Page 275 - American Stories, A History of the United States

The parties offered voters a real choice of programs and ideologies. Whigs stood
10.1 for a “positive liberal state”—which meant government had the right and duty to sub-
sidize or protect enterprises that could contribute to general prosperity and economic
growth. Democrats normally advocated a “negative liberal state” in which government
10.2 kept its hands off the economy.
Economic issues helped determine each party’s base of support. In the Whig camp
were industrialists who wanted tariff protection, merchants who favored internal improve-

10.3 ments to stimulate commerce, and farmers and planters who had adapted to a market
economy. Democrats appealed mainly to smaller farmers, workers, declining gentry, and
emerging entrepreneurs who were excluded from the established commercial groups
10.4 that would benefit most from Whig programs. Democratic rhetoric about monopoly and
privilege appealed to those who had mixed or negative feelings about a national market
economy. This division also pitted richer, more privileged Americans against those who
were poorer and less economically or socially secure. But it did not follow class lines in
any simple or direct way. Many businessmen were Democrats; many wage earners voted
Whig. Merchants in the import trade hated Whiggish high tariffs, whereas workers in
industries clamoring for protection often concluded that such duties protected their jobs.
Lifestyles and ethnic or religious identity influenced party loyalties. In the north-
ern states, one way to tell the typical Whig from the typical Democrat was to see what
each did on Sunday. A person who went to an evangelical Protestant church was likely
to be a Whig. The person who attended a ritualized service—Catholic, Lutheran, or
Episcopalian—or did not go to church at all was probably a Democrat.
The Democrats were the favored party of immigrants, Catholics, freethinkers,
backwoods farmers, and all those who enjoyed traditional amusements that the new
breed of moral reformers condemned. One thing all these groups had in common was a
desire to be left alone, free to think and behave as they liked. The Whigs enjoyed strong
support among old-stock Protestants in smaller cities, towns, and prosperous rural
areas devoted to market farming. In general, the Whigs welcomed a market economy
but wanted to restrain the individualism and disorder it created by enforcing cultural
and moral values derived from the Puritan tradition.
Nevertheless, party conflict in Congress centered on national economic policy.
Whigs stood for a loose construction of the Constitution and federal support for busi-
ness and economic development. Democrats defended strict construction, states’
rights, and laissez-faire. Debates over tariffs, banking, and internal improvements
remained vital during the 1840s.
True believers in both parties saw deep ideological or moral meaning in the clash
over economic issues. Whigs and Democrats had conflicting views of the good society,
and their policies reflected these differences. The Democrats were the party of white
male equality and personal liberty. They perceived the American people as a collection
of independent and self-sufficient white men. Government’s job was to ensure that the
individual was not interfered with—in his economic activity, his personal habits, or his
religion (or lack of it). Democrats were ambivalent about the market economy because
it threatened individual independence. The Whigs, on the other hand, were the party
of orderly progress under the guidance of an enlightened elite. They believed that the
propertied, the well-educated, and the pious should guide the masses toward the com-
mon good. Believing that a market economy would benefit everyone in the long run,
they had no qualms about the rise of a commercial and industrial capitalism.

Conclusion: Tocqueville’s Wisdom

The French traveler Alexis de Tocqueville, author of the most influential account ever
written of the emergence of American democracy, visited the United States in 1831 and
1832. He left before the presidential election and had little to say about national politics
and political parties. For him, the essence of American democracy was local self-govern-
ment, such as he observed in New England town meetings. The participation of ordinary
citizens in the affairs of their communities impressed him. He praised Americans for not
conceding their liberties to a centralized state, as he believed the French had done.
242