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Title: Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History
Author: Frederick Jackson Turner
Release Date: March, 2003 [Etext #3826]
[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
[The actual date this file first posted = 9/29/01]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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THE AMERICAN NATION
A HISTORY
FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES BY ASSOCIATED SCHOLARS
EDITED BY ALBERT BUSHNELL HART, L.L.D. PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ADVISED BY VARIOUS HISTORICAL SOCIETIES
THE AMERICAN NATION
A HISTORY
LIST OF AUTHORS AND TITLES
GROUP I FOUNDATIONS OF THE NATION
Vol. 1 European Background of American History, by Edward Potts
Cheyney, A.M., Prof. European Hist., Univ. of Pa.
Vol. 2 Basis of American History, by Livingston Farrand, LL.D.,
President Univ. of Colo.
Vol. 3 Spain in America, by the late Edward Gaylord Bourne, Ph.D., formerly Prof. Hist., Yale Univ.
Vol. 4 England in America, by Lyon Gardiner Tyler, LL.D., President
William and Mary College.
Vol. 5 Colonial Self-Government, by Charles McLean Andrews, Ph.D.,
Prof. Am. History, Yale University.
GROUP II TRANSFORMATION INTO A NATION
Vol. 6 Provincial America, by Evarts Boutell Greene, Ph.D., Prof.
Hist, and Dean of College, Univ. of Ill.
Vol. 7 France in America, by the late Reuben Gold Thwaites, LL.D., formerly Sec. Wisconsin State Hist. Soc.
Vol. 8 Preliminaries of the Revolution, by George Elliott Howard,
Ph.D., Prof. Polit. Science Univ. of Neb.
Vol. 9 The American Revolution, by Claude Halstead Van Tyne, Ph.D.,
Head Prof. Hist. Univ. of Michigan.
Vol. 10 The Confederation and the Constitution, by Andrew Cunningham
McLaughlin, A.M., Head Prof. Hist., Univ. of Chicago.
GROUP III DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION
Vol. II The Federalist System, by John Spencer Bassett, Ph.D., Prof.
Am. Hist., Smith College.
Vol. 12 The Jeffersonian System, by Edward Channing, Ph.D., Prof.
Ancient and Modern Hist., Harvard Univ.
Vol. 13 Rise of American Nationality, by Kendric Charles Babcock,
Ph.D., Dean Col. Arts and Sciences, Univ. of Illinois.
Vol. 14 Rise of the New West, by Frederick Jackson Turner, Ph.D.,
Prof. Hist., Harvard University.
Vol. 15 Jacksonian Democracy, by William MacDonald, LL.D., Prof.
Government, Univ. of California.
GROUP IV TRIAL OF NATIONALITY
Vol. 16 Slavery and Abolition, by Albert Bushnell Hart, LL.D., Prof.
Government, Harvard Univ.
Vol. 17 Westward Extension, by the late George Pierce Garrison,
Ph.D., formerly Prof. Hist., Univ. of Texas.
Vol. 18 Parties and Slavery, by Theodore Clarke Smith, Ph.D., Prof.
Am. Hist., Williams College.
Vol. l9 Causes of the Civil War, by Rear-Admiral French Ensor
Chadwick, U.S.N., retired former Pres. of Naval War College.
Vol. 20 The Appeal to Arms, by James Kendall Hosmer, LL.D., formerly
Librarian Minneapolis Pub. Lib.
Vol. 21 Outcome of the Civil War, by James Kendall Hosmer, LL.D.
GROUP V NATIONAL EXPANSION
Vol. 22 Reconstruction, Political and Economic, by William Archibald
Dunning, Ph.D., Prof. Hist, and Political Philosophy, Columbia Univ.
Vol. 23 National Development, by Edwin Erie Sparks, Ph.D., Pres. Pa.
State College.
Vol. 24 National Problems, by Davis R. Dewey, Ph.D., Professor of
Economics, Mass. Inst. of Technology.
Vol. 25 America as a World Power, by John H. Latane, Ph.D., Prof.
Am. Hist., John Hopkins University.
Vol. 26 National Ideals Historically Traced, by Albert Bushnell
Hart, LL.D., Prof. Government, Harvard University.
Vol. 27 National Progress—1907-1917, by Frederic Austin Ogg, Ph.D.,
Prof. Political Science, Univ. of Wisconsin.
Vol. 28 Index to the Series, by David Maydole Matteson, A.M.,
Harvard College Library.
