediately began to encour-

age the foundation of other branches. By May 1814 there were six

branch societies in Washington County, one of them boasting 387 mem-

bers in 1816, and a further branch in the New England settlement of

Putnam in Muskingum County. These societies lasted until at least 1816,

when the members could consider their principles to require the ending

of partisan distinction.119

All considered, the Federalist revival must be seen as a failure.

Restricted to a handful of counties, it was important more for alarming

Republicans and enforcing their unity than for any lasting electoral

victories. On the whole, Federalists found themselves in such a minority

that they were better advised to exploit the divisions of Republicans

than to take an independent stand. In Muskingum County, for example,

the regular Democrats down to 1812 enjoyed "an increasing majority

annually, against a host of Fedl. Tavern keepers store keepers &c. &c.

whose intrigues and exertions . . . are not exceeded in any other County

in the state."¹²⁰ When a Federalist paper, the Express, was finally

established in December 1812, it carefully adopted a moderate tone and

pursued a nominally non-partisan course. The reward came when Re-

publican dissidents opposed the regular nomination in 1813, for the

Express could act as spokesman for an amalgamationist movement

which broke the regulars' control of the county. Faced by disaster, the

regular newspaper, the Muskingum Messenger, launched a partisan

crusade designed to expose the rank Federalism of the Express, so

118. "Pelopidas," "To Citizens of Washington County, Friends to Good Order and a

Washingtonian System of Government," Caleb Emerson Family Papers, Western Re-

serve Historical Society.

119. The records of the Washington Benevolent Society can be found in the Caleb

Emerson Family Papers. For the society elsewhere, see William A. Robinson, "The

Washington Benevolent Society in New England: A Phase of Politics During the War of

1812," Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, XLIV (1915-1916), 274-86,

and Fischer, Revolution of American Conservatism, 110-28, which, however, errs with

regard to Ohio (p. 119).

