What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848

by Daniel Walker Howe

Democrats basically approved of America the way it was. They wanted to keep it economically homogeneous in the sense that they believed agriculture should remain the predominant occupation, though their party had nothing against the expansion of commercial opportunities for planters and farmers. Democrats enjoyed their greatest party strength in the South, where agriculture predominated even more than in the North. They expressed disapproval of government favors for privileged elites, of which a national bank seemed to them the prime example. Democrats celebrated “popular sovereignty” and the equal rights of common white men. They hoped America would remain culturally (that is, morally) heterogeneous, so that a variety of religious options could be exercised and local communities of common white men could govern themselves freely. This meant deciding for themselves whether to practice slavery, whether to fund education and internal improvements, whether to tolerate Native neighbors, and, for that matter, how to deal with deviants like criminals and the insane. The Democrats’ vision of America did not require central planning, since most matters could be left either to the marketplace or to state and local decisions. Jacksonians did, however, want a government strong enough to extend their agrarian empire across the continent, expelling or conquering any who stood in their way and protecting slaveowners from interference. Whigs had a different vision. They wanted to transfo...