COMMITTEES ORIGINALLY APPOINTED TO ADVISE AND CONSULT WITH THE EDITOR
THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Charles Francis Adams, LL.D., President
Samuel A. Green, M.D., Vice-President
James Ford Rhodes, LL.D., ad Vice-President
Edward Channing, Ph.D., Prof. History Harvard University
Worthington C. Ford, Chief of Division of MSS., Library of Congress,
THE WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Reuben G. Thwaites, LL.D., Secretary and Superintendent
Frederick J. Turner, Ph.D., Prof. of American History, Wisconsin
University
James D. Butler, LL.D., formerly Prof. Wisconsin University
William W. Wight, President
Henry E. Legler, Curator
THE VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
William Gordon McCabe, Litt. D., President Lyon G. Tyler, LL.D.,
Pres. of William and Mary College
Judge David C. Richardson
J. A. C. Chandler, Professor Richmond College Edward Wilson James
THE TEXAS HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Judge John Henninger Reagan, President
George P. Garrison, Ph.D., Prof. of History, University of Texas
Judge C. W. Raines Judge Zachary T. Fullmore
THE AMERICAN NATION: A HISTORY
VOLUME 14
RISE OF THE NEW WEST
1819-1829
BY
FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER, PH.D. PROFESSOR OF AMERICAN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN
WITH MAPS
NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1906, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
Printed in the United States of America
TO
THE MEMORY OF ANDREW JACKSON TURNER
MY FATHER
CONTENTS
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
AUTHOR'S PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xviii
I. NATIONALISM AND SECTIONALISM (1815-1830). . . . . . . 3
II. NEW ENGLAND (1820-1830) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
III.
IV. THE SOUTH (1820-1830) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
V. COLONIZATION OF THE WEST (1820-1830) . . . . . . . . 67
VI. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE WEST (1820-1830) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
VII. WESTERN COMMERCE AND IDEALS (1820-1830) . . . . . . . 96
VIII. THE FAR WEST (1820-1830) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
IX. THE CRISIS OF 1819 AND ITS RESULTS (1819-1820) . . . 134
X. THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE (1819-1821) . . . . . . . . . 149
XI. PARTY POLITICS (1820-1822) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
XII. THE MONROE DOCTRINE (1821-1823) . . . . . . . . . . . 199
XIII. INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS (1818-1824) . . . . . . . . . . 224
XIV. THE TARIFF OF 1824 (1820-1824) . . . . . . . . . . . 236
XV. THE ELECTION OF 1824 (1822-1825) . . . . . . . . . . 245
XVI. PRESIDENT ADAMS AND THE OPPOSITION (1825-1827). . . . 265
XVII. INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS AND FOREIGN TRADE (1825-1829) . 286
XVIII. REACTION TOWARDS STATE SOVEREIGNTY (1816-1829) . . . 299
XIX. THE TARIFF OF ABOMINATIONS AND THE SOUTH CAROLINA EXPOSITION (1827-1828) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
XX. CRITICAL ESSAY ON AUTHORITIES . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
[Proofreaders note: Index and Maps omitted]
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
In many previous volumes of the series, the region beyond the Alleghenies has been recognized as an influence and a potentiality in American history. Thwaites, in his "France in America," shows how the French opened up the country and prepared the way; the Tennessee and Kentucky settlements are described in Howard's "Preliminaries of the Revolution"; Van Tyne's "American Revolution" goes into the earliest western governments; McLaughlin's "Confederation and Constitution" deals with the organization of the new communities by Congress; Bassett's "Federalist System" and Channing's "Jeffersonian System" show how the diplomacy and politics of the country were affected by the appearance of a new group of equal states; while Babcock's "Rise of American Nationality" carries the influence of those states into a broader national life. Professor Turner takes up the west as an integral part of the Union, with a self-consciousness as lively as that of the east or south, with its own aims and prejudices, but a partner in the councils and the benefits of the national government which, as a whole, it is the aim of this volume to describe.
In a way the west is simply a broader east, for up to the end of the period covered by this volume most of the grown men and women in the west came across the mountains to found new homes—the New-Englander in western New York; the Pennsylvanian diverging westward and southwestward; the Virginian in Kentucky; the North-Carolinian in Tennessee and Missouri and, along with the South-Carolinian and Georgian, in the new southwestern states; while north of the Ohio River the principal element up to 1830 was southern.
To describe such a movement and its effects, Professor Turner has the advantage to be a descendant of New-Yorkers, of New England stock, but native to the west, and living alongside the most complete collection of materials upon the west which has ever been brought together—the Library of the Wisconsin State Historical Society. His point of view is that the west and east were always interdependent, and that the rising power of the western states in national affairs was a wholesome and natural outcome of forces at work for half a century. The transformation of the west from a rude and boisterous frontier to a group of states, soon rivaling their parent communities in population and wealth, was not unlike the process through which Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and Virginia passed as colonies, except that the inland people accepted ideals and standards originally English, but worked out and put into shape by their colonist fathers.
