Empire for Liberty: America in the Long Nineteenth Century

[99KingHigh]

You must have missed it.

No "Suggestion" List would be complete without him.

Phew! I was talking to him in class today and I would have passed out if you missed him.

 

[volksmarschall]

Phew! I was talking to him in class today and I would have passed out if you missed him.

Well his newest book is actually being utilized by me in my Thesis.

More people should read McDougall, I agree. Btw, you're welcome for us beating Harvard so you can have a share of the Ivy Football title.

 

[volksmarschall]

CHAPTER V: THE COLLAPSE OF THE SECOND PARTY SYSTEM

The minstrel boy to the war hath gone, in the ranks of death you will find him. His father’s sword he hath girded on, and his wild harp slung behind him. “ Land of Song!” sang the warrior bard, “Tho’ all the world betrays thee. One sword at least thy rights shall guard, one faithful harp shall praise thee!” The minstrel fell, but the foeman’s chains could not bring his proud soul under. The harp he loved ne’er spoke again, for he tore its chords asunder! And said “No chains shall sully thee; thou soul of love and bravery! Thy songs were writ for the pure and free, they shall never sound in slavery!”

~ “The Minstrel Boy,” traditional Irish tune.


Reformism, the Once and Future Ideology​

American politics is also seen as being dominated by “systems.” Within this pole of liberalism, one pole of American liberalism achieves dominance over the other. In its dominance, it unleashes a torrent of reforms. Then dissipates, and the pole swings slowly back toward the center, and generally ends when the opposite pole achieves victory in which it comes to dominant over the other formerly dominant pole which marks the end of the system and the iteration of a new system. Jacksonian progressivism, for its part, dominated the Second Party System until, in a very Hegelian sense, it exhausted itself through its own success.

The First Party System is generally dated from 1788/1792-1824/1828. The First Party system was dominated by the Federalist Party. This may seem counterintuitive at first glance considering Jefferson’s Revolution of 1800 is considered a landmark moment to which the Federalist Party struggled to recover. At a national level, Presidential and Congressional, this is true. However, it fails to realize the importance the Federalist Party had in achieving judicial victories in the First Party System period. Even with the Democratic-Republicans running the Presidency and Congress, the Federalists maintained the courts and achieved a greater victory than Jefferson and his partisans ever did. It also doesn't realize the degree that Jefferson's utilitarian statism also helped consummate the Federalist Party vision of a strong presidency, ironically the strong presidency that Andrew Jackson was later to make use of when he was elected.

The First Party System was brought to an end with the election of Andrew Jackson. Unlike Jefferson, Jackson battled the court system and America’s institutional structures that had been dominated by Federalists: The National Bank, Courts, and national trade policy. Thus begins the Second Party System that is dominated by the Jeffersonian-Jacksonians up through the start of the Civil War. As mentioned, the Whig Party only achieved prominence from 1841-1845 during Clay’s presidency. Their loss in 1844 ensured Jacksonian Democratic dominance during this era.* The success, ironically, of Jacksonian democratic politics also meant the downfall of the Second Party System itself since it had been "established" to promote the Jacksonian goals of westward expansion, democratic expansionism, and the defeat of the National Bank. All three primary goals had been achieved. The energies directed to these causes had, except for the Nullification Crisis, had largely ensured a strong sense of American nationalism and unionism that masked the looming question of slavery.

The Second Party System was characterized by an age of religious revival, democratic expansion, and social reformism. Hardly “conservative” by any standard. Thus, it is facetious to claim Jackson as a conservative populist as some contemporaries claim. He was a thorough-going progressive of his time. As was the Democratic Party. It was the party of social and democratic reformism. The Whigs, likewise, were economic progressives, advocating massive institutional and structural reforms and modernization to the American economy. The two poles of American liberalism, in other words. It’s just that the Democratic Party was dominant for much of this era, and with it, the Jacksonian vision too.

A painting of a "stump speech" during the Second Party System. Stump speeches were commonly employed by activists of particular parties and candidates during the Jacksonian Age. While it was often rare for a national candidate to campaign, sometimes they did campaign in a very local area. Most of the time, due to logistics, party activists and loyalists would "stump" for their party or candidate.​

To this end, then, the American Party was not an emergent, bigoted, and extremist movement that arose in the ashes of the collapsing Second Party System, but it was a symptomatic outgrowth of the more militant and reformist nature of the Second Party System itself. As mentioned, American democracy and liberalism was closely linked to Protestantism for much of American history—and it still is, much of “secular” progressivism shares the same ideas of Protestant nationalism: social reform, promotion of education, democratic expansionism, social welfare, and the safeguarding of American democratic virtue, all have their roots in American Protestant nationalism, or nativism, of the antebellum period that have antecedent roots in Puritanism.

Anti-Catholicism, as it should be evidently clear by now, was nothing new to American politics. Even leaders of the party, like Pennsylvania Congressman like Lewis Charles Levin—himself a first generation immigrant—was not necessarily anti-immigrant in the strictest sense. The American Party was anti-Catholic. It was anti-immigrant insofar that most immigrants were Catholic. Had they been of Protestant stock, it is hard to imagine the American Party having the success that it did.

The American Party is often demeaned as a bigoted, racist, and intolerant party. But as if the Whigs and Democrats were any better, or even the Republicans for that matter—which also teamed with a strong wing of Protestant nationalism equal to that of the Know Nothings. As mentioned, the Whigs regularly played to, and encouraged, nativism in its party too. What gets lost in this analysis of the Know Nothings is that it sidesteps the spirit of nativist progressivism and reformism that the party equally promoted, but is now not recognized for except in academic outlets. This is in no way an appraisal, but a cautionary tale of “the larger picture” of matters. For I have already commented on the rampant anti-Catholicism of the American Party, I would now like to look at its other aspects; especially where it was in power.

It is claimed that the American Party was divided over slavery. This is simply misleading. The American Party strongly opposed slavery, especially in its northern enclaves! In Massachusetts, the almost unanimous Know Nothing State Legislature passed the country’s first law prohibiting public school segregation. The Know Nothings in Maine, Vermont, and Massachusetts urged the state and its residents to refuse compliance with the Fugitive Slave Act. Far from the Liberty Party, Free Soil Party, or the Whigs and Republicans, it was the Know Nothings who achieved the first major blow against slavery in northern non-compliance with slave acts and opened the floodgates of the Underground Railroad to Canada. To which they gain little to no recognition of.

The party also strongly endorsed prohibition. Likewise, the party was a strong supporter of public education, the Order of the Star Spangled Banner promoted democratic-republican education to produce “virtuous citizens,” strongly came out in favor of social welfare programs for the poor, promoted the American System economically, and perhaps most surprisingly was the only party in the 1850s to endorse women’s suffrage. But before we jump to celebration here, it should be noted that public education was considered to be synonymous with “Protestant” education. Ironically, public education in America equally has deep anti-Catholic roots that were meant to challenge the private education of Catholicism; the first universities and schools of instruction came from Catholicism. The party also passed significant public health reforms, establishing public hospitals and health asylums for the clinically insane and depressed.