120. Van Home to Worthington, December 9, 1812, Worthington Papers.

218                                               OHIO HISTORY

hypocritically cloaked by pseudo-Republican language. At the same

time the Express came under pressure from hard-line Federalists, who

wished it to take a more openly partisan line and reveal more frankly the

iniquities and incompetence of the party in power. In 1814 the

Federalists ran their own ticket, but the Democratic regulars won the

election. Thereafter, as in most other parts of Ohio, the Federalists

returned to a policy of exploiting Republican differences rather than

competing in their own right.¹²¹

An interesting feature of all Federalist appeals at this time was their

deliberate exploitation of social as well as political dissatisfactions. The

Federalists attacked the men in power and so naturally sympathised

with others whose interests were too often overlooked; they shared an

interest with "the clod-hoppers of the country, who consider more

making their bread than of managing their fellow-citizens." In 1813

Hammond successfully directed his electoral appeal in Belmont County

to farmers and "producers" against "lawyers, doctors, merchants and

idle-young men."¹²² In Muskingum County in 1815 the "Republican

Farmers and Mechanics" not only refused to attend the July Fourth

celebration organized by their party leaders, but even called their own

rival nominating convention. The reason was, they said, the "general

complaint among the laboring part of the community, who are the source

of government, that the nomination heretofore has been made by a

designing few, in Zanesville and its vicinity"; instead, "the honest

farmer and mechanic . . . ought to rule the destinies of this country in

future." The regular Republicans denounced this movement as playing

the Federalist game, even if that party had no ticket in the field, but in the

end this uprising of "the common people," backed by the Federalist

press, succeeded in defeating the officeholding "aristocracy" which

men believed dominated the county.¹²³

The Federalists may have found it necessary to stay in the background

in order not to damn an independent movement by their support, yet

their spokesmen still acted as defenders of the people's interests against

politicians who had held power too long. They supported critics of the

congressional caucus of 1816. They criticized officeholders who secured

new offices while holding others which disqualified them, and legislators

who appointed themselves to offices they had just created. Hammond

was especially severe on legislators who raised their own rates of pay,

launching his thunderbolts against the notorious Compensation Law of

1816 which raised congressmen's wages to six dollars a day. Such

121. Zanesville Express, 1812-1816; Muskingum Messenger, 1810, 1811, 1813-1816.

122. Ohio Federalist, March 2, 1814, September 29, 1813.

123. Zanesville Express, September 7, July 6, and June-October, 1815.

124. Zanesville Express, April 11, May 30, November 21, 1816; Ohio Federalist,

Party Politics                                                     219

Federalist agitation forced Democrats to take a stand against the mea-

sure, refuse re-election to those who had voted for it, and insist on

pledges of repeal from all candidates.¹²⁴ Not surprisingly, therefore,

radical Republicans soon discovered that a man like Hammond who

called himself a Federalist might, in reality, be "a better Democrat than

many of those who bawled democracy the loudest."¹²⁵ Exclusion from

power had, in fact, put the Federalists in a position which made them the

natural champions and supporters of all movements of discontent and

resentment-a posture in some ways like that of the later Jacksonian

Democrats.

Democracy, Party and Tyranny

In the course of the revitalized conflict between 1812 and 1816, the

parties talked as if fundamental differences of political ideology divided

them. They even refused to celebrate July Fourth together, for fear that

they might become associated with unpalatable views on the meaning of

the Revolution. During this debate the Federalists offered a most in-

teresting assessment of the political state of the nation. They evidently

regarded themselves as the guardians of original principles, the princi-

ples fought for in the Revolution and embodied in the United States

Constitution. The dire straits to which the United States had sunk during

the war with Britain demonstrated that something had gone wrong, and

that the nation must once more return to the happier days of "Washing-

tonian" men and measures. In the course of their search for the source

of degeneration, they produced a striking critique of the political system

as it had operated for the last fifteen years, and they concluded that the

root of the problem lay in the dogmas of Jeffersonian democracy and the

prevalence of partisan behavior.1²⁶

The most striking fault of Republican rule, for them, was its weakness

and incompetence. The Jefferson and Madison administrations had

January 5, 1814, March 28, June 13, October 31, 1816, February 5, April 9, 1818; Western

Herald, August 23, September 13, 20, 1816.

125. James Wilson to W. D. Gallagher, October 1, 1840, Hammond Papers. Both

Wilson and Hammond later opposed the Jacksonian Democrats.

126. This section is based primarily on the St. Clairsville Ohio Federalist, 1813-1816,

the Zanesville Express, 1812-1816, supplemented by samples of other Federalist papers

and by the Zanesville Muskingum Messenger, 1811, 1813-1816, and the Steubenville

Western Herald, 1815-1816. Further insight may be derived from Charles R. King, ed., The

Life and Letters ofRufus King (New York, 1898), especially vol. V, and William P. Cutler

and Julia P. Cutler, eds., Life, Journals and Correspondence of Manesseh Cutler (Cincin-

nati,. 1888), II, 43-194, 279-80, 314-21, 325-34, 345-47. For July Fourth celebrations, see

Thomas E. Powell, The Democratic Party of the State of Ohio, 1803-1912 (Columbus,

1913), I, 20.

220                                                 OHIO HISTORY

destroyed valuable national institutions, including some that were abso-

lutely essential for the defence of the country. Then they had completely

mishandled America's relations with the warring European powers,

wrongly identifying the main source of danger and approaching diploma-

tic problems with an inept mixture of belligerence and pusillanimity. In

the end they had irresponsibly forced a defenceless country into a

completely unnecessary war with Britain. The farcical extreme of irre-

sponsibility, however, was reached closer to home, in Zanesville, where

Democratic leaders cashed in on popular enthusiasm in 1812 by forming

themselves into the Silk Stocking Company of volunteers, named for a

famous troop of that name in the Revolutionary war. Then when Gover-

nor Return J. Meigs called the Silk Stockings to the front after Hull's

surrender, these good patriots refused to go on the grounds that their

services were needed at home to win the election for the administration!