As the volume treats of the nation, and not simply of any section, it contains three chapters (i., ii., iii.) on the social and political life in New England, the middle region, and the south. The next four chapters are a systematic account of the west as the settler and the traveler saw it. between 1820 and 1830. In chapter v., on Colonization, the settlers are traced from their old homes to their new ones by road and river. Chapter vi., off Social and Economic Development, is a picture of frontier life in the forest and on the farm; chapter vii. brings into relief the need of a market and the difficulty of reaching tide-water with western products—a subject taken up again in the two later chapters on internal improvements; chapter viii., on The Far West, goes with the trapper into the mountains and then across the continent to California and to Oregon, which were included in the ambitions of the buoyant westerner.
Chapters ix. to xi. are a narrative of a succession of national questions involving all sections—the commercial crisis of 1819; the Missouri Compromise, which was in good part a western question; and the slow recrystallization of political parties after 1820. Chapter xii. is on the Monroe Doctrine, which included eastern questions of commerce, southern questions of nearness to Cuba, and western questions of Latin-American neighbors. Chapters xiii. and xvii. describe the efforts by internal improvements to help all the states, and especially to bind the eastern and western groups together by the Cumberland Road and by canals. Chapters xiv. to xvi. take up the tariff of 1824, the presidential election of that year, and its political results. Chapter xviii. brings into clear light the causes for the reaction from the ardent nationalism described in Babcock's American Nationality. With chapter xix., on the tariff of 1828 and the South Carolina protest, the narrative part of the volume closes. The Critical Essay on Authorities and a wealth of foot-notes carry the reader back to materials little studied hitherto, and prepare the way for many detailed investigations.
The aim of the volume is not to show the Rise of the New West as though it were a separate story, but to show how the nation found itself in the midst of questions involving the west, and how all parts of the Union were enriched and stimulated by the appearance of a new section. It opens up new vistas of historical study.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
In the present volume I have kept before myself the importance of regarding American development as the outcome of economic and social as well as political forces. To make plain the attitude and influence of New England, the middle region, the south, and the west, and of the public men who reflected the changing conditions of those sections in the period under consideration, has been my principal purpose.
The limits of the volume have prevented the elaboration of some points well worthy of fuller treatment; and, by the plan of the series, certain aspects of the period have been reserved for other writers.
I desire to express my cordial appreciation of the friendly criticism and assistance I have received from the editor, Professor Hart. To Professor Carl R. Fish, Professor A. A. Young, and Dr. U. B. Phillips, my colleagues, I am indebted for a critical reading of several chapters. I have drawn on the manuscript sources possessed by Dr. Phillips for information on many points of southern history.
Several of the topics dealt with in the volume have
The map of western fur-trading posts in Captain Chittenden's excellent History of the American Fur Trade furnished the basis for the map of western posts and trails. In the construction of the map of highways and waterways, I have used the map of H. S. Tanner, 1825, and Hewett's American Traveller (Washington, 1825). From the maps in the Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology have been drawn the data for the map of Indian cessions. The editor kindly supplied the map of Russian settlements and claims.
For the portrait of Henry Clay, which forms the frontispiece, thanks are due to Mr. Charles Henry Hart, of Philadelphia, the owner of the life-mask made by J. H. Browere.
FREDERICK J. TURNER.
RISE OF THE NEW WEST
CHAPTER I
NATIONALISM AND SECTIONALISM (1815-1830)
The history of the United States is the history of a growing nation. Every period of its life is a transitional period, but that from the close of the War of 1812 to the election of Andrew Jackson was peculiarly one of readjustment. It was during this time that the new republic gave clear evidence that it was throwing off the last remnants of colonial dependence. The Revolution had not fully severed the United States from the European state system; but now the United States attained complete independence and asserted its predominance in the western continent. It was in this period that the nation strengthened its hold on the Gulf of Mexico by the acquisition of Florida, recognized the independence of the revolting Spanish-American colonies, and took the leadership of the free sisterhood of the New World under the terms of the Monroe Doctrine.
The joyous outburst of nationalism which at first succeeded the dissensions of the period of war revealed itself in measures passed in Congress, under the leadership of Calhoun and Clay; it spoke clearly in the decisions of Judge Marshall; and in the lofty tone of condemnation with which the country as a whole reproached New England for the sectionalism exhibited in the Hartford Convention. [Footnote: Babcock, Am. Nationality (Am. Nation, XIII.), chaps, ix., xviii.; Gallatin, Writings, I., 700.]
