Antebellum congress. Well start with a review of the first and Second Party Systems. Im then going to introduce a concept, a new concept to you. Thats the idea of political culture. Ill compare that to something weve in counter before, Political Parties. Finally the bulk of the lecture is presenting evidence, new evidence, in fact, some drawn from my own research and from those of other scholars in the antebellum culture. I have three major areas to talk about today. One, Tobacco Culture. Two, political friendships. Three, affairs of honor. Well conclude there after getting through that evidence. All right. So like we obvious do in the class im going to start with an image on the screen and im going to ask you to tell me what you see. This is Lady Washingtons reception from 1861. Take is in. Who can point out something you see right away that strikes you . There we go. Yeah. Lady washington is on a platform. Yeah. Like how high do you think she is maybe off the ground . Like, i dont know, a foot. A good foot. Thats a good one. A good piece there. What else do you see . Another one down there. Everyone is dressed up super fancy. Like you are today, right . Everyone is just dressing up the same way. Exactly. Very fancy, ladies wearing gowns. Good. How about a third thing . What else do you see . Go ahead, jimmy. It looks like they are all fairly close together. I cant tell, me might be dancing but they are very close together. Exactly. Very good. Thats good. I should say about Lady Washingtons reception that lady washington herself is standing literally center stage in an elegant gown. What you might not have noticed, theres someone else we sometimes think of as important sort of receding into the background here. Thats good old george. George washington in the center in black formal republican gown sort of overshadowed by lady washington. The title was Lady Washingtons reception. The word used at the time was of a formal reception held and hosted by the first lady martha washington. Many of you noticed how she was standing on a platform. Thats right. You also noticed the opulent attire. Frankly this is a scene that could have taken place in a European Court as much as it could have taken place in america. The next image, however, i think youll find a little more familiar. This is county election from 1851. Now, what do you see here, and how does it differ from that last image . Got a hand down here. Pass it down. Thank you. Go ahead, zachariah. The drunk guy in the top left of the picture. Drunk people. Good. Actually more than one drunk guy. This guy here, weve got someone who had a little too much here. Good. Yeah. Stump speaking. Yeah. We talked about this. Good. You remember. Stump speaking. Yes, me, vote for me for president. Excellent. Good. Anything else you see . Theres a hand back there. Its primarily working class people, not the wealthy. Good. Thats all good. Youre seeing a diversity of people. Now, one thing youre also seeing, though, is the white male electorate. This is going to stand in for democracy in this period, the jacksonian period, the one we look at today to start. Even though it is white male electorate, its the whole town. Indeed, the africanamerican to the left of the picture. Of course, children as well. Although it would be the white male voter for many, many years who would be the voter. Nonetheless, political culture encompasses all people, men and women, whites and africanamericans alike. Its not so much a question of whether or not one can participate in the vote but whether one can participate more broadly in politics. When we think back to the First Party System, think back to the people who stood out. Two people come to mind. From the federalist party, alexander hamilton, mr. 10 bill. From the Opposition Party to the federalist, we have Thomas Jefferson. These two men could not have been more stark opposites politically. Recall that the federalist stood for a strong constitution, a strong federal government, a Strong Financial and manufacturing base. As we say, hamilton was their leader, versus democratic republicans or just republicans for short who were wary of centralized government, who were wary of encroachments on personal liberties, and who promoted farming and commerce among small villages and town instead of small cities. Jefferson, the in lightened figure of the democratic republicans was their leader. Now, thats the First Party System. Its socalled because of what follows. Indeed the First Party System was an earlier moment. During the First Party System one of the issues was the embargo. We see from the political cartoon that the embargo is spelled backwards as o grab me. Using license here using embargo as a large turtle biting at the british smuggler who would try to break the embargo. The embargo really was a Foreign Policy measure. It was designed to make it so 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 history. Its about the ways which the federalists and republicans clashed, the ways in which hamilton and his legatees and successors came into office, came into power and eventually 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, these were the new leaders of american politics. On the left Andrew Jackson, a tennessee democrat, who we study at some length here, and on the right henry clay, a kentucky whig. Between clay and jackson, we get two very different views of what america should look like. I have two political cartoons to show how in the Second Party System new issues were