Some of its policy proposals are, again, counterintuitive for a modern audience. The idea that Protestantism was linked to democracy was widespread in the past. After all, it was Protestant nations like Holland, England, and America that were the hubs of constitutional and liberal attitudes in the early Enlightenment. With regards to women’s suffrage, the American Party adopted the position as a means to offset the growing influx of Catholics into the United States. The presumption was that healthy Protestant women would uphold Protestant American values just as any man would. So it is equally wrong to think that their endorsement of women’s suffrage was from a benign belief in the social progress of women, as much as it was a reflection of social engineering reformism to maintain the Protestant character of American democracy and republican virtue.

An image of "Citizen Know Nothing." Above the image reads "Uncle Sam's Youngest Son." The nickname "Know Nothing" emanated from the secret Order of the Star Spangled Banner, not the actual American Party itself. When asked about the order, a member was supposed to reply "I Know Nothing." The nickname stuck. The American Party idealized America's Protestant heritage, republican fidelity, commitment to political democracy, and an exceedingly progressive outlook on all social and economic issues. The Know Nothings have been described as "Progressive Nativists" by many historians. The party found widespread support in New England and the Midwest with the fall of the Whig Party. Fittingly, another historian described the era of social reform from 1800-1860 as “A Protestant Crusade” for moralism and the inauguration of the millennial kingdom of God on earth. This consciousness of being agents of the millennium goes back to the Puritans. ​

Likewise, on the issues of slavery and prohibition, the American Party promoted what can rightly be described as anti-Catholic conspiracy theories to some degree. The party asserted that slavery’s expansion was a Popish and Jesuit conspiracy that was intended to break the Union in half. The Know Nothings were strong Unionists, then. Furthermore, the party said that the Catholic Church’s use of wine in the mass was a means to facilitate drunkenness and crime. This played well in Protestant cities, like Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and New York, where the influx of Catholic immigrants produced unemployment, and that unemployment resulted in increased crime rates. The Know Nothings played to the ears of Prohibition activists who condemned crime and drunkenness on Catholicism itself. It is hard to gather if this was the universal view of the party, but it certainly promoted it where it found such anti-Catholicity advantageous for itself.

This was not an “out of blue” phenomenon then. This idea of Protestant nativist social reformism is the heart of American Progressivism. It always has been.[1] Today, the lessening of explicit theological language doesn’t hide the fact that secular attitudes concerning social reformism, enlightenment, social progress, public education, and preservation of American democratic virtue all came from a certain strand of Puritanism. Today’s progressive attitudes are generally considered to be unconsciously Puritan at their core by most scholars and writers.

The American Party, in many ways, was the more moralistic and militant spirit of the Whig Party coming unglued and unleashing itself over American New England. In the South and West, Whigs were the strongest supporters of the Know Nothing movement, not the Democrats. Various historians have even described the Whig Party as “the ghost of Puritanism.” As another historian described the spirit of American progressivism and social reformism, “The Progressives loved America, but the America they loved was the one that began in New England, traversed the North, and defeated the slave-holding South. Its religion was Protestant…It was the muscular, activist strand of Puritanism.”[2] It comes as no surprise that the American Party’s greatest success was from Puritan New England, and ultimately shared all the pride, pomp, and prejudice that came with being the inheritor of the Puritan spirit of Americanism. As the famous Boston Brahmin saying captures:

Here's to dear old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where Lowells speak only to Cabots,
And Cabots speak only to God

The ecstatic fury that unleashed the Know Nothings was the same divine fury that sent Puritans sailing across 3,000 miles of ocean to find the New Israel. Believing they had arrived in the New Canaan, these millenarian Protestants weren’t going to allow everything they fled to come and infect the holiest of holies. (In their view, of course.) The moralizing strand of Puritanism made it unable for the Know Nothings to believe Catholics could be good, democratic, and republican citizens of a Protestant nation. They equally loathed the pro-slavery expansionists. Both for their twisted belief that slavery expansionism was a Catholic plot, but also because of their profound social moralism which saw slavery as immoral. The Know Nothings derided slavery and its immorality as part of a “Catholic and Cotton entente.”[3] It seems, then, their anti-slavery politics was uniquely intertwined with their anti-Catholicism.

In fact, part of the reason why the Second Party system collapsed was because of the success of reformism, not in spite of it. In the North, especially, the neo-Puritan spirit of millenarian Protestantism—while unfortunately deeply anti-Catholic—had become irrevocably fixed on confronting the “peculiar institution.” The Jacksonian Democrats had succeeded in their primary political goals: westward expansion and the democratization of politics. In the north, the spirit of social reformism, prohibition, anti-Catholicism, and anti-slavery politics had become ubiquitous throughout the region.

A pro-American Party political graphic. It highlights some of the success that party had in mayoral elections, notably in New York, Boston, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati. Know Nothing mayors were swept into almost city in New England between 1854 and 1855, and also won elections in Midwestern cities like Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Chicago. The party also found success in California, winning in cities like San Francisco, and equally had success in the Mid-Atlantic, winning in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington D.C. Many of these cities passed extensive social and political reforms when under Know Nothing control. Know Nothing presence in Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, Vermont, and Rhode Island also transformed the social and political apparatus of these states. Modern New England, if we can call it that, came out of the social and political reforms passed by the American Party.

An American Party newspaper promoting the Know Nothings. The party promoted itself as the guardian of civil order, separation of Church and State (which I've already covered was a Protestant and anti-Catholic concept contrary to what people say of it today), and the American Constitution against Catholic totalitarianism, superstition, and anarchy. The mass production of the "penny press" also made Nativism potent, it was cheap and affordable to spread the message.​

With no more land to the west to conquer, the Democratic Party’s own success sealed its own demise. The various factions descended upon themselves in cannibalizing fashion. Pro-Slavery intgralists vs. fire-eating secessionists. A few abolitionists, even anti-slavery hawks vs. Pro-slavery integralists. Anti-Catholic Protestants vs. Catholic accommodation (for purely political reasons). The Whig Party’s collapse unleashed, as many historians have said, the militant nature of the Whig Party’s Puritan heritage that fomenting and mobilized into the American Party. The election 1856 was quite dramatic and traumatic for all involved as everyone remembers. It saw the split of the Democratic Party between slavery expansionists backing President Davis, and the stuck-in-the-rut Jacksonians who rallied behind Stephen Douglas. In the north, the Republican Party was challenging the American Party. It was a four way disaster, befitting the election prior to southern secession.

The Whig Party’s “Puritan Ghost,” as it has been described, left the Whig body as it died and exploded onto the public and political scene with great force unseen since the 1730s and 1740s. As another historian has said, the American Party’s success in Massachusetts, unleashed the single greatest session of political reform in American history. In a stunning move, the Know Nothings passed laws that attacked male-dominated property rights in Massachusetts and gave more liberty to women to have property rights and ownership—especially in divorce.[4] The party even endorsed a 10-hour work day with a stable wage—though the party was unsuccessful in its promotion of labor rights.[5] But there was equally an anti-Catholic sentiment and prejudice to this too. Protestant men, not Catholics, ought to have proper employment before Papists. The cohesiveness of the Protestant family was necessary for the success of republican motherhood. Even more surprisingly perhaps, the American Party endorsed the regulation of banks, corporations, and railroads, and called for a greater redistribution of wealth among the “native born” American population. Which the party successfully passed and ingrained into New England culture a strong sense of social justice and the welfare state. Not to mention the Know Nothings strongly condemned political corruption and political machines.

