Rise of the new West, 1819-1829

Front matter

iV:

Jlli'l^liili

THE AMERICAN NATION A HISTORY

Contents

CMAP. PAGB

Editor's Introduction . xiii

Author's Preface xvii

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.

xviii AUTHOR'S PREFACE

Several of the topics dealt with in the volume have been investigated by graduate students in my seminary; particularly I have profited by the papers of Professor Homer C. Hockett on the Missouri Compromise and the rise of Jacksonian democracy ; of Mr. Royal B. Way, now instructor in history in Northwestern University, on internal improvements; and of Dr. W. V. Pooley and Mr. A. C. Boggess on the settlement of Illinois. Mr. S. J. Buck, my assistant in American history, prepared under my direction some of the maps, particularly those of congressional votes.

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.

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 181 2 to the election of Andrew Jackson was peculiarly one of readjustment. It was during 1 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 in-j dependence 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 inde-i pendence of the revolting Spanish-American colo-| nies, 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.'

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

* Babcock, ^w. Nationality (Am. Nation, XIII.), chaps, ix., xviii.; Gallatin, Writings, I., 700.

1815] NATION AND SECTIONS 5

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." * These very forces of economic transformatic^ii 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 181 2. This was shown, not only in protests against the loose - construction tendencies of Congress, and in denunciations of the decisions of the great chief-

' Webster, Writings (National ed.), VI., 28.

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.*

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, hew party formations, and some of the most profound changes in the history of American evolution.

'Turner, "Problems of American History," in Congress of Arts and Sciences, St. Louis, II.

•VI

1825] NATION AND SECTIONS 7

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?"^

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 sections. John Quincy Adams, in 18 19, said of Calhoun: "he is above all sectional and factious prejudices more than any other statesman of this union with whom

* Clay, Works, IV., 81, 82; Annals of Cong., 18 Cong., i Sess., II., 1997, 2423.

I have ever acted." * But Calhoun, by the close of the decade, was not only complaining that the protective policy of certain sections set a dangerous example "of separate representation, and association of great Geographical interests to promote their prosperity at the expense of other interests," but he was also convinced that a great defect in our system was that the separate geographical interests were not sufficiently guarded.^ Speaking, in I 1 83 1, of the three great interests of the nation — I the north, the south, and the west — he declared I that they had been struggling in a fierce war with one another, and that the period was approaching , which was to determine whether they could be reconciled or not so as to perpetuate the Union,'

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 w^ho repre-

' Adams, Memoirs, W ., 361, VI., 75.

'Am. Hist. Assoc, Report 1899, II., 250.

^ Am. Hist. Rev., VI., 742; cf. J. Q. Adams, in Richardson, Messages and Papers, II., 297 ; J. Taylor, New Views, 261 ; [Turnbull], The Crisis, No. 2.

1825] NATION AND SECTIONS 9

sen ted 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 affihations 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

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 1 81 2 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, contrast-

1830] NEW ENGLAND II

ing sharply, in this respect, with the other sections.*

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 181 2.' 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.* The trans - Alleghany 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 Enggland 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 Alleghanies 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

» For the characteristics of New England in colonial times, see Tyler, England in America, chaps, xviii., xix.; Andrews, Colonial Selj-Government, chaps, xviii., xix.; Greene, Provincial America, chaps, xii., xiii., xvi. -xviii. ; Bassett, Federalist System, chaps, xi., xiii. (Am. Nation, IV., V., VI., XI.).

'Babcock, Am. Nationality {Am. Nation, XIII.), chap. ix.

• Adams, United States, IX., chaps, iv., vii.

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.*

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.'' Of the exports of the United States in 1820, the statistics gave to New England about twenty per cent., nine-tenths of which were

' McMaster, Webster, 90.

