The bulk of the lecture is going to be presenting new evidence drawn from my research and others on the antebellum political culture. I have three major areas as evidence to talk about today. Tobacco culture, political friendships, and affairs of honor. Like we often do in the class, we are going to start with the image on the screen. Im going to ask you to tell me what you see. This is Lady Washingtons reception from 1861. Take it in. Who can point out something you see right away that strikes you . Lady washington is on a platform. Prof. Balcerski how high do you think she is . Off the ground . Like a foot. Prof. Balcerski thats a good piece there. What else . Everyone is dressed up fancy. Prof. Balcerski like you are today. Exactly. Very fancy. The ladies are wearing gowns. How about a third thing . Go ahead, jimmy. It looks like they are fairly close together. They may be dancing. They are all close together. Prof. Balcerski very good. I should say about Lady Washingtons reception, she is Standing Center stage in an elegant gown. There is someone else we sometimes think of as important in the background. That is George Washington here in the center. In black formal republican gowns. Sort of overshadowed by lady washington. The title was Lady Washingtons reception, a formal reception that was held and hosted by the first lady, martha washington. Many of you noticed she was standing on a platform. And you notice the opulent attire. This could have taken place in the European Court as much as it could have taken place in america. The next image i think you will find may be more familiar. This is county elections from 1851. What do you see here . How does it for from that last image . Because it. Thank you. Passed it down. Thank you. You see a guy at the top left. Prof. Balcerski theres actually more than one drunk person. Good. Stump speaking. Prof. Balcerski stump speaking. Vote for me for president. Excellent. Anything else you see . There is a hand up there. It is primarily workingclass people. Not the wealthy. Prof. Balcerski that is all good. You are seeing a diversity of people. Youre also seeing the white male electorate. This is going to stand in for democracy. Jacksonianiod, the period. It is a diverse thing. The whole town. Children as well. Although it would be the white male voter, for many years, particular culture encompasses many and women, whites and africanamericans alike. It is not a question about whether one can participate or if one can participate more broadly in politics. When we think back to the First Party System, when we think back to the people who stood in as politicians, two people come to mind. From the federalist party, alexander hamilton. Mr. 10 bill. From the democratic republican, Thomas Jefferson. They could not be more stark opposites. The federalists stood for a constitution, a strong federal government. A Strong Financial and manufacturing base. And hamilton was their leader. Versus the democratic republicans who were wary of centralized government, who were wary of encroachments upon personal liberties, who promoted farming and commerce among small villages instead of large cities and manufacturing. Jefferson, the enlightened figure was their leader. That is the First Party System. It is socalled because of what follows. Indeed, the First Party System was an earlier moment. One of the key issues was the embargo. We see from this cartoon that the embargo is spelled backwards as oh grab me. The artist here is representing the embargo as a large turtle turtle biting at the british smuggler who would try to break the embargo. It was a Foreign Policy measure designed to make it so that britain would have a hard time trading with the United States. It ultimately was one of the policies that doomed them to a second war with great britain. Thats part of the First Party System history. The way the federalists and the republicans clashed, where hamilton and his legacies, and jefferson and his successors came into office, came into power and faded from the scene. Who they left the politics of the United States to were these guys. The men of the Second Party System. Socalled because we have totally new names for the parties. Although some issues changed, once again these are the new , leaders of american politics. On the left, Andrew Jackson, a tennessee democrat. On the right, henry clay. The kentucky whig. Between clay and jackson we get two very different views of what america should look like to show how in the Second Party System new issues were emerging. , the question of the banks. This is the second bank of the United States. We see Andrew Jackson holding a cane which he walked with. ,because of all of the bullet holes from his wounds. He is trying to battle back the many headed hydra, the mythical creature from greek mythology. Here it stands for the bank. On the heads of the hydra is an individual representing the bank. The most prominent was nicholas bill, the president of the bank and who became an enemy to jackson in this process. This is something of a satire because jackson would kill the bank issue by vetoing its renewal application. That whole political story is somewhat wellknown at this point. What we know from it is that after the bank war, formally the whig party coalesces. Indeed it shows the whigs were actively trying to attack jackson. I had a hard time finding projackson cartoons. And yet, he was a man of the people. He was a symbol of american democracy. What we have left our these antijackson cartoons. Of the image, we see the phrase, born to command. He is a regal figure holding a scepter. You may not be able to see all the details. In his left hand, he has a scroll that says vito. This is a reference to him using the veto more than any other president in American History. And