For all the party’s anti-Catholicism, which by no means should be diminished whatsoever as I hope to not have conveyed—even by linking the party’s endorsement of anti-slavery politics and women’s suffrage to their anti-Catholic views—the Know Nothings nevertheless embodied the most radical and reformist spirit in American politics. The American Party came to support almost all the major social reform movements in the 1850s: prohibition, anti-Catholicism, labor rights, wealth redistribution, women’s suffrage, and anti-slavery. The problem for the Know Nothings was this: the spirit of reform was swinging toward the issue of slavery. While the party opposed slavery’s expansion, it often linked it with anti-Catholicism. A very unique strategy at that. At a strategy that helped the party achieve victories in 1854 and 1856. But it was not a permanent strategy. Anti-Catholicism faded. Anti-slavery and Abolitionism took the fore. It ultimately left the party behind, which began to decline in power just years after having burst onto the scene and inaugurated—in states like Massachusetts and Maine—the most comprehensive political, legal, and social reforms in American history. The true birth of many of New England’s public school systems, hospitals, social welfare apparatus, and social reform groups have their roots in Know Nothing politics, which in turn, have their antecedent roots in the Puritans. After all, the Ivy League Schools were founded by the Puritans and their descendants. The American Party purely reflected the timeless America saying, “To War with None But Hell and Rome!” As historian Douglas Kierdorf has said of the Know Nothings, “Yes, they were militantly anti-immigration, but they were also quite progressive on issues of labor rights, opposition to slavery, and the need for more government spending.”

Moreover, one should see the millenarian spirit of American reformism in the 1840s and 1850s that would reincarnate itself in the Progressive Era. The American Party captured the polarizing and millenarian spirit of social reform unlike any other party in the 1850s. As such, many historians have referred to the party’s ideology—and this is not a contradiction—“Progressive Nativism.” It would ironically become the bedrock principle of turn of the century progressivism too, calling itself “New Nationalism” and “Progressivism”—still very much the product of non-conformist Puritan consciousness but now no longer speaking the explicit theological language of America’s Protestant heritage.[6] Historian Stephen Taylor concluded, “the Know-Nothings were predecessors of the Progressive Movement that took place several decades later.”[7]


*Again, a reflection only for TTL.

[1] For a good overview of the role of nativism’s influence on progressivism, see Justin Nordstrom, Danger on the Doorstep: Anti-Catholicism and American Print Culture in the Progressive Era.

[2] George McKenna, The Puritan Origins of American Patriotism, 191.

[3] Ronald Formisano, The Transformation of Political Culture: Massachusetts Parties, 1790s-1840s, 332.

[4] Ibid., 332-333.

[5] Ibid., 340.

[6] See Talcott Parsons, Action Theory and the Human Condition for his treatment on the subject of American progressive activism as the consummation of Puritan historical consciousness.

[7] Stephen Taylor, “Progressive Nativism: The Know Nothing Party in Massachusetts,” Historical Journal of Massachusetts (2000) 28, no. 2, p. 171.

RECOMMENDED READING

Perry Miller, The New England Mind
*Possibly the single greatest work of intellectual history on the Puritans and their influence in American culture and history at large. Sadly, Dr. Miller taught at Harvard.

John Mulkern, The Know Nothing Party in Massachusetts: The Rise and Fall of a People’s Movement.
*Probably the best work of scholarship on the American Party, while not downplaying its anti-Catholic bigotry, Dr. Mulkern highlights the extensive social reforms passed by the party when in power in Massachusetts, and alludes to how other Know Nothing legislatures enacted similar social and political reforms when briefly in power elsewhere.

SUGGESTED READING

Tyler G. Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know-Nothings and the Politics of the 1850s

Sacvan Bercovitch, The Puritan Origins of American Self

Ray Billington, The Protestant Crusade: A Study of the Origins of American Nativism

Francis Bremer, The Puritan Experiment

Ronald Formisano, The Transformation of Political Culture: Massachusetts Parties, 1790s–1840s

Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America

Richard Hofstadter, The Idea of a Party System

Richard McCormick, Second American Party System

George McKenna, The Puritan Origins of American Patriotism

Darrell Overdyke, The Know Nothing Party in the South

James Sacher, A Perfect War of Politics

William Shade, Democratizing the Old Dominion: Virginia and the Second Party System

Stephen Taylor, “Progressive Nativism: The Know Nothing Party in Massachusetts,” Historical Journal of Massachusetts (2000) 28, no. 2, 167–84

Lionel Trilling, The Liberal Imagination

Julius Weinberg, “E.A. Ross: The Progressive as Nativist,” The Wisconsin Magazine of History 50, no. 3 (Spring, 1967), 242-253

Avihu Zakhai, Exile and Kingdom: History and Apocalypse in the Puritan Migration to America
​

 

[RossN]

The American Party purely reflected the timeless America saying, “To War with None But Hell and Rome!”

Of course given that 'Rome' can be twisted into meaning 'Britain' when convienient that is not much consolation!

Fascinating work as always volksmarchall but I have to admit I'm finding it harder and harder to root for, well, anyone.

What is your population like at this point? I know in my games (admittedly not as the US) America tends to lag quite far OTL.

 

[Nathan Madien]

While updating my Presidents AAR the other day after a two-month hiatus, I noticed that you had started a new AAR, volksmarschall.

Being a fateful follower of your work, I have read this entire AAR in one sitting. It is very well written and researched as always. Your choices of Presidents has been interesting, and the Quebec War I thought was unexpected. Not at all surprised to see that William Jennings Bryan will be a future President. I remember you said once in the other Victoria AAR that you wanted to do a Bryan Presidency but it didn't work out that way.

On an inspired sidenote, Koei did a videogame about the American Revolution back in the 1990s called "Liberty or Death" in which you can invade Canada as the Americans. Reading about the Quebec War gave me flashbacks to that game, in which I managed to get Benedict Arnold to capture Quebec. Once you capture Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal, you can make Canada the 14th Colony. Like I said, reading about the Quebec War reminded me of that.

 

[volksmarschall]

Of course given that 'Rome' can be twisted into meaning 'Britain' when convienient that is not much consolation!

Fascinating work as always volksmarchall but I have to admit I'm finding it harder and harder to root for, well, anyone.

What is your population like at this point? I know in my games (admittedly not as the US) America tends to lag quite far OTL.

Well, I think that I'm doing my job then! We get enough of the ra ra ra liberty and democracy USA AARs and "Great Men" foci. I'm not here to paint the rosy story we all know. I do want a greater take away of the nuances and subtleties though.

Just like with the Know Nothings. How many people really know the party's activities in anti-slavery politics, public and social welfare and reform, its endorsement of women's suffrage, labor rights, and stuff? From my experience few to none. Although as I equally indicated, there was a lot of anti-Catholic "conspiracy" that followed with it. I'll have to look at the population numbers in-game, though I'm not really concerned with "20 million" or something being how I'm going to write up U.S. population demographics. You're right. It does lag behind considerably from OTL numbers.

You can always root for the Catholic immigrants. I'm surprised you didn't mention the inclusion of the "minstrel boy" as the lead-in quote. It has a double meaning, hence its inclusion.

While updating my Presidents AAR the other day after a two-month hiatus, I noticed that you had started a new AAR, volksmarschall.

