The Slave Power: the Free North and Southern Domination, 1780-1860.By Leonard L. Richards. (Baton Rouge Baton Rouge (băt`ən r zh) [Fr.,=red stick], city (1990 pop. 219,531), state capital and seat of East Baton Rouge parish, SE La. : Louisiana State University
Press This article needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Alone, primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of this article are not sufficient for an accurate encyclopedia article. , 2000. Pp. [xii], 228 Paper, $19.95, ISBN ISBNabbr. International Standard Book Number ISBN International Standard Book Number ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m 0-8071-2600-4; cloth, $39.95, ISBN 0-8071-2537-7.) Leonard L. Richards acknowledges that several "well-known historians ... have given some credence to the Slave Power thesis" (p. 18). The historians he mentions in the text are Eric Foner, Richard H. Sewell, and William E. Gienapp; however, in two of his new book's longest footnotes, Richards lists another haft-dozen historians who have taken the idea of a Slave Power seriously (p. 18 n. 31; p. 19 n. 32). Nevertheless, Richards gives the subject far greater weight than these historians. In Richards's treatment the Slave Power emerges as a central theme in American political history. The idea of a Slave Power rested on the constitutional clause that allowed southerners to count three-fifths of their slave population for purposes of representation and taxation. Richards shows that northeastern Federalists accepted the three-fifths ratio as long as they retained power but ultimately blamed it for their eventual defeat and downfall. In the election of 1800, the three-fifths ratio provided slaveholding slave·hold·er n. One who owns or holds slaves. slave hold ing adj. interests with fifteen electors electors, in the history of the Holy Roman Empire, the princes who had the right to elect the German kings or, more exactly, the kings of the Romans (Holy Roman emperors). , more than enough to insure
Thomas Jefferson's victory by eight electoral votes. "Without
the so-called slave seats," writes Richards, Jefferson "would
have lost the election and John Adams would have served a second
term" (p. 42). In the Jeffersonian era the congressional caucus
system for choosing presidential candidates enhanced the effect of the
three-fifths ratio. Not until after the War of 1812 did northern
Democratic-Republicans emerge as a sometimes majority, but the caucus
system died just as Jacksonians emerged to forge a new proslavery pro·slav·er·y adj. Advocating the practice of slavery. alliance. John Quincy Adams blamed Jackson, whom he called the "Sable sable, species of marten, Martes zibellina, found in Siberia, N European Russia, and N Finland. This carnivorous mammal is highly valued for its thick, soft fur, which is dark brown or black, sometimes with white underparts and sometimes flecked with silver. Genius of the South" (quoted on p. 25), for his presidential defeat in 1828. Richards uncovers some surprises in his examination of Democratic "doughfaces," the northern men who voted with the South. The social reformer Robert Dale Owen Robert Dale Owen (November 7, 1801–June 24, 1877) was a longtime exponent in his adopted United States of the socialist doctrines of his father, the Welshman Robert Owen, as well as a politician in the Democratic Party. , while a congressman from southern Indiana, voted regularly with the South. On the other hand, Lewis Cass of Michigan, widely denounced as a leading doughface dough·face n. A Northerner who sided with the South in the U.S. Civil War, especially a member of Congress who supported slavery. , supported habeas corpus habeas corpus (hā`bēəs kôr`pəs) [Lat.,=you should have the body], writ directed by a judge to some person who is detaining another, commanding him to bring the body of the person in his custody at a specified time to a rights for accused fugitive slaves. When the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 denied those rights, Cass absented himself from the final vote on the amended bill. Of course Cass, like most Democrats and Whigs, rallied around the Compromise of 1850 (and thereby embraced the Fugitive Slave Law) in preparation for the presidential election of 1852. Unfortunately, some central political players are largely ignored in Richards's study. Barely mentioned is Thomas Hart Benton, who strongly supported slavery in Missouri in 1820 but dramatically broke with the proslavery Democracy in 1850. Little is said about Francis P. Blair Sr., although he defined the anti-abolitionist stance of the Democracy in the 1830s and early 1840s before presiding over the first Republican convention in 1856. Silas Wright, the antislavery Jacksonian who Blair hoped would become the Democratic presidential candidate in 1848, also deserves more attention. Richards demonstrates that the idea of a Slave Power had deep roots in American political history. But the impact of the idea was not equally powerful at all times: it was an idea that would resonate widely only when the free labor interests of the North became determined to seize the reins of national power. LOUIS S. GERTEIS University of Missouri-St. Louis |
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