Jacksonian Democracy in New Hampshire, 1800-1851 (review)

Abstract

346CIVIL WAR HISTORY reserve ratios, the ratios of specie to money, remained essentially unchanged during the inflationary years, and the land boom, instead of encouraging banks to over-issue notes with each recycling of land sale proceeds, served to damp inflation by absorbing some of the increased money supply. Temin also convincingly argues that the Panic of 1837 rose not from domestic economic causes (though he admits that the Specie Circular had psychological significance) but from pressures imposed by the Bank of England and from the impact of those pressures on American cotton prices. And he points out that the hard times of 1839-43 are more accurately styled "deflation" than "depression," for unlike the period 1929-33, they witnessed actual increases in real consumption and in gross national product. It is hard to fault Temin's effort except to note that he makes the standard version of Jacksonian economics a bit too monolithic; he fails, for instance, to note the divergent and not uninfluential recent interpretation of the period by Douglass North. Otherwise he has made his case well and has stated it with great clarity. More, perhaps, than most revisions , Temin's will be inconvenient to reconcile with the accepted version, but all who deal with the Jacksonian period will now have to confront the task. Rodney O. Davis Knox College Jacksonian Democracy in New Hampshire, 1800-1851. By Donald B. Cole. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970. Pp. xi, 283. $10.00.) In this well-researched and well-written study, Donald B. Cole asserts that the roots of Jacksonian Democracy in New Hampshire lay buried deeply in the Jeffersonian past. In fact, he finds the Jeffersonian Republicans Jacksonian in all but name. Contrary to the consensus historians, he sees a close continuity between the first party system and the second, with Jeffersonian Republicans becoming Jacksonian Democrats and Federalists shifting first to the National Republican, and then to the Whig party. Republicans in the earlier years of the century, and Jacksonians from the late 1820's on, shared similar voting patterns and a common ideology, the latter stressing opposition to aristocratic pretensions and special privilege, concern for the public interest and a belief in humanitarian reform. The two parties even shared the same moral blind spot, what amounted to a proslavery attitude based largely upon political self-interest. Not all New Hampshire Jacksonians remained unalterably prosouthern in their viewpoint, however. The entry of the slavery issue into politics in the mid-1840's caused a breach in the party which never fully healed. Ultimately, by die mid-1850's, when the party found that its shibboleths and programs had lost their magic and that it could not cope with the all-pervasive slavery issue, Jacksonian Democracy collapsed both nationally and in New Hampshire. book reviews347 Basically, however, this is the story of Jacksonian Democracy triumphant , winning in election after state election, and in presidential elections, too. A case in point is the 1832 Presidential election, which Cole analyzes in depth. His statistical study convinces him that in "New Hampshire and perhaps throughout the North, the best available keys to explain Jacksonian voting patterns are economic status and geography " (p. 159). Poorer people, especially small farmers living in hilly and mountainous areas, constituted the backbone of Jacksonian strength in the Granite State. Jacksonian Democracy in New Hampshire was a complex affair, but the author skillfully guides the reader through the maze of party intrigues and personalities. Two Jacksonians receive special and extensive attention: Isaac Hill, controversial editor of the powerful NewHampshire Patriot and Levi Woodbury, perennial public officeholder. Hill, all angles and rough edges, epitomizes the tangy blend of idealism and self-interest characteristic of New Hampshire Jacksonianism. While he sincerely believed in the advancement of the common man and fought for it throughout his career. Hill believed fully as much in the advancement of uncommon men such as himself. He constantly teetered on the brink of conflict of interest in his public life, and, at times, toppled over. Woodbury, who emerges as the quintessence of the cautious, noncommittal politician, also had a keen eye for self-advancement and yet demonstrated, particularly in his years as a Supreme Court Justice...