Being a fateful follower of your work, I have read this entire AAR in one sitting. It is very well written and researched as always. Your choices of Presidents has been interesting, and the Quebec War I thought was unexpected. Not at all surprised to see that William Jennings Bryan will be a future President. I remember you said once in the other Victoria AAR that you wanted to do a Bryan Presidency but it didn't work out that way.

On an inspired sidenote, Koei did a videogame about the American Revolution back in the 1990s called "Liberty or Death" in which you can invade Canada as the Americans. Reading about the Quebec War gave me flashbacks to that game, in which I managed to get Benedict Arnold to capture Quebec. Once you capture Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal, you can make Canada the 14th Colony. Like I said, reading about the Quebec War reminded me of that.

It's always great to see you Nathan! Although I'm not sure I would want to endorse a one-sit read, but I suppose that's equally a nice compliment and that the content is engaging! Good flashbacks then it sounds like. Can't say I'm familiar with the game though. Canada would probably have been renamed the State of Arnold then, if he accomplished that and never joined the other side!

Although, as you can tell, we're doing a far departure from "The Presidents" We accomplished that in Victoria. Time for something new. William R. King was President, as was Martin Van Buren, but they've got little attention. I don't care to talk about how great or bad they were, that's just a fundamental departure from our theme here. Though, a few will figure a bit more prominently. Bryan especially when we get to that era.

Always great to have you along as you know!

 

[volksmarschall]

CHAPTER V: THE COLLAPSE OF THE SECOND PARTY SYSTEM


Reformism, The Once and Future Ideology II​

The irony, then, of the collapse of the Second Party System is that it was born in a militant spirit of reform and collapsed in the culmination of the militant spirit of reform that unleashed it. The formation of the Democratic Party under Andrew Jackson, which took its militant spirit from the “Jacobin” Thomas Jefferson,[1] had an unending faith in the latitudinal and linear belief in historical progress. Hegelian in some form, the faith of the Democrats was the tidal wave of progress unleashing the freedom of the people to a greater and greater ideal.

Jackson and the Democratic Party began working tirelessly to produce reforms to reach this ideal state. When the United States completed its westward conquest, and with universal (White) male suffrage passed, the purpose of the Democratic Party had been completed. In this Hegelian reading, the Democratic Party had reached its self-actualization and was now in the period of aufheben, to be transcended or superseded. The Democratic Party did not form, as many detractors claim, to defend slave interests. Although the party did defend it. But then so did the Whigs. With westward expansion consummated, and male suffrage complete, the party struggled with the serious question of slavery which even its spiritual founder, Thomas Jefferson, had wrestled with. As mentioned, the Democratic Party was not united on this issue. Anti-slavery Democrats had long existed. Thomas Jefferson, the party’s precursor and spiritual founder, was an anti-slavery politician as already mentioned. Democrats like David Wilmot and John C. Fremont were also anti-slavery pro-Manifest Destiny Democrats. Technically, so too were Jackson and Polk, men who envisioned westward expansion without the needed expansion of slavery. In this, the limits of their wisdom are clearly seen. Even the Fire-Eaters were divided between an integralist faction and a secessionist and expansionist faction. The Democratic Party couldn’t move to any other issue because it was so successful in the Jacksonian Era it precipitated its own collapse to which it would not recover until the election of William Jennings Bryan, who recovered the democratic agrarianism that was contingently attached to westward expansion. Bryan, not Jackson, was a truly reactionary force against the forces of capital, industrialization, and modernization.

Where the Democratic Party was successful, the Whig Party was an utter and abject failure. While it’s economic ideology of state capitalism and modernization, protectionism, and a national bank would be taken up by the Republican Party and employed to great effect after the Civil War, the Whig Party—outside of the years of 1841-1845—failed to effectively enact its policies. Worse, the Whigs curtailed the spirit of social reformism—“the Puritan ghost” that historians speak of. It internalized and redirected that spirit of social reformism toward economic modernism. The party’s failure to channel the spirit of reformism through political failure meant that when the party began to collapse, the Puritan ghost of social reformism and anti-Catholicism—which the party had always subscribed to anyways—unleashed itself in a torrent of militant and ecstatic reform.

That spirit mobilized itself most visibly in the American Party. As one American Party leader proclaimed in the State Legislature of Massachusetts in 1855, “The Kingdom of God Cometh, his judgment be terrible and swift!” Another Massachusetts Know Nothing, speaking against slavery, uttered the words, “Are we not treading the same footsteps as Isaiah!? Has our nation not fallen from heaven? Have we not been cast down to the earth of the damned?” New York Congressman and prominent American Party advocate Thomas R. Whitney even proclaimed in Congress, “Hence the utmost prudence should be observed in granting or extending the right of suffrage!”[2]

To some, the sudden outburst of social and political reformism in the 1850s, especially from the American Party, was the unshackling of the “Puritan ghost” as already mentioned. That is, the collapse of the Whig Party marked the triumph of Puritan consciousness writ large: the dream of being agents of the eschaton, establishing a just and godly society, and also unleashing the deeply embedded anti-Catholicism of Puritanism. Once contained to the Puritans, this spirit of millenarianism, social justice, social engineering, public moralism, and anti-Catholicism had grown to infect all levels of American society. And, as mentioned, the American Party saw its strongest local support in the New England states. In 1854, all but 10 Massachusetts state representatives and senators were members of the party. Significant success was seen in Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania as hitherto described. In Vermont, significant changes to the state constitutional were pushed through in a spirit of millenarian reformism from the Know Nothings too.

The Vermont Constitution allowed for a 13-man council known as the “Council of Censors” that influenced the policy prescriptions for Constitutional changes in the state. In 1855, the Know Nothings swept all 13 seats. With unanimous power, they began pushing a series of sweeping political and constitutional reforms—reforms long neglected by both Democrats and Whigs in the decades prior. The Know Nothing pushed through proportional representation. William Wilson, the presiding officer, was determined to promote electoral reform, prohibition, and political changes to the Vermont Constitution, including the establishment of a “council of three” to investigate the gubernatorial office and State House to ensure minimal corruption and that the State Legislature was living up to “protect the people.” Furthermore, the Know Nothing Council passed a major labor law that stipulated all workers would be compensated for work related injuries.[3]

The Temperance Movement had existed prior to the 1850s, but under the American Party's sudden success, especially in New England, the Temperance Movement gained a strong political ally. ​

Like in Massachusetts, the prominence of the American Party in Vermont brought forth what historians have said was the most populist, progressive, and sweeping legal, political, and social reforms in American history. The overlap between social reformism on issues concerning anti-slavery, labor rights, women’s suffrage, land reform, public education, and prohibition, all intertwined and intersected with anti-Catholicism in complex and confusing ways. While it is easy, and rightly so, to pillory the “Know Nothings” for their anti-immigrant (really anti-Catholic) stances, it’s incredible to note that the level of progressive reforms passed by state parties, their affiliates at the local level, and also their role in ousting President Davis* have gotten little attention by the public at large.