It was not only in the field of foreign relations, in an aroused national sentiment, and in a realization that the future of the country lay in the development of its own resources that America gave evidence of fundamental change. In the industrial field transportation was revolutionized by the introduction of the steamboat and by the development of canals and turnpikes. The factory system, nourished by the restrictions of the embargo and the war, rapidly developed until American manufactures became an interest which, in political importance, outweighed the old industries of shipping and foreign commerce. The expansion of cotton-planting transformed the energies of the south, extended her activity into the newer regions of the Gulf, and gave a new life to the decaying institution of slavery.
From all the older sections, but especially from the south and its colonies in Kentucky and Tennessee, a flood of colonists was spreading along the waters of the west. In the Mississippi Valley the forests were falling before the blows of the pioneers, cities were developing where clearings had just let in the light of day, and new commonwealths were seeking outlets for their surplus and rising to industrial and political power. It is this vast development of the internal resources of the United States, the "Rise of the New West," that gives the tone to the period. "The peace," wrote Webster in later years, "brought about an entirely new and a most interesting state of things; it opened to us other prospects and suggested other duties. We ourselves were changed, and the whole world was changed. . . . Other nations would produce for themselves, and carry for themselves, and manufacture for themselves, to the full extent of their abilities. The crops of our plains would no longer sustain European armies, nor our ships longer supply those whom war had rendered unable to supply themselves. It was obvious, that, under these circumstances, the country would begin to survey itself, and to estimate its own capacity of improvement." [Footnote: Webster, Writings (National ed.), VI., 28.]
These very forces of economic transformation were soon followed by a distinct reaction against the spirit of nationalism and consolidation which had flamed out at the close of the War of 1812. This was shown, not only in protests against the loose-construction tendencies of Congress, and in denunciations of the decisions of the great chief-justice, but more significantly in the tendency of the separate geographical divisions of the country to follow their own interests and to make combinations with one another on this basis.
From one point of view the United States, even in this day of its youth, was more like an empire than a nation. Sectionalism had been fundamental in American history before the period which we have reached. The vast physiographic provinces of the country formed the basis for the development of natural economic and social areas, comparable in their size, industrial resources, and spirit, to nations of the Old World. In our period these sections underwent striking transformations, and engaged, under new conditions, in the old struggle for power. Their leaders, changing their attitude towards public questions as the economic conditions of their sections changed, were obliged not only to adjust themselves to the interests of the sections which they represented, but also, if they would achieve a national career, to make effective combinations with other sections. [Footnote: Turner. "Problems of American History," in Congress of Arts and Sciences, St. Louis, II.]
This gives the clew to the decade. Underneath the superficial calm of the "Era of Good Feeling," and in contradiction to the apparent absorption of all parties into one, there were arising new issues, new party formations, and some of the most profound changes in the history of American evolution.
The men of the time were not unaware of these tendencies. Writing in 1823, Henry Clay declared that it was a just principle to inquire what great interests belong to each section of our country, and to promote those interests, as far as practicable, consistently with the Constitution, having always an eye to the welfare of the whole. "Assuming this principle," said he, "does any one doubt that if New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and the Western States constituted an independent nation, it would immediately protect the important interests in question? And is it not to be feared that, if protection is not to be found for vital interests, from the existing systems, in great parts of the confederacy, those parts will ultimately seek to establish a system that will afford the requisite protection?" [Footnote: Clay, Works, IV., 81, 82; Annals of Cong., 18 Cong., 1 Sess., II., 1997, 2423.]
While the most prominent western statesman thus expressed his conviction that national affairs were to be conducted through combinations between sections on the basis of peculiar interests, Calhoun, at first a nationalist, later the leader of the south, changed his policy to a similar system of adjustments between the rival
We see, therefore, that, in the minds of some of the most enlightened statesmen of this decade, American politics were essentially a struggle for power between rival sections. Even those of most enlarged national sympathies and purposes accepted the fact of sectional rivalries and combinations as fundamental in their policies. To understand the period, we must begin with a survey of the separate sections in the decade from 1820 to 1830, and determine what were the main interests shown in each and impressed upon the leaders who represented them. For the purposes of such a survey, the conventional division into New England, middle region, south, and west may be adopted. It is true that within each of these sections there were areas which were so different as to constitute almost independent divisions, and which had close affiliations with other sections. Nevertheless, the conventional grouping will reveal fundamental and contrasted interests and types of life between the various sections. In the rivalries of their leaders these sectional differences found political expression. By first presenting a narrative of forces in the separate sections, the narrative of events in the nation will be better understood.