In this instance as in general, the country had to be saved from dire peril

by loyal Federalists who served their turn in a war for which they bore

no responsibility.¹²⁷

The root cause of these failures was the willingness of Republicans to

curry popular favor at the cost of national welfare. They had won power

by blaming every imagined grievance on the Federalists, by exaggerat-

ing the evils of John Adams' "Reign of Terror," and by promising lower

taxes. They had then tried to govern in accordance with the popular but

impractical principle that economy in government was the highest good

in a democratic society. Throughout they pandered to popular pre-

judices and disregarded their duty to tell unpalatable home truths.

Instead of providing responsible and determined leadership of integrity,

elected officials tended to "run yelping at the heels of the majority," 1²⁸

sacrificing every principle before the constantly shifting mood of the

people. This operated to prevent the election of truly capable leaders,

for nominations generally went to the most popular rather than the most

capable man. So the successful politician was the man who "always

crept behind the public sentiment, and ... thus contrived to be drawn into

stations he was never born to occupy.^"129 Men who did their duty simply

were never elected.

The Federalists believed the true republican relationship between

politician and constituent was, in fact, being reversed. The people

should acquiesce in the decisions of their leaders, and intervene in

127. Zanesville Express, February 17, 1813, October 5, 12, 1814, August 15, 1816,

September 3, 1822; Schneider, Y-Bridge City, 69.

128. Said of Alfred Kelley. Hammond to Tappan, December 14, 1814, Tappan Papers.

129. Ohio Federalist, September 22, 1813, quoted in Marietta Register, May 15, 1863.

See also Express, February 29, 1816; Ohio Federalist, July 2, 1818.

Party Politics                                            221

politics only during elections. Their concern then should be to choose a

talented, loyal, honest, and experienced man, not to dictate policies to

their representative. He should be allowed to vote in the legislature

"according to the dictates of his conscience, and in pursuance of a

judgment maturely formed." If he voted counter to his constituents'

wishes, thus rejecting "the path of ambition and the way [of] populari-

ty," they should applaud "the independence of his mind" and "the

rectitude of his heart.'¹³⁰ Thus the Federalists rejected the "right of

instruction" to which most Democrats paid lipservice. In 1816, while

General William H. Harrison and "his Tammany squad at Cincinnati"

insisted that a representative was obliged "to conform to the directions,

and even as far as they can be ascertained, to the wishes and feelings of

his constituents," editor Hammond argued that the representative was

in a position to gain more information and form a maturerjudgment than

were the people at home, and so should be allowed to form his opinion

on the merits of each issue debated before the legislature.1³¹ There was,

however, some ambiguity as to whether this meant a candidate should

not make his views known during an election campaign, since the people

needed to have the information upon which to judge the merits of their

would-be representatives.

If the Federalists really believed the people should simply re-elect a

man of proven integrity, regardless of his views, then they seemed-

certainly to the Democrats-to be denying the purpose of elections and

representation. Yet the Federalists never proposed that popular rights

be limited in any way; their panacea was to improve the moral condition

of society, so that the people would judge rightly and statesmen lead

nobly. Hence their emphasis on supporting societies for the encourage-

ment of religion and the eradication of sin; hence the emphasis on the

educative function of their press and the work of social uplift intended, if

not performed, through the Washington Benevolent Societies.¹³² If they

disliked the way the political system was being operated, then they must

learn from their own dictum that "History demonstrates that the form of

government must accommodate to the moral and political state of the

people for whom it is made."¹³³

When they criticized contemporary "democracy," the Federalists

made it clear they did not object to "a legitimate democracy," which

they thought "the most desirable feature in our constitution." Their

objection was to the "kind of bastard Jacobinic democracy" imported,

130. Express, January 20, 1813.

131. Ohio Federalist, September 26, 1816.

132. Express, December 1, April 28, 1813, February 2, April 20, 1815. See also the

Constitution of the Washington Benevolent Society, Caleb Emerson Family Papers.