But while the American Party was undertaking ambitious reforms in New England, the Democratic Party remained schizophrenic on the issue of slavery. More and more moderates were leaving the party and joining the American Party, or the newly formed Republican Party. Governor John C. Fremont in California, an anti-slavery moderate, had joined the American Party. David Wilmot also left the party and joined the Republicans. Wilmot and Fremont, two former Democrats, would be the Republican ticket in 1856. While Davis sat as President, it was a tenuous position for him to be. He had little support in the north. The Know Nothings, Republicans, Free Soilers, and anti-slavery Democrats had rallied together to elect Nathaniel Prentiss Banks, of the American Party, House Speaker. In the Senate, the Democrats held the majority, but it was a majority that was in tension with itself. Stephen Douglas, for instance, was not in favor the prospect of an American invasion of Cuba and Latin America as Davis was clamoring for. Moreover, the failure of the Democrats to hold a House majority certainly hampered southern plans for a proper declaration of war.

At the same time, Douglas’s commitment to popular sovereignty was being used by Kansas Border Ruffians to try and expand slavery in the territory by flooding the state territory with pro-slavery activists. If Douglas was committed to anti-slavery Unionism as many claim, he was incredibly short-sighted to not realize how popular sovereignty was a tool being used by slavery activists.

This tension between the anti-slavery Jacksonian wing of the Party and the pro-slavery and pro-expansionist Davisonian wing ruptured in 1855. Like a broken marriage, northern and western Democrats were increasingly growing militant in their opposition to the fire-eaters. When an (American) unidentified frigate fired upon Nicaraguan city of Puerto Cabezas in support of William Walker’s “expedition,” the north became furious when reports indicated that it was an American naval vessel (and it was). (Three sailors eventually admitted to it to the Massachusetts and New York presses.) A righteous fire ruptured the Democratic Party. Even Douglas condemned the action as “slave imperialism.” To this end, President Davis was ousted by his own party’s convention in 1856 which subsequently nominated Stephen Douglas. Not to be outdone, the fire-eaters in the Democratic Party walked out and nominated Davis again anyway and placed his name on the southern ballots instead of Douglas.

Walker, the “Grey-Eyed Man of Destiny,” was an instant hero in the American south and west. Another pioneer. Some even referred to him as “General Walker.” His band of “Filibusters” were mostly American, but also included foreign mercenaries, militant discontents meant to foment revolution in Latin America. Unable to achieve his formal declaration of war, President Davis secretly supported the Filibusters, and hoped that Walker and his men would achieve revolution in the Latin American states, and turn them into future American territories that would subsequently enter the Union as slave states. The intention was obvious. The north, of course, was outraged by such actions. And everyone well-knew that Davis was secretly behind the campaigns. Walker was nothing more than a renegade pirate.

William Walker, the famous "Filibuster" commander and rank Southern partisan. He led an invasion of Central America in 1855.[4] Many expected it was under the secret order of President Jefferson Davis as a means to circumnavigate increasing political gridlock and the rising tensions in Kansas. Walker successfully brought Central America under his control and allied itself with the United States. He was remembered as "The Grey-Eyed Man of Destiny" due to his grey eyes.
​

The south, for its part, replied in fashion. What was John Brown if nothing other than a pirate on legal and political grounds just like Walker? Brown had been captured and executed on August 13, 1857, and his memory lived on in the north as a Puritan hero—a model Christian who understood the evil of slavery and the iniquity that was about to befall the United States if it did not turn away from its own internal sin. As Brown said, “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin” (Quoting Hebrews 9:22). And what of the Jayhawkers too many southerners replied back? Were they not all pirates and deviants from the law as well?

Walker was an ardent devotee of the “Five or None” campaign. He envisioned restoring the United Central States of America. It is difficult to know, then, if he wanted a country of his own or if he would intend to join the American Union if given the opportunity. The opportunity, however, was never given to him. Davis, as mentioned, was ousted by the national Democratic Party convention. Douglas was nominated instead, and in the wild election of 1856 was elected President after the vote went to Congress. Douglas was committed to the ideology of popular sovereignty in American territories; this did not extend to non-U.S. territories. Additionally, Douglas had condemned Walker as a crony of Jefferson Davis.

To make matters worse, before Douglas was to be inaugurated, Davis and the outgoing Congress ratified an alliance with the new United States of Central America under Walker’s leadership. The fear among northerners and all anti-slavery activists was that the newly conquered lands were going to be added as slave states in the future. This only hastened the conflict in Kansas. Jayhawkers and Brown advocates flooded the territory to wreak a terrible hand of discriminatory violence against any and all suspect of pro-slavery leanings. Additionally, the American Party condemned Walker as a Papist puppet and was strongly opposed to the USCA’s potential admittance into the Union not only on the grounds of slavery, but also on anti-Catholic grounds that this would bring an influx of Catholics into the American republic too.

One of the ramifications of Walker’s successful campaign and alliance with the United States, ratified by the Davis partisans, was that it likely had an effect in mobilizing all the anti-slavery forces in Congress that helped elect Douglas over Davis. Even Republican candidates David Wilmot and John C. Fremont, despite having a good showing for a first party’s election, winning six states including New York and Ohio because of the vote splitting and 81 electoral votes, advocated for congressman from the states they had nominally carried to back Douglas in a bid with the American Party to block Davis’s reelection. The fear was that many, if not all the states that Douglas had carried, would come to back Davis in a vote in Congress. In Congress, after all, Democrats had the individual numbers capable of delivering a vote to the candidate of their choosing. Many believed Davis would add Walker’s quasi-empire into the Union as a slaveholding bastion propelled the American Party, Republicans, and anti-slavery Democrats to gather together. The vote in Congress comes down to each individual, who is not supposedly pledged like the electors to vote for the state winner.

The election of Stephen Douglas over Jefferson Davis in 1856 marked the end of Walker’s potential pro-American and fire-eating enterprise. It is hard to know whether he did, in fact, seek conquest to bring Central America under the American Union. Regardless, he did succeed in bringing Central America under the sphere of American influence. The new alliance between the United States of Central America and the United States of America would hold firm from 1856 to the present. Although, in many ways, Walker’s conquest brought about a new dynamic in Central America that even Spanish colonialism didn’t provide. And for the first and only time, Pan-American nationalism was quelled because of the growing issue of slavery and its role in American politics.

Democratic Senator from Illinois Stephen Douglas. He was elected President in 1856 in Congress, ousting Jefferson Davis and the more extremist "fire-eater" wing of the Democratic Party which had gained power in 1853. Douglas became an ardent opponent of both Jefferson Davis and William Walker, but his fidelity to "popular sovereignty" in election matters also made him a mixed figure on the growing issue of slavery and the Kansas War. He was a staunch Unionist, although he couldn't prevent Southern secession and the outbreak of the Civil War in April of 1860.​

For his part, President Douglas, while desperately fighting back home to maintain the Union, became one of Walker’s greatest adversaries. Although the two countries were nominally allied thanks to Davis, Douglas instituted an embargo against the USCA to send a message. During the Civil War, American ships blockaded the coast to prevent mercenaries from joining the Confederacy. Many still did, traveling through Mexico instead of the blockade runners. After the Civil War, in a move that transformed the upperclass and elite politics of Central America—what has become known as the “Confederate Exodus”, Anywhere from 15,000-20,000 Confederates and their families migrated to Walker’s "little empire." They became the new gentrified elite in the country. And still remain so today.

The shifting dynamics of reform and slavery crushed the Second Party system. Its dissolution brought about the Civil War. In part, this was the failure of both major parties to effectively handle the spirit of reform. Americans were a restless people, now contained by two bodies of water on west and east, they turned that energy of pioneering exploration into the one thing Americans have running in their DNA: social reform.