A sectional survey, however, cannot fully exhibit one profound change, not easy to depict except by its results. This was the formation of the self-conscious American democracy, strongest in the west and middle region, but running across all sections and tending to divide the people on the lines of social classes. This democracy came to its own when Andrew Jackson triumphed over the old order of things and rudely threw open the sanctuary of federal government to the populace.
CHAPTER II
NEW ENGLAND (1820-1830)
By geographical position, the land of the Puritans was devoted to provincialism. While other sections merged into one another and even had a west in their own midst, New England was obliged to cross populous states in order to reach the regions into which national life was expanding; and her sons who migrated found themselves under conditions that weakened their old affiliations and linked their fortunes with the section which they entered. The ocean had dominated New England's interests and connected her with the Old World; the fisheries and carrying—trade had engrossed her attention until the embargo and the War of 1812 gave importance to her manufactures. In spirit, also, New England was a section apart, The impress of Puritanism was still strong upon her, and the unity of her moral life was exceptional. Moreover, up to the beginning of the decade with which we have to deal, New England had a population of almost unmixed English origin, contrasting sharply, in this respect, with the other sections. [Footnote: For the characteristics of New England in colonial times, see Tyler, England in America, chaps, xviii., xix.; Andrews, Colonial Self-Government, chaps, xviii., xix.; Greene, Provincial America, chaps, xii., xiii., xvi.-xviii.; Bassett, Federalist System, chaps, xi., xiii. (Am. Nation, IV., V., VI., XI.)].
With these peculiarities, New England often played an important sectional role, not the least effective instance of which had been her independent attitude in the War of 1812. [Footnote: Babcock, Am. Nationality (Am. Nation, XIII.), chap. ix.] By 1820, not only were profound economic and social changes affecting the section, but its relative importance as a factor in our political life was declining. [Footnote: Adams, United States, IX., chaps, iv., vii.] The trans- Allegheny states, which in 1790 reported only a little over one hundred thousand souls, at a time when New England's population was over one million, had in 1820 reached a population of nearly two millions and a quarter, while New England had not much over a million and a half. Ten years later, the latter section had less than two millions, while the western states beyond the Alleghenies had over three millions and a half, and the people northwest of the Ohio River alone numbered nearly a million and a half. In 1820 the total population of New England was about equal to the combined population of New York and New Jersey; but its increase between 1820 and 1830 was hardly three hundred thousand, not much over half that of New York, and less than the gain of Ohio. If Maine, the growing state of the group, be excluded, the increase of the whole section was less than that of the frontier state of Indiana. "Our New England prosperity and importance are passing away," wrote Webster at the beginning of the period. [Footnote: McMaster, Webster, 90.]
Were it not that New England was passing through a series of revolutionary economic changes, not fully appreciated at that time, doubtless the percentage of her growth would have been even more unfavorable. As it was, the rise of new manufactures helped to save her from becoming an entirely stationary section. In the course of the preceding two decades, New England's shipping industry had reached an extraordinary height, by reason of her control of the neutral trade during the European wars. The close of that period saw an apparent decline in her relative maritime power in the Union, but the shipping and commercial interests were still strong. New England possessed half the vessels owned in the United States and over half the seamen. Massachusetts alone had a quarter of the ships of the nation and over a third of the sailors. [Footnote: Pitkin, Statistical View (ed. of 1835), 350.] Of the exports of the United States in 1820, the statistics gave to New England about twenty per cent., nine-tenths of which were from Massachusetts. [Footnote: Shaler, United States, I., chap, x.; MacGregor, Commercial Statistics of America, 41, 58, 63, 72, 126, 133.] This is rather an under-estimate of the share of New England, because a portion of the commerce fitted out by her capital and her ships sought the harbor of New York.
Great as was New England's interest in the commercial policy of the United States, the manufactures of the section rose to such importance in the course of this decade that the policy of the section was divided. The statistics of the manufactures of the United States at the beginning and at the end of the period were so defective that little dependence can be placed upon them for details. But the figures for New England were more complete than for the other regions; the product of her cotton mills increased in value from two and one-half million dollars in 1820 to over fifteen and one-half millions in 1831; and her woolen products rose from less than a million dollars to over eleven million dollars. In Massachusetts alone, in the same years, the increase in cottons was from about seven hundred thousand dollars to over seven million seven hundred thousand dollars;
In brief, the period witnessed the transfer of the industrial center of gravity from the harbors to the water-falls, from commerce and navigation to manufactures. Besides the textile mills of Rhode Island and Connecticut, the Merrimac mills grew rapidly around Lowell, Massachusetts; the water-powers of New Hampshire became the sites of factory towns, and the industrial revolution which, in the time of the embargo, began to transfer industries from the household to the factory, was rapidly carried on. A labor class began to develop, farmers moved into towns, the daughters worked in the mills. It was not long before Irish immigrants found their way to the section and replaced the natives in the mills. The old social and racial unity began to break down. [Footnote: Woollen, "Labor Troubles between 1834 and 1837," in Yale Review, I., 87; Martineau, Society in America, II., 227, 243, 246; Chevalier, Society, Manners, and Politics, 137; Addison, Lucy Larcom, 6; Clay, Works, V., 467.]
