Nashville, 1780-1860: From Frontier to City (review)

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS91 later, another set of Dispatches (1984), these by Michael Herr, provide no more graphic and literary account of war. Blackett deserves much credit for recovering and annotating these dispatches. As he demonstrated in Beating Against the Barriers (1986), he has a gift for locating relatively obscure historical figures and bringing them to life. Had space permitted, he might have included some of Chester's other writings such as his essays for the Colonization Herald, his lecture on Negro Self-Respect and Pride of Race, and his speeches and letters from his legal and political activities in New Orleans in the 1870s and 1880s. Chester is important not only for his presence on the Virginia front but for his place in African-American history and literature. Louis P. Masur University of California, Riverside Nashville, 1780-1860: From Frontier to City. By Anita Shafer Goodstein. (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1989. Pp. 278. $29.95.) Perhaps it is just as well that Andrew Jackson lived outside of the town limits of Nashville, for eventually he and his political followers were not welcome there. At least that is the distinct impression gained from Professor Goodstein's account of Nashville during the antebellum decades . Actually the entrepreneurial, enterprising Jackson would have had little difficulty fitting in; but the Jackson of the common or working man would have. Thereby hangs a tale. And it is a story well told by the author who offers an urban biography that is more traditional than "new" urban history. Goodstein depicts a town that moves from its late eighteenth century establishment as a frontier outpost to its mid-nineteenth century prominence as a city. In her micro study, she wittingly or unwittingly imitates Thomas P. Abernethy's sixty-year-old macro examination of the entire state: From Frontier to Plantation in Tennessee. Goodstein places her primary emphasis upon the political life of the city but links it closely with economic development. She contends, for instance, that the county court and the militia were the chief institutions in Nashville's earliest years, and that land speculators were the town's principal leaders. The latter soon gave way, however, to farmers and planters and even to lawyers. Furthermore, the creation of the offices of mayor and aldermen in 1806 shifted much of the political focus away from the county court. While Nashville pushed toward developing "community," it also had to confront internal divisions, argues Goodstein. She thus turns to a discussion and analysis of blacks, because race was the most significant divisive factor. Their separation from the white community is emphasized, perhaps deliberately, by the author's decision to deal with blacks in two discrete chapters. Although never large in number, either absolute or 92CIVIL WAR history relative, Nashville blacks made their mark, particularly upon the institutional life of the city. Goodstein's chapters, though rewarding, leave the reader with a thirst for more information and insight. Much yet remains to be told about slaves and free blacks in antebellum Nashville. If there ever was any doubt previously, there should be none now: Nashville was a Whig city. Indeed one almost gets the impression from Goodstein that perhaps it was such even before the Whig party came into existence! The annual elections of mayor and of aldermen demonstrated beyond dispute that the voters preferred Whig leaders. After all, from 1839 to the Civil War, Randal McGavock, elected in 1858 to a single term, was the only Democratic mayor; and during this same period, Democrats never controlled the board of aldermen. In the early years of his presidential ambitions and of the presidency itself, Jackson enjoyed support in Nashville; but by the mid- 183Os that situation changed. This transformation was rooted in the reality that those leaders who opposed first Jackson, and then Van Buren, recruited followers by embracing a stance in favor of economic development that benefitted from government support. Contrary to stereotypical notions, mechanics and skilled workers moved into the Whig camp where their search for respectability and stability found satisfaction. In a word, as Goodstein expresses it, "party affiliation made a social statement" (160). Beginning in the 183Os and continuing through the 185Os, Whigs (or their allies...