Puritans as democrats

[F. Joe Haydn]

I've taken the title of this post from Barzun, who has a chapter of the same name in his masterwork From Dawn to Decadence. Please note the small "d" in democrat, as it's quite important that you don't think I'm referring to the Democratic Party.

There seems to be a major line of thought in American history that I find myself disagreeing with. It goes that the Puritans in New England began American conservatism, which first found its outlet in the Federalist Party and would continue, in modified forms, through to the contemporary Republican Party. The story goes that the Jeffersonians, later the Democrats, were liberal egalitarians who fought for the rights of the common man. But there is one major problem.

This narrative assumes that religiosity is inherently conservative and hierarchical, which isn't necessarily true. In fact, religious movements, especially those focusing on the inner spirituality of the individual, have often run together with some of the most radical movements in history. From Savonarola in Florence to the Puritans of the 17th century, to the Social Gospel and Liberation Theology of later times, the religious and populist have often overlapped. Even the French Revolution, for all its anti-clericalism, was in part a reaction to the loose morals, godlessness, and depravity of the elite. Robespierre himself was a noted moralist and theist.

But to return to the subject at hand, the Puritans are an especially relevant example of religion and liberalism going hand in hand. It is no coincidence that in the colonial period, New England was far more democratic and representative than the southern states. The Puritan emphasis on individualism led to a relatively egalitarian New England, while the more secular southern colonies, established by profit-seeking Cavaliers in the tobacco industry, were home to far more unequal and elitist governance.

Further on in American history, pietistic Protestantism played a major role in abolitionism, which is a liberal cause if there ever was one. And in 1896 William Jennings Bryan used this same religious fervor to run one one of the most populist campaigns ever, challenging the business class with Christianity and the rhetoric of a crusader. It is thus a great irony, that in modern times the Republican Party has come to represent both big business and evangelical Christians, when at heart Puritans are democrats.

[F. Joe Haydn]

Damn it damn it damn it!!!!! I had just written out a really long response to your post Yankee, and guess what happened right when I clicked post: the site crashed and I lost everything!! For the love of God, the post box needs to store what you were typing in it earlier, as I don't always remember to hit the save draft button.

[F. Joe Haydn]

I'm going to try to rewrite some of yesterday's post from memory, but please note that it was written before Truman's post and thus doesn't address any of his arguments.


In response to Yankee's original post, you've definitely made some good points. But even if the Federalists advocated for more elitist policies than the Jeffersonians, the regions they performed well in tell the opposite story. The Massachusetts statehouse was made up of around an equal number of farmers, merchants, and laborers, with no one group dominating. This, I believe, reflects the Puritan ethos and its emphasis on the individual and his or her connection to God. After all, it was religious extremists, even more zealous than the Puritans, who had led the very radical Putney Debates back in England. Comparing Massachusetts to Virginia, one finds that the Virginian House of Burgesses was made up almost entirely of planters. This, I believe, reflects the fact that the Virginia elite were descended from Episcopalian royalists.

Given these different forms of government in New England and the South, it doesn't make sense to me to call New England "conservative" in this period. They were nativists, sure, but on the issue that most divided liberals and conservatives at this point —that is, liberty —New Englanders were clearly the most liberal of Americans. It is thus ironic, I suppose, that they mostly voted for the Federalists, but I guess this just proves the idea that in the early republic identity, not ideology, was the greatest influence on voting behavior.

Not all New Englanders were rich merchants and bankers, and not all southerners were poor farmers. I'm not accusing you of this, Yankee, but there seems to be a southern victim complex in regard to history. According to them, throughout all of American history greedy northerners exploited the poor South for their own benefit. But they conveniently ignore the fact that the richest Americans were southern planters, who greatly supported Jefferson (the Pinckneys are the only notable exception I've found so far). They forget about the small farmers of western Massachusetts who fought against oppressive taxes in Shays' Rebellion. And they refuse to recognize that before 1860, the United States was a slaveocracy in which the South wielded undue political influence derived from the Three-Fifths Compromise (Adams would have won in 1800 if not for the Slave Power).

To move the clock forward a bit, you also seem to be implying that the Republicans were more pro-business than the Democrats during the Third Party System, which I disagree with. The late 19th century Democrats, from what I can tell, basically forfeited any claims they may have had to being the party of the common man. The party was equally corrupt and beholden to special interests as the Republicans, and Grover Cleveland and the Bourbon Democrats were quite pro-business. At least Harrison got through an early antitrust law and a silver purchase act, while Cleveland is arguably best known for sending in federal troops to put down a strike. It wasn't until Bryan took over that the Democrats reclaimed any pretense of representing the common people. And speaking of Bryan, he did in fact make considerable gains among pietist Protestants in the Plains States (though not so much in New England). Here's a webpage (unfortunately from the Mises Institute, but still valuable) that has lots of relevant information on voting behavior in 1896.