133. Express, July 29, 1814.

222                                                 OHIO HISTORY

along with atheism, from revolutionary France. This was "a leveling,

prostrating principle," subversive of the republican fabric established

by the Founding Fathers.¹³⁴ The Democrats failed to make the vital

distinction between a "republic" and a "democracy," insisting the

United States was a republic based on representative democracy, since

"the supreme power resides in the people."¹³⁵ The Democrats did not

believe all men are equally capable of governing, but they did think the

people should be trusted to make important decisions. "The people may

err mistakenly, but never intentionally."¹³⁶ With this sort of faith, the

Democrats could see no contradiction between democracy and liberty,

since both were the rights of the people. They assumed such rights could

be menaced only by monarchy and aristocracy; they denied the possibil-

ity of a "Tyranny of Democracy."¹³7 Yet, as the Federalists pointed out,

this was exactly what the Founding Fathers had sought to safeguard

against when they imposed restrictions and restraints on the power of

the more popular elements in the Constitution.

Afraid, therefore, that supporters of a "Frenchified" democracy

might jeopardize liberty, the Federalists turned after 1800 to the defence

of balanced government and constitutional restraints. As defenders of

the Constitution, they relied upon the judiciary as the safeguard of

popular rights against the excesses of "Democratic" legislators. Hence

they were alarmed in 1802 to hear "Jacobins . . . declare that our judges

have no right to adjudge a law unconstitutional, but if the legislature pass

an act, it becomes really a law, and that the people and judges must abide

by it. If that be the case, our constitution is at an end, and a French

convention can do no more than an American Congress."¹³⁸ So, when

the issue of whether the judiciary should be "under the check of the

sovereign opinion of the people" arose in Ohio, the Federalists had no

hesitation in supporting the conservative Republicans. They had no

doubt the judges should be kept independent of political pressures and

should not be prevented from doing their duty by fear of losing populari-

ty. As a writer in a Chillicothe paper said in 1810, the Federalists,

"lawyers and all," believed that if the judiciary has not the power of

declaring legislative acts unconstitutional, "a written constitution is of

no real or essential value."¹³⁹ In a sense, the Federalists believed the

134. Express, August 10, 1814, March 16, 1815.

135. Western Herald, May 10, May 24, June 28, 1816; Ohio Federalist, May 16, June 13,

1816.

136. Muskingum Messenger, May 31, 1815, September 21, 1814.

137. Messenger, September 4, 1811, September 21, 1814.

138. Fearing to Cutler, February 19, February 3, 1802, reprinted in Cutler, Ephraim

Cutler, 64.

139. Chillicothe Supporter, August 11, 1810. See also Burnet, North-Western Territory,

Party Politics                                            223

Founding Fathers had encapsulated political truth in the Constitution

and that its meaning was perfectly clear to learned men: hence they were

justified in seeing "a government of laws and an independent judiciary"

as superior to the constantly changing whims of a Democratic majori-

ty.¹⁴⁰

The main threat to constitutional republicanism came not from the

perversity of the "Democracy" as much as from their proclivity to see

everything in party terms. The Republicans retained the people's al-

legiance by constantly reviving memories of the "Reign of Terror" and

by branding the Federalists as "monarchists" and "aristocrats." This

appeal to popular prejudices prevented the electorate from seeing politi-

cal affairs in their true light. As a result, the people gave power to a group

of politicians they considered their exclusive friends, and not even the

greatest disasters had shaken popular faith in them. Moreover, party

machinery worked to perpetuate these inferior men in power. Devices

like conventions created the illusion of popular control, and made it

difficult for Republican voters to oppose the nomination if they disliked

it, since they were afraid of appearing "singular." This deprived the

community of the services not only of the excellent men who happened

to be labelled "Federalists" but also those who had alienated the party

managers by their independence of mind. If conventions had to be held,

the Federalists suggested, nominations should at least be considered

recommendations rather than binding decisions, and the people should

be encouraged to feel free to reject the advice of those who usually

controlled the party.¹⁴¹

As it was, conventions too often served merely to keep power within a

few restricted hands. The whole object of such nominations, it was

argued, was to restrict the voters' freedom of choice in performing "the

only sovereign act" permitted them. "Every attempt to abridge the

freeness of suffrage . . .," said one Federalist, "is treason against the

community, and subversive of genuine republicanism-all Tammany

principles and delegated tickets are a direct attack on this privilege."142

Moreover, even popularly chosen conventions were often devices

merely to ratify a ticket already secretly chosen by the party managers.