*The ousting of President Davis is for my game’s purposes only. The rest, however, remains true of the party in its passage of complex and wide-ranging reforms from: land, and women’s rights issues, to anti-slavery, labor reforms, and proportional political representation

[1] Jefferson was often derided as a Jacobin and “atheist” by the Federalist Party during his lifetime and presidency.

[2] Thomas R. Whitney, A Defense of The American Policy, Ch. 11.

[3] Vermont Secretary of State, “Records of the Council of Censors of the State of Vermont,” 1855-1856.

[4] Historically, it was in 1856.

SUGGESTED READING

William C. Davis, Jefferson Davis: The Man of His Hour

Thelma Jennings, The Nashville Convention: Southern Movement for Unity

David M. Potter, The Impending Crisis

William Walker’s own auto-biographical and historical account, The War in Nicaragua​

 

[Specialist290]

Walker's filibuster succeeding? Jefferson Davis, President of the United States? What madness is this?!

Granted, it does capture quite well the fever pitch the United States was experiencing in the run-up to the Civil War. And the implication that Walker's USCA (or at least the "filibuster aristocracy" he brought with him) survives into the present day is quite the tantalizing hint -- one I hope gets followed up on...

 

[Nathan Madien]

I have always wondered what a Stephen Douglas Presidency would have been like, especially in regards to the Civil War. Now I am about to find out.

 

[Tankman987]

Wait whuh?! Jefferson Davis was a President? How? Did I miss something?

PS: keep up the great work.

 

[volksmarschall]

Walker's filibuster succeeding? Jefferson Davis, President of the United States? What madness is this?!

Granted, it does capture quite well the fever pitch the United States was experiencing in the run-up to the Civil War. And the implication that Walker's USCA (or at least the "filibuster aristocracy" he brought with him) survives into the present day is quite the tantalizing hint -- one I hope gets followed up on...

We need to spice things up. Plus, that Filibuster Empire might come in handy down the road for shaping up my southern border.

I have always wondered what a Stephen Douglas Presidency would have been like, especially in regards to the Civil War. Now I am about to find out.

Among other things, I kinda wanted Douglas in The Presidents just like Bryan. I guess, in this go round, I'm getting include some people who got the shorter end back in Victoria. Plus, Douglas is quite the firebrand and has, naturally, a mixed legacy among historians in how one should view his politics. So yes, his presiding over the collapse of the American Union and his response (since he was a Unionist) should be quite fun to work with. Especially since the Confederacy seceded in April of 1860, so that's gonna be interesting how I have to explain that, secession before an election! I've already hinted at that though for the careful reader.

Wait whuh?! Jefferson Davis was a President? How? Did I miss something?

PS: keep up the great work.

Missed nothing other than I thought it would be a good tour de force, also allows me to really bring forth the drama and tension that was running rampant in the 1850s. Also why I wanted to take some time with the Know Nothings, whom are actually slated in my coding files not to disappear anytime soon.

 

[Nathan Madien]

Especially since the Confederacy seceded in April of 1860, so that's gonna be interesting how I have to explain that, secession before an election! I've already hinted at that though for the careful reader.

I noticed a hint about Lincoln buried in one of the updates, so I have an guess about what could happen in 1860. I remember in the Presidents AAR, you had Lincoln beating Douglas in the 1858 Senate race. It would be funny if you had Lincoln beating Douglas in the 1860 Presidential election as well.

Douglas: Lincoln, stop beating me in alternate history!

 

[volksmarschall]

I noticed a hint about Lincoln buried in one of the updates, so I have an guess about what could happen in 1860. I remember in the Presidents AAR, you had Lincoln beating Douglas in the 1858 Senate race. It would be funny if you had Lincoln beating Douglas in the 1860 Presidential election as well.

Douglas: Lincoln, stop beating me in alternate history!

Well there's no Lincoln-Douglas Debate, at least in the Senate form now! High schools need a new debate name in this time line!

I admit, the firing of the CW in the game threw problems with how elections worked for us, so as we can already tell, 1852 and 1856 are my electoral madness moments as to compensate, but I explicitly stated in an earlier updates how and why the South seceded to make up for the fact it wasn't the actual outcome of an election anymore. Oh alternate history...

John Brown will be coming in our next update. "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave but his soul goes marching on!"

 

[Idhrendur]

Yes, John Brown! I'm excited!

 

[volksmarschall]

Yes, John Brown! I'm excited!

Paul Robeson's version is the best, 2:25 is when John Brown's Body begins.
"The attack of John Brown upon Harper's Ferry came upon Virginia like a clap of thunder out of a clear sky."

 

[volksmarschall]

CHAPTER V: THE COLLAPSE OF THE SECOND PARTY SYSTEM


Reformism, the Once and Future Ideology III​

The most militant aspect of American social reformism came in the Puritan moralism of northern Calvinism—especially regarding slavery. While most northern Protestants, including abolitionist and anti-slavery activists, tended toward a progressive nativism concerning Catholic immigrants, they had sharply turned to the view that slavery had to be dealt with, and dealt with here and now. The passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, and Walker’s Filibuster campaign in Latin America led to a push-back of similar likes in the United States.

John Brown was perhaps the quintessential example of this militant moralistic Puritan of the north. The very man whom southerners feared. “Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin.” It was the perfect storm of good old fashion revivalism mixed with the Puritan spirit of militant reformism. The Puritans, for their part, had always been a people of the Old Testament. Israel was their imagination. Exile, Wilderness, and Canaan, had become their adopted historical consciousness. “You only have I chose of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your sins.” The stern god of Old Testament righteousness was believed ready to unleash his wrath over America for her iniquities and failings concerning slavery. And the southerners knew it. The righteous and demanding god of Isaiah was ready to strike forth like lightning and unleash his terrible swift sword.

The ecstatic nature of American reformism and revivalism in the 1840s and 1850s was unlike anything in recorded history. In Ohio, the Millerites gathered on a hill in expectation of the second coming of Christ that night.[1] When it did not occur, an eye-witness recounted, “We wept, and wept till the dawn of day.” Another said, “We laid prostrate on the ground for two days, crying and screaming without sleep.” The Millerites were a perfect example of this millenarian spirit sweeping the United States in the 1840s and 1850s.

The rapid reforms pushed through by Know Nothing legislatures in New England also reflected this sudden and coming Judgment. One Massachusetts Know Nothing spoke to the Legislature, “The hour of Judgment cometh, shall we stand and do nothing in the midst of this great Judgment?” Another Vermont Know Nothing supposedly said to his colleagues in the State House, “God’s Judgment is upon us. And we have demonstrably failed like the Jews of Old. May He have mercy on us all.”

All across America, Americans were ripe with an existential anxiety that was unprecedented elsewhere in the world. Religious fanatics were weeping on the hills and streets when predictions of Christ’s Second Coming failed to materialize. State Legislatures were rapidly moving to enact social and political reforms. Men were murdering one another in Kansas and Missouri. William Lloyd Garrison was dancing in the streets of towns and cities with burning copies of Constitution in his hand shouting “No Union with Slaveholders!” An American had undertaken what was an illegal invasion of Latin American countries and consummated a personal empire from it with tacit support from the American government. And an American Congressman attacked an American Senator with a cane during a live session of the Senate, Preston Brooks of South Carolina nearly killing Massachusetts Republican Senator Charles Sumner. America, by all standards, was tearing itself apart. One New York clergyman, gave a somber decree, “We have failed, and now we understand the wrath that is befalling us for our iniquities. May the shepherd pull from the lion’s mouth the arm and leg of what is left of the lamb.” Madness, Mayhem, and apocalyptic fever was widespread. As another American historian has said, “1850s America believed the apocalypse was nigh.”