underneath him and under his feet you will see the constitution of the United States as if he is trampling on it. You will also see various other improvements called internal improvements. Party stoodthe whig for like roads, canals, and railroads. Beingkson is pictured as against all of those improvements. As a whig, this is effective. If there is one thing american politics feared, it was that of a king. Remember, the American Revolution had been fought over this issue, running a monarch and replacing it with a republican system. Although jackson himself is thought to be a leader of democratic reform, lets not forget sometimes politics is personal. I want to ask a question and see if we can knock out a few of them. Lets name the characteristics of the Democratic Party versus the whig party. Think about a few things here. What do you have . Democrats. Weak governments. Against tariffs. A tax on goods. Prof. Balcerski coming into the United States. Good. We have a few of them here. Lets see what i had. Weak government. Got that one. And i put up they are against action. Lets not forget the indian removal, that is part of it. Spending. That refers to the veto and in the image that he is holding as our, he mentioned antiterror. Ofember the tariff abominations, that was a measure passed under the John Quincy Adams presidency. What we see are the democrats are in a lot of ways, they are the legacy party of the democratic republicans. They even have the same name. There is really a continuation between jefferson and his policies and jackson and his policies. Flipping the coin. What do we know about the whigs. They are opposite. They are for strong government. They are for Government Action in general. Government spending. Prof. Balcerski thats good. They are everything the democrats are not. Strong government. Especially federal government. They wanted certain economic and social goals. The whigs are probank. Prospending on transportation, particularly the internal improvements like the canals and roads. And then the tariffs. From the whig point of view, it was no tariff of abominations. It was the kind of policy that the United States should enact. It can be argued the whigs secede the federalist agenda of alexander hamilton. Although they are remade and remixed, the jackson democrats, they are the next generation of politics. It is this party system that i want to focus on. In order to move us from parties to political culture i want to introduce to you to this concept. Parties. I have broken them into two separate components. Its people, its the leaders. It is the organization. People. And it is action. Youre talking about campaigns, class wars. Platforms, elections. Parties are focused on these things. It is a group of organized people taking action for a certain result. Thats the role of the party. To gain power through all of these things. Elections, campaigns. Political culture is a little different. It can be said to be a more capacious view of politics. It includes beliefs. These are abstract things like norms or values or attitude. And it includes elements of symbols,ings like meanings, and rituals. Parties andtical political culture, then, we have a broad view of politics. Howwe can think about Different Actors or politicians or members ofsans part of aparties, and political culture, which may transcend at times those parties or may be limited to those parties. So that is the idea and concept i want to introduce. The study of political culture, which is a growing field, allows us to get into new concepts. It allows us to go beyond the party mold and look at what i think are some interesting stuff from the antebellum period. I went to the end somehow. Questions to consider during the remainder of the lecture. They are as follows. First, how and why did American Political Culture change from the days of the earlier republic to the antebellum. In other words, from the days of hamilton and jefferson to the days of jackson and clay. Change. To trace that that is the first goal of the lecture today. And the second one is, what does revealerging culture about our American Society . I will return to those questions at the end of the lecture, but i want to present some evidence that i hope will begin to answer that question and how political culture operated in this. In this period. What i want to investigate today , Tobacco Culture, political friendships, and affairs of honor. They are interrelated. Not to say that one could not affect the other. Some are more important than others, as we will see. These are three important aspects of the political culture of the day and when we think about it in those terms, we see that these are ways for us to understand why and how politicians came into conflict with each other in the era before the civil war. So the first piece, Tobacco Culture. This draws on my research that i have done. I have not yet published these findings. You think. Ee what but, there are elements of the Tobacco Culture that i found really interesting. I have a few interesting, compelling images here. Is amazing what you can find out there. Some of the elements of the Tobacco Culture i found include snuff, andacco, cigars. In the 19th century i should say right now, they had not quite invented the cigarette by this period. If you were doing tobacco, you are doing it one of these three ways. It may seem silly, it sounds funny. Indeed, tobacco was one of the key ways that politicians across parties talk to each other. I found numerous instances where sharing a cigar, sharing a pinch of snuff, or sharing chewing tobacco could bridge the gap that otherwise existed between a democrat and awake. A whigeen a democrat and. Quote read to you this from an observer who went to washington and checked out the scene. He said, the