This was particularly apparent in Muskingum County, the chief strong-

hold of Republican party regularity throughout the war; for here "cer-

tain gentlemen about Zanesville, men of wealth and holders of offices[,]

used to appoint meetings of the people to make arrangements previous

to the elections." Controlling the party machinery, these gentlemen saw

140. Express, July 11, 1816. See also Ohio Federalist, September 5, 1816.

141. Express, September 15, 1813, October 5, 1814, August 3, 1815.

142. Express, August 25, 1813, August 31, 1814.

224                                                   OHIO HISTORY

that their friends gained "good snug fat offices," and behaved as though

they had a prescriptive right, as legitimate as the claims of European

monarchs, to continue controlling the process of nomination.¹⁴³ Thus,

in effect, party machinery operated to create a new aristocracy, which

was governed by "certain partialities and family sympathies" and

excluded from nomination "all that were not within the pale of their

peculiar and favorite influence." So the equal rights of the people were

ignored, and the principle of rotation in office honored only in the

breach. 144

This loyalty to men established as party leaders both locally and

nationally tended to produce not only "aristocracy," but also potential

tyranny. For party men tended to support their leaders; they would

"give their silent vote to carry into effect every hint of their master." A

democrat "reprobates 'the divine right of kings,' but would cloath [sic]

the head of his party with all the attributes of infallibility." This submis-

siveness prepared the way for "some favorite Democrat," contemptu-

ous of the interests of his country, to "rise up (Bonaparte like)" and

establish an absolute rule.¹⁴⁵ This remark of 1802 had even more point a

decade later when many Ohio Democrats seemed to favor the French

Emperor. As a Federalist editor wrote, anyone who admires Bonaparte

"cannot be a republican, or a friend to equal rights, but is ready to join

some such adventurer as him in the prostration of his country's liber-

ties."¹⁴⁶ Already in 1815 Federalists were watching Andrew Jackson's

meteoric rise to fame with some apprehension.¹⁴⁷

Partisan attitudes could also lead to tyranny by encouraging discrimi-

nation and oppression. Party men damned as traitors all who would not

accept party dictation, even Revolutionary heroes, and so good men

were excluded from office. Moreover, the power of government was

abused, as when the draft was used to discriminate against Federalists or

when tax assessors chose "to oppress the refractory minority people."

The Democrats may not have passed laws like the Alien and Sedition

Acts, but they had tried to suppress dissidence by the force of govern-

ment influence and the pressure of majority opinion.¹⁴⁸ Such intolerance

143. Express, September 7, 1815. See also August 3, September 1, 1813.

144. Express, September 29, 1813, August 15, 29, 1816.

145. Fearing to Cutler, February 3, 1802, reprinted in Cutler, Ephraim Cutler, 64; Ohio

Federalist, June 29, 1814.

146. Express, June 1, 1815; Ohio Federalist, June 8, 29, 1814. For an example of

unrestrained admiration for Napoleon, see Henry Brush to Brown, June 17, 1815, Brown

Papers.

147. Express, April 20, May 18, 1815; Heald, Wells, 127.

148. Express, November 16, January 19, 1814; Messenger, May 31, 1815. For objec-

tions to the arbitrary execution of the draft, see Express, July 28, October 27, 1813; N. T.

Party Politics                                                  225

arose because Democrats were so convinced of their own righteousness

and rightfulness that they doubted the legitimacy of opposition, es-

pecially at times of national crisis. One of their editors was shrewdly de-

scribed as belonging to

that class of politicians who identify their party with the country, and who

consider every measure directed against the party as a species of high treason.