Agriculture still occupied the larger number of New England people, but it was relatively a declining interest. As early as 1794, Tench Coxe had characterized New England as a completely settled region, with the exception of Maine and Vermont. The generation that followed saw an expansion of agricultural population until the best valley lands were taken and the hill-sides were occupied by struggling farmers. By 1830 New England was importing corn and flour in large quantities from the other sections. The raising of cattle and sheep increased as grain cultivation declined. The back-country of Maine particularly was being occupied for cattle farms, and in Vermont and the Berkshires there was, towards the close of the decade, a marked tendency to combine the small farms into sheep pastures. Thus, in the tariff agitation of the latter part of the decade, these two areas of western New England showed a decided sympathy with the interests of the wool-growers of the country at large. This tendency also fostered emigration from New England, since it diminished the number of small farms. By the sale of their lands to their wealthier neighbors, the New England farmers were able to go west with money to invest. [Footnote: Niles' Register, XLIX., 68; Smith and Rann, Rutland County [Vt.], 166; Goodhue, Hist. of Shoreham [Vt.], 59; Nat. Assoc. of Wool Manufacturers, Bulletin, XXX., 47, 242, 261.]
In the outlying parts, like the back-country of Vermont, farmers still lived under primitive industrial conditions, supporting the family largely from the products of the farm, weaving and spinning under the conditions of household industry that had characterized the colonial period, slaughtering their cattle and hogs, and packing their cheese. When the cold weather set in, caravans of Vermont farmers passed, by sledges, to the commercial centers of New England. [Footnote: Heaton, Story of Vermont, chap. vi.] But the conditions of life were hard for the back-country farmer, and the time was rapidly approaching when the attractions of the western prairies would cause a great exodus from these regions.
While New England underwent the economic changes that have been mentioned, a political revolution was also in progress. The old Federalist party and Federalist ideas gradually gave way. Federalism found its most complete expression in Connecticut, "the land of steady habits," where "Innovation" had always been frowned upon by a governing class in which the Congregational clergy were powerful. Permanence in office and the influence of the clergy were prominent characteristics of the Connecticut government. [Footnote: Dwight, Travels, I., 262, 263, 291; Welling, "Conn. Federalism," in N. Y. Hist. Soc., Address, 1890, pp. 39-41.] The ceremonies of the counting of votes for governor indicated the position of the dominant classes in this society. This solemnity was performed in the church. "After the Representatives," wrote Dwight, the president of Yale College, "walk the Preacher of the Day, and the Preacher of the succeeding year: and a numerous body of the Clergy, usually more than one hundred, close the procession." He notes that there were several thousand spectators from all over the state, who were perfectly decorous, not even engaging in noisy conversation, and that a public dinner was regularly given by the state to the clergy who were present at the election. [Footnote: Dwight, Travels, I., 267.]
After the War of 1812, this dominance of the Congregational clergy throughout the section was attacked by a combination of religious and political forces. [Footnote: Schouler, United States, II., 282, 511, III., 52; Adams, United States, IX., 133.] There had been a steady growth of denominations like the Baptists and Methodists in New England. As a rule, these were located in the remoter and newer communities, and, where they were strongest, there was certain to be a considerable democratic influence. Not only did these denominations tend to unite against the Federalists and the Congregationalists, but they found useful allies in the members of the old and influential Episcopal church, who had with them a common grievance because of the relations between the state and Congregationalism. Although the original support of the Congregational clergy by public taxation had been modified by successive acts of legislation in most of these states, so that persons not of that church might make their legal contributions for the support of their own clergy, [Footnote: Fearon, Sketches of America, 114.] yet this had been achieved only recently and but incompletely.