habit of chewing tobacco is prevalent in the state. Entirely almost confined to the poorer classes. Members of the house of representatives and the senate, doctors, and attorneys to tobacco almost as generally as the laboring classes data in the old country. So you have the senate, you have judges. Everyone is chewing and spitting. It is incredible to think about. If you were sitting in the congress in 1840, you would be hearing the spittoon as clearly as you would hear the politicians. But actually, it was the other form of tobacco in the u. S. Senate that was more common. This is really incredible to think about. A nasty habit. It is called snuff. This is from a book from 1840 that i found called a pinch of snuff. Here is what this author said. A mans character may often be judged by the manner in which he takes snuff. Miserly, the stealthy, ungrateful attitude in which some people be their noses. Feed their noses. And that rather unattractive person on the screen that you tell,eing, it is hard to is actually reaching into a little box, much like the one on the left. She is taking a pinch of this and she isobacco putting it into her nose i way of a snort. When you took a pinch of snuff, the first thing you would do is sneeze violently as the particles were in your nostrils. The second thing is you would get the hit of tobacco in your system. Mosti found was that the inveterate, the most common user of tobacco of the entire u. S. Senate was henry clay. This is the guy who is the leader of the wig party. Whi whig party. On the right, we see William Griffith king. A jacksonian supporter. Had a majorn incident. That almost led to a duel. The confrontation came when senator king asserted that the character of Andrew Jackson, is president , and that of his editor Francis Blair would compare gloriously to that of mr. Clay. This was king making an attack on clay by comparing him and his character to a jacksonian supporter. It was then said that mr. Clay considered this remark as an equalityr on with himself and therefore pronounced it false and cowardly. , getver you hear cowardly ready because a duel is about to happen. It is a bad word. Clay realized he was a little bit overboard. The two men came to reconciliation. On a personal level, they had not yet all ties to each other apologized to each other. There were apparently no hard feelings after the formal apology because the next day, clay approached him and in a friend in a friendly manner said king, give us a pinch of your stuff. And of gallery who heard it burst into applause. They knew that this was clays way of saying im sorry. This incident demonstrates political actors could rely on a common Cultural Practice to bind even the most partisan divisions. What do you think of this example . Had you heard of tobacco before . What do you think . I thought it was pretty incredible. Is there any remnants of the Tobacco Culture today . Prof. Balcerski a good question. We think maybe it is just henry clay who is snuffing. Was snuffing. When you walk into the Congress Today in the gallery there are boxes that are filled with snuff. Any member could take it because you cant smoke inside a public building, but you can take snuff. I actually was watching an Old Television performance of one of my favorite musicians. It was 1970. He was singing on the air. Goes to show you, times have changed. Prof. Balcerski we are going to snuff that conversation. And move to political friendships. Maybe this will be more friendly of an audience now. Tobacco shows we can all get along. It also shows that if henry clay, the most jackson hater th ere is, can reconcile over tobacco, maybe there is hope for america. Political friendships were a deep part of the antebellum congress. Here i am drawing on my research and others, who talked about a washington brotherhood. For sheldon and my own research i find there are key elements that defined this brotherhood. The politicians lived together. Fraternal organizations, like the freemasons. If you are a freemason and a democrat, a freemason and a whig , you are still a freemason together. Taverns. Politicians like to drink. Going to a tavern and talk about over things they bonded. Social clubs. Men could gather and have brandy. This was a thing of the antebellum period. And lavish parties. Washington was nothing if not a place to party. It typically was the case that there would be balls, that the president would have balls. This is the case where the first lady could help to arrange those parties. Smoking cigars comes up. It is one of the ways men bonded with each other and became friends and more. So what we have here is a washington dc by the time of the civil war period that is indeed quite advanced along this line. That was not exactly the case when Thomas Jefferson became president. Was justwashington dc getting started. This image shows the white house as it was just built in 1800. John adams was the first to occupy it for a few short months. Jefferson was the first to occupy the white house during his entire presidency. The washington of 1800 was an undeveloped place. There were swamps and muddy roads all over. In the capital there was little to do. Not so by 1850. One of the big differences between 1800 and 1850 when it comes to the city of washington is that it is actually a city now. This is a familiar outline to us. There are a few things the modern washington dc has that they didnt have in 1850. I want to zoom in on this part of the map that shows the important government centers. Government center. On the map ofg in washington in 1850. There are a few elements that are familiar to us. In the circle you see the president s house, that is the white house. On the other one, you see capitol hill. Which means yes, indeed, the national mall, the smithsonian