He looks upon the agents employed or appointed to administer the government,

as the government itself, and hence he interprets every attempt to expose the

imbecility and wretchedness of the administration, as an attack upon the gov-

ernment.¹⁴⁹

The Federalists, in fact, insisted on a careful distinction between the

system of government and the men who administered it, and, in so

doing, made an important contribution to the development of the con-

cept of a loyal opposition. Hammond later said that he began the Ohio

Federalist because he objected to the Democratic doctrine that criticism

must not be allowed in time of war; so "by the exercise of my rights I

practically demonstrated their existence."1⁵⁰ This Federalist insistence

on the right to express opposition in the face of intolerance was, indeed,

almost as important a contribution to political liberty as that of the

Jeffersonians in 1798-1800. Ironically, it also helped to ensure the ulti-

mate acceptance of the legitimacy of political parties.151

Republican intolerance of the Federalists and mistrust of their pur-

poses clearly arose from their identification with England at a time of

war with that power. Initially, many Republicans had hoped that

Federalists would drop their opposition to the administration for the

duration, and the fact that they continued to voice criticisms was seen as

irrefutable evidence of Federalist subservience to Britain. They were

assumed to admire the institutions of that country, where "office and

emolument is exclusively confined to a pampered nobility, clergy, and

pensioners of the crown, who have . . . no reluctance at furnishing the

crown liberally with the national resources."¹⁵² This was typical of the

way in which the identification of Republicanism with France and

Federalism with Britain tended to heighten the sense of difference

between the two parties: the party conflict seemed to represent but a

Clough to Emerson, March 18, 1813, Caleb Emerson Family Papers.

149. Ohio Federalist, June 29, 1814. See also Muskingum Messenger, June 15, July 6,

1814.

150. Ohio Federalist, July 2, 1818. See also Express, March 31, 1813, July 20, 1814.

151. This aspect of the subject is overlooked by Richard Hofstadter in his excellent The

Idea of a Party System: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780-1840

(Berkeley, 1969).

152. Muskingum Messenger, December 22, 1813, May 25, 1814; Van Home to Worth-

ington, December 12, 1811, December 9, 1812, Worthington Papers; Van Home to

Tappan, February 16, 1816, Tappan Papers

226                                               OHIO HISTORY

continuation of the struggle taking place in Europe. This identification

arose more from suspicion of the other side's motives than from an

accurate diagnosis of its outlook. The Republicans, or most of them, had

no great liking for Napoleon, even if he was the great self-made man of

the age, but they saw him as fighting America's battles against British

usurpation, and his downfall in 1814 was therefore to be deplored. The

Federalists themselves believed that "a war with England is not so much

to be deprecated as an Alliance (its necessary consequence) with

France," for France had shown an insatiable appetite for gobbling up

friendly republics.¹⁵³ With the fate of the world in balance and the

outcome of an age of revolutions to be decided, both parties felt they

could not allow the fate of the Republic to be left in the hands of those

whose purposes were, at least potentially, un-American.

Thus, ultimately, both partisan standpoints had the same end in view.

As moderates on both sides saw, in the last resort both parties in Ohio

were loyal to the independence and integrity of the United States. Most

Federalists in Ohio, outside the Quaker areas, supported the war, espe-

cially when the nation's integrity seemed most threatened in the latter

part of 1814. Indeed, many Ohio Federalists were undoubtedly embar-

rassed by the apparent disloyalty and disunionism of fellow Federalists

in New England.¹⁵⁴ At bottom the differences between Democrats and

Federalists were not fundamental, since both sides accepted the sanctity

of the Constitution, the value of the Union, and the practice of democra-

tic elections. As the Zanesville Express insisted, Jefferson had been

right when he said "we are all federalists, we are all republicans": in the

simplest sense of those terms, almost all Americans were.¹⁵⁵ In that

realization, and in the growing belief on the part of many moderates that

partisan attachments should be sacrificed for the sake of union, lay the

bases for the subsequent all-too-brief Era of Good Feelings.

Yet, if there was general agreement on the basic outlines of the federal

republic, the disagreement over aspects of its working was still very

real, and in a sense has never been settled. In the decades which

followed, politicians increasingly emphasized the populistic character

of the polity and paid lip-service to the will of the sovereign people; yet

all were quick to emphasize and use constitutional restraints on the will

of the majority when it suited their purposes. The United States has, in

fact, remained ambivalent in its politcal character. American democracy

has always been distinctly more populistic in its style and procedure

153. Benjamin Ives Gilman to Winthrop Sergeant, December 25, 1812, Rice Papers;

Express, December 30, 1812.

154. Express, April 21, 1813, November 16, 1814.

September 12, 1816.