An image depicting the conflict in Kansas between anti-slavery and pro-slavery forces. America's millenarian expectations and apocalyptic expectations seemed to be validated on the bloody fields of the Kansas Territory. Staunch Calvinists took this as a sign of America's moral failing, and that God's Judgment was coming down upon the nation just as had befallen the Kingdom of Judah in the Hebrew Bible. ​

No one better embodied this Puritan apocalyptic moralism better than John Brown. Born May 9, 1800 in Connecticut, Brown was an old fashion Puritan Calvinist. His theology was the theology of the Mathers, Edwards, and the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel. He was convinced on the need for a socially pure, moral, and egalitarian society. He believed, like the Mathers and Edwards and his Puritan forefathers had, that America was to be a special nation to the countries of the world. A light for others to emulate. But he recognized America’s failings on slavery. He was stern, harsh, but a man possessed by the Spirit his friends and family recalled. He had once famously taken his son into a barn and given him a whip to beat him instead, “I have failed you my son,” he is reported to have said as he gave it over to him and demanded his son lash him.[2]

Brown was convinced Judgment was upon the United States. And he ventured off to Kansas “to do battle with the forces of Satan and iniquity” as he said. The Kansas-Nebraska Act had recently undone, in theory, the Compromise of 1850. Something Brown had little love for either way, but it was certainly better than watch Kansas—which was meant to have been a free-state—suddenly fall into a fire of sin and slavery. He did his part, as did other motivated Protestants compelled to face their trial and tribulation for being idle-watchers as their nation fall into a mire of iniquity.

In Kansas, he became one of the leaders of the Jayhawkers, the name for the so-called “freedom fighters” seeking to keep Kansas a Free State against the Border Ruffians, the pro-slavery expansionists who were moving into the territory in hopes of putting slavery to a popular vote. Meanwhile, Brown wasn’t the only one engaged in a Biblical drama of his own. A pro-freedom secret society named the “Danites” (after the tribe of Dan) was acting to ensure Kansas be a free state, even engaging in their own battles and raids. (The Book of Judges centers around Danite territory, the group named themselves in homage of the lawlessness of Kansas akin to Israel as retold in the Book of Judges.) Brown even made contact with this band of temple destroyers. Many of the Jayhawkers and Danites later joined the ranks of the Union Army during the Civil War.

For his role in all of this, Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas earned the wrath of Brown and many of the Jayhawkers. He was no better than a fire-eater in their eyes. Although most historians debate the extent of Douglas’s views on slavery. He was a democrat, a thorough-going Jefferson-Jacksonian democrat. A believer in the popular sovereignty of the people, Rousseau’s “General Will” so to speak. He was a convinced liberal expansionist crusader—perhaps to the point that it blinded him on slavery.

For John Brown, however, popular democracy did not take precedence over the moral demands of God. And it was exactly that, demands. The Puritans were very self-conscious about being agents of the eschaton, harbingers of the millennium. Brown was no different. American Calvinism was unique in its eschatological vision: postmillennialism. Postmillennialism is the belief that the Second Coming of Christ would only occur after a nation purged itself of all iniquity and established a community of absolute equality, justice, and righteousness. To this end, the Puritan experiment that has become so influential—consciously and unconsciously—in America was undertaken to achieve exactly that. The failings of slavery then, were not just morally unjustified, it was eschatologically unjustified. The destruction of slavery was not only proclaimed by Christ, “I have come to free the captives” and therefore commanded by all Christians to actually follow, it also was necessary for any hope of achieving the Second Coming.

A photograph of John Brown when he took his oath to perpetually fight slavery until his death.​

Postmillennialism is a novelty in Christian eschatological doctrine. Catholics, Anglicans, and Orthodox have condemned it as tantamount to heresy. Most other Protestants don’t even subscribe to it. But the Puritans did. As Talcott Parsons believed, this unique spirit of American Puritan Postmillennialism historicized itself into the America psyche at large. America, the land of constant and restless social reform, he argued, owed this very American idea of “instrumental activism” to the Puritan conscience itself. He seems right, in this regard. The regions that were home to the Puritans and their scions, are the most socially activist and progressive regions of America. They were in 1630, and they remain so today. Brown, after all, hailed from Puritan Connecticut, the most millenarian of the Puritan colonies. The city of New Haven, the location of Yale University, was even built on the model of the New Jerusalem found in the Books of Ezekiel and Revelation. New England, especially, was self-consciously constructed and engendered the ideals of purity, justice, and equality and the righteous society. Her failings, numerous, only furthered to strengthen resolve in the years leading up to the Civil War.

Brown also knew famous abolitionist Frederick Douglas, who even famously debated with Brown on the merits of his militancy. Brown, for his part, was committed to the politics of revolutionary faith rather than pragmatism. In many ways, Brown thought of himself as an Old Testament Prophet. Like Elijah, Isaiah, or Michaiah, Brown stood on the periphery watching a society be torn about by its own failings. Like the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, he was compelled into action.

And so it was that Brown ventured off to Kansas with five of his sons to do battle with the prophets of Baal in the land of innocence. But there was no innocence, just a land of blood, tears, and the weeping and gnashing of teeth. When he arrived, he was made a leader of Jayhawker forces at won a victory the Battle of Black Jack, taking 23 pro-slavery activists captive. Sometime later, Border Ruffians sacked the town of Lawrence, Kansas, one of the hubs of the free-state movement. In response, John Brown gathered his small band of pious warriors and massacred a band of pro-slavery men. The incident made headlines throughout the south. “Who is this demonic man John Brown?” wrote one southern newspaper editor. “The Puritan Demons have descended upon us,” wrote a South Carolina newspaper covering the Kansas War.[3] The irony of it all is that it was quite the opposite—the southerners and slave-holding fire-eating sympathizer were descending upon the otherwise peaceful and serene people of Kansas bring war and destruction with them. John Brown was the reaction to what was essentially a pro-slavery invasion of Kansas. William Quantrill, one of the major leaders of the Border Ruffians was from Ohio ironically.

Kansas ran red with blood and her crops burned from arson in the unending battle between free and slave forces. President Davis, for his part, did little to stem the tide of battle. And why should he? A slavery victory in Kansas benefited slave interests, which he was firmly an engendered representative of. Although he would lose the 1856 election, his deliberate inaction allowed for the Kansas War to escalate. Border Ruffians, after hearing what Brown and his band of puritan warriors had done, retaliated in turn. Kansas and the border of Missouri was essentially a warzone. The territorial governor, Wilson Shannon, was powerless to do anything either. Beset by failure and escalating violence, he resigned his office.