[F. Joe Haydn]

But they conveniently ignore the fact that the richest Americans were southern planters, who greatly supported Jefferson (the Pinckneys are the only notable exception I've found so far).

George Washington was a Federalist in spirit and practice (and Shay's Rebellion is what took him out of retirement - which he violently put down and then went on to win the Presidency unopposed two times - not a good look for democracy!), if not in open affiliation, and Alexander Hamilton's in-laws owned slaves (and Hamilton himself traded some slaves in NYC and even owned one or two IIRC, don't quote me on that last part though).

The real point is that the Federalists were more anti-democratic, even if the Jeffersonians/Republicans were white supremacists and many of them were wealthy slaveowners. True, there were more abolitionists in the Federalist Party because of New England's politics and there were more white supremacists in the Jeffersonian Republican Party because of the Southern skew, so it is not super clear-cut, but for the most part I'm pretty confident in saying that the Federalists were more conservative, certainly in a more elitist "Tory" sense!


FWIW, I reckon Aaron Burr was pretty good on a lot of issues (and he helped kill the Federalist Party - literally ) but his legacy is forever tainted because of Hamilton's death and the weird conspiracy he was involved in later.

I actually like Aaron Burr a lot, and think he was better than both Hamilton and Jefferson. In a way he combined the better aspects of the two without a lot of the negative stuff. Overall though, I still prefer the Federalists, especially at the presidential level (other than Pinckney). I think John Adams was quite good, and the New Yorkers the party ran later were preferable to the Virginian Jameses.

But they conveniently ignore the fact that the richest Americans were southern planters, who greatly supported Jefferson (the Pinckneys are the only notable exception I've found so far).

George Washington was a Federalist in spirit and practice (and Shay's Rebellion is what took him out of retirement - which he violently put down and then went on to win the Presidency unopposed two times - not a good look for democracy!), if not in open affiliation, and Alexander Hamilton's in-laws owned slaves (and Hamilton himself traded some slaves in NYC and even owned one or two IIRC, don't quote me on that last part though).

Not to mention Patrick Henry (Jefferson's first great rivalry and a Federalist during the Adams administration), Edward Rutledge, and John Marshall. Those are some pretty significant oversights.

If we expand the frame to include the Hamiltonian's ideological successors in the Second Party System, William Henry Harrison presents as a prominent pro-slavery Whig (his tenure as governor of the Indiana Territory was marked by conflict with President Jefferson over his proposal to introduce slavery in the Northwest). It's interesting to compare county-level results from the election of 1840 with this map showing the counties with the largest slave populations.

(1)

(2)

(1) Source: Wikimedia Commons
(2) Source: Smithsonian Magazine

I knew that Marshall was a Virginian and obviously a Federalist, but somehow I hadn't made the obvious connection that he was a slaveowner. Also, I'm not surprised about Harrison, as I already knew that the Whigs had a strong pro-slavery Southern faction. But the Federalists were much more centered around the Northeast, I believe, or at least always seemed that way to me. By the way, even though I prefer the Whigs over the Democrats I'm not a Whig hack, and in elections where the Democratic candidate was better (like in this case), I would've supported him.

[F. Joe Haydn]

The plebs are coming to kill us, isn't far off from the slaves are coming to kill us.

Also remember the Haitian Revolution in living memory. The State's Rights Whigs and nullifiers were also part of the Whig coalition.

The Southern Whigs were certainly planter heavy.

Compare to say someone like Andrew Johnson the epitome of a Jacksonian Democrat, who while certainly racist, represented a classist anti-planter view that led to his militant opposition to the Confederacy and desire to hang Robert E. Lee (it was Grant that saved Lee by the way). Robert Toombs and Alexander Stephens (CSA VP) were both Whigs.

Not saying that all Democrats wanted to hang the plantation elite, but it would be a mistake to view the Democrats of this period as a party of slave owners with no relation whatsoever to modern day. Populism and anti-elite/wealthy politics has been around since the beginning.

Ok, but let me make a counterpoint. The state most representative of the planter elite class, even more so than the nullifiers’ home state of South Carolina, was Virginia — and it was solidly Democratic (in fact, so was South Carolina for the most part). Kentucky and Tennessee, on the other hand — arguably the two states most representative of the backcountry yeomen farmers — were quite Whiggish.