emerging. For example, the question of the bank, this is the second bank of the United States. In this image we see Andrew Jackson on the left holding a cain, which he usually walked with, because of all of his Bullet Wounds with his duals trying to battle back the many headed hydra, which is a mythical creature, but it stands in for the banks. Each head is an individual representing the bank. The most prominent one in the center was nicholas biddle, who was the president of the bank and became an enemy to jackson in this process. So this is something of a satire in a sense, because jackson would socalled kill the blank or slay the bank issue by vetoing its renewal application. That story is some what wellknown. What we know after the bank war, the whig party coalesces. A lot of these cartoons take the whig perspective because it shows the whigs were actively trying to attack jackson. As i was doing my research for this lecture, i had a hard time finding pro jackson cartoons, yet me know he was a man of the people, a symbol of american democracy. What we have left are these antijackson cartoons coming out of the period of the whigs. In this one the issue under consideration is executive power. At the top of the image, we see the phrase born to command. Jackson here is figured as a regal figure holding a scepter. You may not be able to see the details. In his left hand he has a scroll that says the word veto. This is a reference to him using the veto more than any other american in history as a way of claiming executive power. Beneath him and under his feet, youll see the constitution of the United States as if hes trampling on it. Youll also see various other improvements, socalled internal improvements, things that the whig party stood for like roads, like canals, and eventually railroad. So jackson here is pictured as being against all those improvements. As a whig attack, this was very effective. If theres one thing that american politics feared, it was that of a king. Remember the American Revolution had been fought over this very issue fighting a monarch to replace it with the democratic system. And although jackson himself is thought to be a kind of leader of democratic reform, lets not forget that sometimes politics is personal. All right. So i want to ask a question and see if we can knock out a few of them. Lets name some of the characteristics of the Democratic Party versus the whig party. Lets think about a few things here. Yeah. Democrat or whig. Democrats. Against government, Government Spending and also against the tariff. Excellent. What was the tariff again . Some sort of tax, right . Yeah. Tax on . Goods. Goods, right, coming into the United States. Thats good. We have a few of them. Yeah, weak government. Got that one. Yeah. I put up they are against action. Lets not forget indian removal. That counts as an action. Its more complicated, more like action jackson opposed. Spending. That was jacksons mayesville road veto. That refers to the veto in the image youre seeing Jackson Holding it as a power. I think you mentioned antitariff so you got them all. Remember the tariff of abominations. That was a measure passed under the John Quincy Adams presidency, attacked by jackson and socalled tariff of abomination abominations. What we see, the democrats in a lot of ways, they are the legacy party of democratic republicans. They even have the same name, so theres really a continuation between jefferson and his policies and jackson and his policies. Flipping the coin, whigs. Let me know about whigs. Whigs are opposite democrats for strong government, for Government Action in general, for Government Spending and for the tariff, basically. Thats good, actually. This is an easy one to remember. The whigs are everything democrats are not. Strong government, especially federal government. They wanted certain economic and social goals. Whigs are pro bank, jackson is antibank. Whigs are pro spending we might say especially on transportation, particularly internal improvements like the canal and the roads and then the tariffs. From the whig point of view, no tariff of abominations, a reasonable tariff, the kind of Economic Policy that the United States should in act. Much like jackson, the democrats, are the legacy party of jefferson and democratic republicans, it can be argued that the whigs they much secede the federalist agenda of alexander hamilton. Although they are kind of remade and remixed, the jackson democrats, the henry clay whigs, they are the next generation of politics. Its this party system, the Second Party System i want to focus on. In order to move from party to political culture, i want to introduce you to the concept. Its a concept that will be useful for us to think about. Parties. Ive broken parties into two sets of components. Its people. Its the leaders, its the issues, its the organization, people and action. Were talking about campaigns, platforms, elections. Parties focus on these things. Really talking about Political Parties, a group of organized people taking action for a certain result. Thats the roll of the party. The partys role is to gain power through these things, elections, campaigns. Political culture is different. It can be said to be a more capacious group of politics. These are more abstract things like norms or values or attitudes. It includes elements of power, things like symbols, meanings and rituals. So between Political Parties and political culture, we have a brought view of politics. We can think about