We find, therefore, that the alliance of Episcopalians and Dissenters against the dominant clergy and the Federalists was the key to internal politics at the opening of our period. "The old political distinctions," wrote the editor of the Vermont Journal, "seem to have given place to religious ones." But the religious contentions were so closely interwoven with the struggle of New England's democracy to throw off the control of the established classes, that the contest was in reality rather more political and social than religious. By her constitutional convention of 1818, Connecticut practically disestablished the Congregational church and did away with the old manner of choosing assistants. [Footnote: Baldwin, "The Three Constitutions of Conn.," in New Haven Colony Hist. Soc., Papers, V., 210-214.] In the election of 1820 the Republican candidate for governor was elected by a decisive vote, and all of Connecticut's representation in the lower house of Congress was Republican, [Footnote: Niles' Register, XVIII., 128.] although, in 1816, the Federalist candidate had been chosen by a small majority. [Footnote: Adams, United States, IX., 133.] New Hampshire's toleration act was passed in 1819, but she had achieved her revolution as early as 1816, when a union of the anti- Congregational denominations with the Republicans destroyed the ascendancy of the Federalists and tried to break that party's control of the educational center at Dartmouth College. [Footnote: P. B. Sanborn, New Hampshire, 251 et seq.; Barstow, New Hampshire, chaps, xi., xii.; Plumer, William Plumer, 437-460.]
The contest was not so clearly marked in Massachusetts as in the other states, for the old centers of Congregational power, notably Harvard College, had already begun to feel the liberalizing influence of the Unitarian movement. Congregationalism in Massachusetts divided into warring camps [Footnote: Walker, Cong. Churches in the U.S., 303-308.] and was not in a position to exercise the political power it had shown in other states of New England. The discussion in that state between the Unitarian and orthodox wings of the Congregational churches tended, on the whole, to
The Republican party controlled the other states of the section, but there was in New England, as a whole, a gradual decline and absorption, rather than a destruction, of the Federalist party, while, at the same time, marked internal political differences constituted a basis for subsequent political conflicts. Just before he took his seat in Congress in 1823, Webster lamented to Judge Story that New England did not get out of the "dirty squabble of local politics, and assert her proper character and consequence." "We are disgraced," he said, "beyond help or hope by these things. There is a Federal interest, a Democratic interest, a bankrupt interest, an orthodox interest, and a middling interest; but I see no national interest, nor any national feeling in the whole matter."[Footnote: McMaster, Webster, 99.]
In general, northern New England—Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont- -showed a distinct tendency towards Democracy; in southern New England the fortifications of Federalism and Congregational power lay in a wide belt along the Connecticut River, while along the sea- coast and in the Berkshire region the Democratic forces showed strength.
From the outlying rural forces, where Democracy was strong, the settlement of New-Englanders in the middle west was to come. To Timothy Dwight, the president of Yale, who voiced the extreme conservatism of Federal New England, the pioneers seemed unable to live in regular society. "They are impatient of the restraints of law, religion, and morality; grumble about the taxes, by which Rulers, Ministers, and School-masters, are supported; and complain incessantly, as well as bitterly, of the extortions of mechanics, farmers, merchants, and physicians; to whom they are always indebted. At the same time, they are usually possessed, in their own view, of uncommon wisdom; understand medical science, politics, and religion, better than those, who have studied them through life." These restless men, with nothing to lose, who were delighted with innovation, were, in his judgment, of the type that had ruined Greece and Rome. "In mercy, therefore," exclaimed Dwight, "to the sober, industrious, and well-disposed inhabitants, Providence has opened in the vast western wilderness a retreat, sufficiently alluring to draw them away from the land of their nativity. We have many troubles even now; but we should have many more, if this body of foresters had remained at home." [Footnote: Dwight, Travels, II., 458-463.]
Perhaps the most striking feature of New England life was its organization into communities. What impressed the traveler from other sections or from the Old World was partly the small farms, divided into petty fields by stone fences, but, above all, "the clustering of habitations in villages instead of dispersing them at intervals of a mile over the country." The spires of the white churches of separate hamlets dotted the landscape. Simple comfort and thrift were characteristic of the region. "Here," wrote a Virginia planter, traveling in New England in the early thirties, "is not apparent a hundredth part of the abject squalid poverty that our State presents." [Footnote: "Minor's Journal," in Atlantic Monthly, XXVI., 333.]
The morale of New England was distinctive. Puritanism had founded the section, and two centuries of Calvinistic discipline had molded the New England conscience. That serious self-consciousness, that self-scrutiny, almost morbid at times, by which the Puritan tried to solve the problem of his personal salvation, to determine whether he was of the elect, [Footnote: Wendell, Cotton Mather, 6.] was accompanied by an almost equal anxiety concerning the conduct of his neighbors. The community life of New England emphasized this trait.
Tudor, who was not friendly to the ideals of the "land of steady habits," criticized "the narrowing influence of local policy," and lamented the "sort of habitual, pervading police, made up of Calvinistic inquisition and village scrutiny" in Connecticut. [Footnote: Tudor, Letters on the Eastern States (ed. of 1821), 60.] Not to be one's brother's keeper and not to assent to the dictates of community sentiment were indications of moral laxity. This long training in theological inquiry, this continued emphasis upon conduct, and this use of community sentiment as a means of enforcing certain moral and political ideals, led the New-Englander to war with opposing conceptions wherever he went.
