Sources of Sectionalism

I'm Dr John Panero, professor of history at Acquaintance College in Grand Rapids,

Michigan.

Welcome to this module on politics and regional interests.

We're going to look at sectional ism in early American history,

at agriculture versus industry and geography at many

of the causes of this sectional debate,

as well as look at the role of government and how

people's geographical location affected what their opinion was

and what the role of government ought to be

in their lives.

If we think of early American history and we think of the nation,

the nation being composed of everything east of the Mississippi River and then

the Louisiana purchase is added in 18 oh three by President Thomas Jefferson

and then during the Mexican American War

in the 18 forties in the late 18 forties.

By 18 48 there's a Mexican session,

which becomes the American Southwest and also the vast Oregon territory,

which becomes eventually a number of states. But by 18 50 then

the United States

looked a lot like it does now in terms of the continental United States,

the 40 what become the 48 states.

The United States had been

kind of a thorn in the side to political theorists

in the early 18 hundreds.

But once there was more widespread suffrage and democracy in the country,

beginning in the 18 twenties,

it was even more confounding because as far back as the Greek

political theorists like Aristotle in the fourth century BC political theorist,

it argued that democracies just don't last too long.

They degenerate

through the passions of the people and threw up Wellings of emotion

into mob ocracy. And inevitably, amid the anarchy and mass

that people don't cry for more and more and more liberty.

They cry for order, and what they get is despotism.

So democracies tended to end in despotism or not last all that long.

Even the Greek democracies did not last all that long.

So only in small, homogeneous places

like the city states of ancient Greece or the Confederated cities of Switzerland,

could a democracy fleur.

But where you couldn't have a democracy,

it was thought was in a very large and diverse country,

not just diverse in terms of ethnic groups and race,

though the United States had nearly every

language and religion on earth already by 1800

but also diverse in terms of agricultural production,

urban versus rural and just geography.

Those kinds of things.

Government policies that might be good for somebody living in maritime,

increasingly urban New England.

The same policies that might be good for them might be very bad for

somebody living in the West or for some farmer living in the South.

And you can't please everybody.

But that's why if a democracy, uh, in a democracy,

if everybody is pretty much the same, maybe it's going to work better.

So the thinking went,

All this was reinforced by the French Revolution and the reign of terror,

which had resulted in

Napoleon.

And so by the 18 forties, the United States, uh,

looked looked like it was maybe going to implode.

It was flourishing. It was a dynamic.

It was strong,

but as a result of the Mexican American War and had these tremendous growing pains,

and it looks like maybe disunion or civil war would result.

So what I want to do is just back this up a little bit

and consider the anti federalists who in the 17 eighties warned

the United States was too large and diverse to be one republic

by the 18 forties, the United States had a land empire

comparable in size to Russia in Europe.

Um,

and everyone knew, they said,

that Russia required a firm rule and and a firm

hand to keep order among its many diverse peoples.

The amount of land ruled by the United States was comparable to ancient Rome,

and the ancient Roman republic had degenerated into

100 years of civil war before it had ended

in an empire, and even that it crumbled under its own weight.

If you wanted to travel from New York to New Orleans, Uh,

that was farther than the distance across the face of Europe,

from London to Constantinople.

And by the time the Oregon territory was added in the 18 forties,

to travel by sea from New York to Oregon was

the same distance as travelling from England to China.

Even with the use of the telegraph and the advance of railroads, by the 18 fifties,

it till it still took nearly a week to go from New York to New Orleans.

So the point is, this was a very vast country,

and how how could a country like that stay together?

The federalists had argued against those anti federalists that,

in the words of John Jay,

we're one united people of people descended from the same ancestors,

speaking the same language, professing the same religion

attached to the same principles of government,

very similar in manners and customs.

In other words,

we might be far reaching and diverse, but were similar in

many respects.

But the United States, by 18 50 was a very diverse, so diverse,

ethnically English still dominated.

But there were many Irish. Many Germans.

Half of the foreign born in the United States by 18 50 were Irish, another quarter,

another 25% was from Germany.

There were nearly four million African Americans,

six out of seven of whom were slaves.

Perhaps some estimates would say, a half million Native Americans.

But then there's a great deal of economic diversity.

Uh, the the method of agriculture was different throughout the union,

so almost all the nations sugar came from Louisiana.

Most of its hemp came from, I mean, almost 100% from Tennessee and Kentucky.

Most of the wheat, except for Virginia, came from the north.

Almost all the cotton came from the new cotton states

in the south and more on that in a moment.

But even in terms of manufacturing, there were great differences.

So probably half the nation's iron came from Pennsylvania, for instance.

New York was also a city of of a half million people by 18 50

about two out of three people in New England

lived in cities already by the 18 fifties.

But if you compare that with the South,

the only large Southern cities were on the edges of the South by that time.

Baltimore and Maryland and Saint Louis and Missouri and then New Orleans.

Uh, but in some states, at least, let's say Massachusetts,

there's more people living in cities than in

the countryside by the time period. We are, uh, we're talking about.

So when we think of the sections of the United States, we think of

New England,

which had originally been settled by Puritans from England,

and those New Englanders had settled in certain areas of

New York and in in the Midwest in Michigan.

And then there's the Old Northwest,

and especially what was called the butternut culture due to the colouring

and dye used in their clothing of the Ohio River Valley.

So that whether you were on the southern side of that, which meant,

technically you were in the South.

Eventually, on the northern side of that,

you farmed in pretty much the same way along the Ohio River valley.

And then there was the West,

which in the early years of the Republic prior to prior to the Louisiana

purchase that meant the trans Appalachian West

between Appalachia and the Mississippi River.

But soon that meant the Middle West.

Then there was the far rest west beyond the Rockies.

And so there's a there's all these different sections

of the country are going to have to compete,

and then finally, the South.

So what made the South distinctive?

The Northern States had begun gradual emancipation

or writing or immediate emancipation following the approval of the US

Constitution and around the time of the presidency of George Washington,

which began in 17 89.

Gradual emancipation might have meant that you could have been

a slave in the 18 forties in New Jersey,

but in the Southern states

they were promoting and expanding slavery at a time when it's under

duress elsewhere in the country and even elsewhere in the world.

By 18 61 out of four white families in the south owned slaves,

and of that, about half of that owned fewer than five.

Only only 12% would have qualified for what was called planter status,

which means you held 20 slaves, and that was big enough for a plantation operation.

So looked at a different way.

If the number of slaveholders in the south was one out of four families,

we're talking 25% of white families in 12% of that, 25% were planters.

So this is why,

then the Civil War among the yeoman farming majority in the South began

to be called by the middle of that war in the 18 sixties.

The rich man's war but the poor man's fight because the planters are a tiny minority.

So of course, they're not doing most of the fighting.

Uh, so even within the minority of slaveholders, the, uh,

the massive slaveholders were were a minority.

So 88% in other words, owed fewer than 20.

The planters were international businessmen

and again with a source of sectional is, um,

the protective tariffs of the Hamiltonian economic plan

might be good for new England.

But they're not good for the planters, and they knew it.

And so they oppose them as favouritism and sectional

legislation Of all the factories are in one area.

Why do those companies get a benefit from the government?

But others don't Another source of sectional ism would simply be, then

that commercial republic, that competing idea of the commercial republic,

which began to take hold in the North with the idea of the Roman Republic,

mixed with plantation slavery, which was taking firm hold in the South.

So in the next module,

we'll look at this tension between agriculture and industry more close up.