Party Politics                                            227

than other democracies of the West. Yet the United States has never

been a "democracy" in the sense that the will of the majority rules, since

that will has always been restrained by constitutional protections af-

forded to minorities and to individuals. Of course, in the long run the

popular majority has usually been able to see its own view of the

meaning of the Constitution adopted, but that view has itself been

tempered by an awareness of the value of the liberties fought for and

won by the Revolutionary generation. In a sense the Federalists were

right: the United States remains a "republic" rather than a "democra-

cy."

The Child of Revolution?

A prime purpose of this essay has been to emphasize the extent to

which party politics substantially like those of the Jacksonian period

existed in Ohio even before the battle of New Orleans. Already in the

Jeffersonian era politicians had to keep their eye on public opinion,

instead of feeling confident that a deferential people would follow

wherever they led. Populistic appeals were made to voters, and popular

discontents exploited. Rotation in office was advocated, but the enjoy-

ment of office reserved for members of the victorious party. Party

managers were already regarded as the new political elite. Many news-

papers had become proponents of a strict party line, designed to ensure

the continuing loyalty of party supporters. Devices of party organization

usually associated with Jacksonian Democracy were already being

widely used; when county conventions were called in the later period,

they were seen as a return to the good old Jeffersonian techniques of

ensuring political righteousness, while the attempt to introduce more

extensive, centralized control of the Democratic party in 1833-1834 was

identified as an attempt to reintroduce St. Tammany.¹⁵⁶ Even the name

"Democrat" was not new, but an attempt to identify the Jacksonians

with Jefferson's party. Moreover, the level of popular involvement, as

indicated by voter turnout, on several occasions in the earlier period

matched that of Jacksonian days, with the important difference that

presidential elections in the later period drew out as many voters as did

156. St. Clairsville Gazette, February-October, 1826; Zanesville Democratic Union,

August 2, 1834; Columbus Sentinel, May 9, 1833; Campbell, Biographical Sketches,

151-52. See also Harry R. Stevens, The Early Jackson Party in Ohio (Durham, 1955), 155.

The significance of the early development of the convention is overlooked by James

Stanton Chase, "Jacksonian Democracy and the Rise of the Nominating

Mid-America

228                                                   OHIO HISTORY

local contests.¹⁵⁷ The Second Party System in Ohio developed more

thorough organizational techniques basically because the electorate was

more evenly divided between the national parties than in the Jefferson-

ian era, and because by the late 1830s the main divisions over state

issues corresponded closely with the party cleavage over national poli-

tics.

But if there was less difference between the politics of Jeffersonian

Democracy and those of Jacksonaian Democracy than historians often

assume, it remains true that parties in the earlier era were less firmly

based. After all, the Jacksonian parties in Ohio tended to maintain an

existence even when the issues which had given them meaning had

passed away, while the First Party System apparently disintegrated in

an Era of Good Feelings. This decline of party behavior after 1816

obviously owed much to the fact that many Americans were unwilling to

accept the permanence of party divisions. On both the Republican and

Federalist sides, men had clearly demonstrated their unease at submit-

ting to party dictation and their disquiet at some of its consequences; and

they assumed that party differences had ended with the coming of peace

in Europe and the growth of a new spirit of nationalism at home. Yet the

disappearance of party feeling is partly an illusion, since the old passions

and loyalties persisted for many Ohioans, while, in any case, within a

decade new party divisions had appeared. For many politicians and

voters, this new party system was but a revival of the old contests, with

the difference that now the scantily-disguised Federalist menace was far

more formidable since it drew on the experience and support of so many

former Jeffersonian Republicans.¹⁵⁸

While some Ohio historians have insisted on seeing the development

of a new kind of politics in the Jacksonian era, others have been per-

fectly willing to accept that a democratic form of politics was created at

an earlier stage in Ohio history. They have seen this as arising from the

democratizing force of the frontier experience, which first created

democracy in the West and then passed it on, in the 1820s, to the rest of

the nation.¹⁵⁹ These conditions bred also a liking for Jeffersonian

democracy, especially since the widespread availability of cheap land

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