'Pitkin, Statistical View (ed. of 1835), 350- i83o] NEW ENGLAND 13

from Massachusetts.' This is rather an underestimate 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 woollen 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; and in woollens, from less than three hundred thousand dollars to over seven million three hundred thousand dollars.^

In brief, the period witnessed the transfer of the

' Shaler, United States, I., chap, x.; MacGregor, Commercial Statistics of America, 41, 58, 63, 72, 126, 133.

'See Secretary of Treasury, Report, 18^4-185^, pp., 87-92; "Treasury Report," in House Exec. Docs., 22 Cong., 1 Sess., I., No. 308.

] industrial centre 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 waterpowers 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.^

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

• Woollen, "Labor Troubles between 1834 and 1837," in Yale Review, I., 87; MartmesiU, Society in America, II., 227, 243, 246; Chevalier, Society, Manners, and Politics, 137; Addison, Lucy Larcom, 6; Clay, Works, V., 467.

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.^

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 centres of New England.^ But the conditions of life were hard for the back-country farmer, and the time was rapidly approaching when

* 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.

' Heaton, Story of Vermont, chap. vi.

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 revlolution 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.^ 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.'

After the War of 181 2, this dominance of the

' Dwight. Travels, I., 262, 263, 291; Welling, "Conn. Federalism," in N. Y. Hist. Soc, Address, 1890, pp. 39-41. •Dwight, Travels, I., 267.

Congregational clergy throughout the section was attacked by a combination of religious and political forces/ 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,' 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

' Schouler, United States, II., 282, 511, III., 52; Adams, United States, IX., 133. * Fearon, Sketches of America, 114.

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 181 8, Connecticut practically disestablished the Congregational church and did away with the old manner of choosing assistants.* 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,' although, in 1 81 6, the Federalist candidate had been chosen by a small majority.' New Hampshire's toleration act was passed in 1819, but she had achieved her revolution as early as 181 6, when a union of the anti - Congregational denominations with the Republicans destroyed the ascendency of the Federalists and tried to break that party's control of the educational centre at Dartmouth College.* The contest was not so clearly marked in Massachusetts as in the other states, for the old centres of Congregational power, notably Harvard College, had already begun to feel the liberalizing influence of the Unitarian movement. Congregationalism in

* Baldwin, "The Three Constitutions of Conn.," in New Haven Colony Hist. Soc, Papers, V., 210-214.

*N ties' Register, XVIII., 128.

* Adams, United States, IX., 133.

*F. B. Sanborn, New Hampshire, 251 et seq.; Barstow, New Hampshire, chaps, xi., xii.; Plumer, William Plumer, 437-460.

Massachusetts divided into warring camps* 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 moderate the extreme views of each, as well as to prevent their united domination. In her constitutional convention of ' 1820, Massachusetts refused to do away with the advantage which the Congregational church had in the matter of public support, and it was not imtil 1833 that the other denominations secured the complete separation of church and state. The moderate attitude of the Federalists of the state lengthened their tenure of power. Governor Brooks, elected by the Federalists in 181 7, was a friend of Monroe, and a moderate who often took Republicans for his counsellors, a genuine representative of what has been aptly termed the " Indian summer of Federalism in Massachusetts."

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

* Walker, Cong. Churches in the U. 5., 303-308.

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."*

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,

' McMaster, Webster, 99.

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." *

Perhaps the most striking feature of New England life was its organization into communities. What impressed the traveller 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, travelling in New England in the early thirties, "is not apparent a hundredth part of the abject squalid poverty that our State presents." ^

The morale of New England was distinctive. Puritanism had founded the section, and two centuries of Calvinistic discipline had moulded the New

> Dwight, Travels, II., 458-463.

'"Minor's Journal," in Atlantic Monthly, XXVI., 333.

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,* 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," criticised "the narrowing influence of local policy," and lamented the "sort of habitual, pervading police, made up of Calvinistic inquisition and village scrutiny" in Connecticut.^ 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

' Wendell, Cotton Mather, 6.

' Tudor, Letters on the Eastern States (ed. of 1821), 60.

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 b}^ 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.