A test of the ideals of New England is found in the attitude of those who spread into new regions. The migrating Yankee was a reformer. A considerable proportion of the New-Englanders who left the section were "come-outers" in religion as in politics; many of the Vermonters and the pioneers who went west were radicals. But the majority of these dissenters from the established order carried with them a body of ideas regarding conduct and a way of looking at the world that were deeply influenced by their old Puritan training. If, indeed, they revolted from the older type of Calvinism in the freer air of a new country, they were, by this sudden release from restraint, likely to develop "isms" of their own, which revealed the strong underlying forces of religious thinking. Lacking the restraining influence of the old Congregational system, some of them contented themselves with placing greater emphasis upon emotional religion and eagerly embraced membership in churches like the Baptist or Methodist, or accepted fellowship with Presbyterians and welcomed the revival spirit of the western churches.
Others used their freedom to proclaim a new order of things in the religious world. Most noteworthy was Mormonism, which was founded by a migrating New England family and was announced and reached its first success among the New-Englanders of New York and Ohio. Antimasonry and spiritualism flourished in the Greater New England in which these emancipated Puritans settled. Wherever the New- Englander went he was a leader in reform, in temperance crusades, in abolition of slavery, in Bible societies, in home missions, in the evangelization of the west, in the promotion of schools, and in the establishment of sectarian colleges.
Perhaps the most significant elements in the disintegration of the old Congregationalism in New England itself, however, were furnished by the Unitarians and the Universalists. For nearly a generation the liberal movement in religion had been progressing. The Unitarian revolt, of which Channing was the most important leader, laid its emphasis upon conduct rather than upon a plan of salvation by atonement. In place of original sin and total depravity, it came more and more to put stress upon the fatherhood of God and the dignity of man. The new optimism of this faith was carried in still another direction by the Universalist movement, with its gospel of universal salvation.
The strength of the Unitarian movement was confined to a limited area about Boston, but within its own sphere of influence it contested successfully with the old Congregational power, captured Harvard College, and caught the imaginations of large numbers of the best educated and prosperous classes of the community. Attempting to adjust themselves between the old order of things on the one side, and the new forces of
This change was soon to find expression in a new literary movement in New England, a movement in which poetry and prose were to take on a cheerful optimism, a joy in life, and an idealism. This new literature reflected the influence of the Unitarian movement, the influence of European romantic literature, and the influence of German philosophy. Before long the Transcendentalists proclaimed the new idealism that was showing itself about Boston. [Footnote: Wendell, Literary Hist. of America, book V., chaps. iv., v.] Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, Hawthorne, and Emerson were all prophesied in the forces of intellectual change that now spread over the section.
Even New England's statesmen were deeply influenced by the literary spirit. Daniel Webster, although the son of a New Hampshire pioneer whose log cabin was on the edge of the vast forest that stretched north to Canada, had won an education at the "little college" at Dartmouth; and, after his removal to Boston, he captivated New England by his noble commemorative orations and enriched his arguments before the courts by the splendor of his style. He united the strong, passionate nature of his backwoods father with a mind brought under the influences of the cultured society of Boston. John Quincy Adams, also, had been professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard, and he found in the classics a solace when the political world grew dark around him. Edward Everett represented even more clearly the union of the man of letters with the political leader. If we except the brilliant but erratic John Randolph, of Roanoke, no statesman from other sections showed this impress of literature.
While these forces were developing, a liberalizing of the colleges, and particularly of Harvard, by the introduction of new courses in literature and science, was in progress. Reform movements, designed to give fuller expression to common-school public education, began, and already in 1821 Boston had established the first English high- school, precursor of a movement of profound importance in the uplifting of the masses. Lyceums and special schools for the laborers flourished in the new centers of manufacturing. The smaller educational centers, like Dartmouth, Bowdoin, Amherst, and Williams, where the farmer boys of New England worked their way through college, sent out each year men to other sections to become leaders at the bar, in the pulpit, in the press, and in the newer colleges. The careers of Amos Kendall, Prentiss, and others illustrate these tendencies. In short, New England was training herself to be the school-mistress of the nation. Her abiding power was to lie in the influence which she exerted in letters, in education, and in reform. She was to find a new life and a larger sphere of activity in the wide-spread western communities which were already invaded by her sons. In furnishing men of talent in these fields she was to have an influence out of all relation to her population.[Footnote: Century Mag., XLVII., 43.]