partisans are both members of Political Parties and part of a political culture which may transcend at times those parties and may be limited to those parties. Thats the idea and concept i want to introduce. Political parties, a growing field in history, allows us to get into some new concepts, allows us to go beyond the party mold and look at what i think are some really interesting stuff from the antebellum period. So i have a few questions to consider during the remainder of the lecture and they are as follows. First, how and why did political culture change from the days of the early republic to antebellum. In other words, from the days of hamilton and jefferson to the days of jackson and clay. We want to try to trace that chan change. Thats the first goal of the lecture today. The second one is what does this emerging political culture of Antebellum Congress reveal about broader american society. Im going to return to those questions at the end of the lecture but i want to present to you evidence that i hope will begin to present the question and help you understand how political culture operated in this period. As i mentioned the three areas i want to investigate today, Tobacco Culture, political friendships, and affairs of honor. They are interrelated. Its not to say that one couldnt affect the other. Some are more important as others, as well see. Broadly these are three important aspects of the political culture of the day. 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 a lot on my own research that ive done. So ive not yet published these findings. Ive presented with an eye towards seeing what you think. But there are some elements of the Tobacco Culture that i found really interesting, and i have a few kind of compelling images here on the screen. Its amazing what you can find out there. Some of the elements of Tobacco Culture i found include chewing tobac tobacco, snuff, and cigars. In the 19th century, i should say right now, they have not yet quite invented the cigarette by this period. If you were doing tobacco, you were doing it one of these three ways. It may sound a little silly, funny, but, indeed, tobacco was one of the key ways that politicians across parties could talk to each other. I found numerous instances where sharing a cigar, sharing a pinch of snuff or sharing a wad of chewing tobacco could bridge a gap that otherwise existed between a democrat and a whig. I want to share a story with you on that. To convince you tobacco wasnt just an everyday thing that didnt matter for politics, let me read to you this quote from an english observer who came to the United States, who came to the United States, who went to washington, and who checked out the scene. He said the habit of chewing tobacco is also prevalent in the states, nor is it as in Great Britain and ireland almost entirely confined to the poorer classes. Members of the house of representatives and of the senate, doctors, judges, barristers and attorneys chew tobacco almost as generally as the laboring classes in the old country. Even in a court of justice, more especially in the western states, it is no unusual thing to see judge, jury and the gentlemen of the bar all chewing and spitting as liberally as the crew of a homeward bound west india man. So, you have the house of representatives, you have the senate, you have judges, everyone is chewing and spitting. Its incredible to think about it, that if you were sitting in the congress in 1840 youd be hearing the spit toon, the cling as commonly as youd be hearing the sorries of politicians. But, actually, it was the other form of tobacco, that i found in the u. S. Senate, was more common, and this is really kind of incredible to think about because this is really kind of a nasty habit. Its called snuff, and this is from a book from 1840 that i found called a pinch of snuff. And heres what this author said. A mans character may often be judged by the manner in which he takes snuff, we detest the still think, miserly, ungraceful attitude in which some people feed their noses. A liberal, elegant hand may be known in this work at a distance too great for the fact it serves to be seen. And that rather unattractive person in the screen youre seeing, i assume a woman, its hard to tell, is actually reaching into a little box, much like the one on the left, shes taking a pinch of this very fine pulverized tobacco and shes putting it into her nose by way of a snort. When you took a pinch of snuff the first thing that would happen is you would sneeze violently as the particles were in your nostrils. The second thing is youd get the hit of tobacco in your system. What weve what i found was that the most inveterate, the most common user of tobacco, of the entire u. S. Senate, was henry clay. Now, this is the guy whos the leader of the wig party, who is mr. Antijackson and yet henry clay was more known for using tobacco than perhaps any politician in the antebellum senate. On the right we see William Rufus king who was a democrat and a jacksonian supporter and these two men it turns out in 1841 had a Major Incident that almost led to a duel. The confrontation came when senator king asserted that the character of Andrew Jackson, his president , and that of his editor, francis blare, would, quote, compare gloriously to that of mr. Clay. So this is king making an attack on clay, by comparing him and his character to a jacksonian supporter. Now it was then said that mr. Clay considered this remark as placing blair in equality with him