Brown, like clockwork, struck back at the Border Ruffians, personally killing three men in a night raid across the border at an inn that supposedly house pro-slavery activists. He subsequently escaped back to the north after the incident, a polarizing figure according to most—but a demon to the south and a hero to the north. Though not to all. When he returned, many expected him to gather more recruits for another trek into Kansas. Brown had other plans. He expected the nation’s conscience to have been changed. He hoped that he could gather a faithful band of martyrs and seize the Federal arms arsenal at Harper’s Ferry Virginia. Brown figured that he was a new Gideon, and his faithful band of soldiers would cause a liberating spirit to move through the slave fields of Virginia and bring about a new Nat Turner-esque rebellion.

This ill-fated expedition led to his capture and eventual hanging in Virginia. “John Brown’s Last Raid” was celebrated by southerners, who believed that a man that would have effectively been called a traitor was captured and brought to justice. Brown, reviled in the south, with polarized but an overall positive image in the north—suddenly became the newest Puritan martyr in the fight for the Lord.

"John Brown's Last Raid", the final episode of what some historians call "John Brown's Holy War," was an armed insurrectionist assault on the federal armory in Harper's Ferry Virginia. It was put down by American Marines, led by the future Confederate general Robert E. Lee. Brown was captured and hanged as a traitor of the United States. Upon leaving the jail en route to his death, it is reported that John Brown kissed, "affectionately," a slave child according to a New York Tribune report. The story is unknown to be true, but highlights how the north, especially New England Calvinists, saw John Brown as a holy martyr of the Lord. "He's gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord!" read the lyrics to the song that bore his name, eulogizing the man whom by modern standards would have been considered a traitor. He remains a highly polarized figure in American historiography.​

The future Union war march “John Brown’s Body” captured his life and death, and martyrized him for future generations, “John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in the grave, John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in the grave, John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in the grave but his soul goes marching on!”

Old John Brown’s body lies moldering in the grave,
While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save;
But tho he lost his life while struggling for the slave,
His soul is marching on!
(Chorus)
John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true and brave,
And Kansas knows his valor when he fought her rights to save;
Now, tho the grass grows green above his grave,
His soul is marching on!
(Chorus)
He captured Harper’s Ferry, with his nineteen men so few,
And frightened "Old Virginny" till she trembled thru and thru;
They hung him for a traitor, they themselves the traitor crew,
But his soul is marching on!
(Chorus)
John Brown was John the Baptist of the Christ we are to see,
Christ who of the bondmen shall the Liberator be,
And soon thru-out the Sunny South the slaves shall all be free,
For his soul is marching on!
(Chorus)
The conflict that he heralded he looks from heaven to view,
On the army of the Union with its flag red, white and blue.
And heaven shall ring with anthems o’er the deed they mean to do,
For his soul is marching on!
(Chorus)
Ye soldiers of Freedom, then strike, while strike ye may,
The death blow of oppression in a better time and way,
For the dawn of old John Brown has brightened into day,
And his soul is marching on!


The religious imagery, explicit, was intentional. It captured, for many, the religious struggle that had developed over the issue of slavery itself. Just as the American Party represented one pole of the militant social reformism that had been unleashed in the 1850s, so too did John Brown represent an equal end of that same pole. But he engendered the militant revolutionary position about slavery. His death helped galvanize the north to confront slavery the same way Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book Uncle Tom’s Cabin did. When war broke out, the children of the Puritans—who most enthusiastically marched off to war in service to Isaiah’s God of righteous retribution, often sung the tune of “John Brown’s Body” and then “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Into the gates of hell John Brown went. Up to heaven a martyr to be a soldier of the Lord, his end. In every way, John Brown represented a long strand of American militant and revolutionary reformism. Despite Brown’s deaths and actions, the War in Kansas would continue into the Civil War, ending only when pro-Union quickly moved into Missouri and spilled into the Kansas Territory to ensure the end of hostilities and end a pro-secessionist territorial movement.


[1] This is remembered as “the Great Disappointment.” Millerism later served as the basis for Seventh Day Adventism.

[2] This story is probably apocryphal, but I like it. I think it captures the mind of John Brown perfectly.

[3] It was common for southerners to tar northerners with the label “Puritan.” The famous song “The Southern Cross” (ca. 1860/1861) included the lines “Till betrayed by the guile of the Puritan demon.” Charles Chauncey Burr also referred to the Civil War as “this terrible Puritan War.”

SUGGESTED READING

Nicole Etcheson, Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War

Tony Horowitz, Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War

Stephen Oates, To Purge This Land with Blood: A Biography of John Brown

David S. Reynolds, John Brown: Abolitionist

Pete Seeger's version of "John Brown's Body," for those interested.​

 

[Director]

Jefferson Davis and Lincoln were both born in Kentucky. There is a short story (which I can't put my hand to right now) that posits their families moving in opposite directions - Davis to the North and Lincoln to the South. Eventually they both become president but of the opposite nation from history. It isn't plausible, really, but it is an interesting notion.

I suspect part of the reason Davis got turned out by his own party would be personality. Assuming his illness and recovery followed the same pattern as in our history, he was notoriously unpleasant to work with and for.

 

[Specialist290]

Ah, John Brown, "Bleeding Kansas" and Harper's Ferry... Harbingers of the madness and fury that would sweep the nation in the next decade.

By chance, the militant anti-slavery Danites you mentioned wouldn't happen to be the same bunch as an equally militant group of fanatical "revenging angels" of the LDS community operating under the same name, would they?

 

[volksmarschall]

Jefferson Davis and Lincoln were both born in Kentucky. There is a short story (which I can't put my hand to right now) that posits their families moving in opposite directions - Davis to the North and Lincoln to the South. Eventually they both become president but of the opposite nation from history. It isn't plausible, really, but it is an interesting notion.

I suspect part of the reason Davis got turned out by his own party would be personality. Assuming his illness and recovery followed the same pattern as in our history, he was notoriously unpleasant to work with and for.

If you happen to find out or remember the short story, would you kindly share it? I'd probably be interested whenever I have the time to get around to it.

Davis got spurned for many reasons. Not to mentioned his two-faced appeal when he claimed to be a national unionist Democrat in 1858 in Boston. And speaking of John Brown's Body, I always get a kick out of the alternative lyrics, "They will hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree."

Ah, John Brown, "Bleeding Kansas" and Harper's Ferry... Harbingers of the madness and fury that would sweep the nation in the next decade.

By chance, the militant anti-slavery Danites you mentioned wouldn't happen to be the same bunch as an equally militant group of fanatical "revenging angels" of the LDS community operating under the same name, would they?

The Danites had no connection to the Mormons. General James Henry Lane was one of the leaders of the Danites. Too bad there isn't much in public about them. They seem very interesting from what I've read. An abolitionist "Jayhawker" secret society, supposedly the first of its kind. So I had to give them a little shout out, especially since Brown did make contact with them so they were apparently known to certain people at the time. Even if it's only like 2 or 3 short sentences. It's the stuff that Hollywood or some alt-history writer would seemingly be fascinated with.

Supposedly many of the high ranking Jayhawkers and future Union Jayhawker commanders came out of the society. If they were anything like Samson, let alone their Jayhawking reputation, I wouldn't want to tango with them. Especially if one of them could tear a lion in two, I wouldn't be much of a problem then!

 

[Idhrendur]

As a bit of period writing, I love Thoreau's 'A Plea For Captain John Brown'. Or at least I remember loving it. I should see if I still have a copy in a book, or if it's online somewhere.