Northern Men with Southern Loyalties: The Democratic Party and the Sectional Crisis by Michael Todd Landis (review)

Abstract

Northern Men with Loyalties: The Democratic Party and Sectional Crisis. By Michael Todd Landis. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014. Pp. 334. Cloth, $29.95.)Reviewed by Yonatan EyalIn last two decades, historians such as Leonard Richards, Nicole Etcheson, Matthew Mason, and late Don Fehrenbacher have explored roles of doughfaces and the Power in antebellum American politics. They have documented remarkable public dominance of Old South's planter elite nationwide and importance of northern sympathizers in its creation, reminding us that slavery became a national institution affecting every aspect of American life. Michael Todd Landis's new book contributes to this literature by revealing partisan maneuvering through which northern Democratic politicians of 1850s promoted southern hegemony in Washington. In a detailed and highly readable account, he offers most complete picture now available of how northern Democrats used party customs and procedures to maintain southern sway in face of mounting northern unrest.Landis structures his indictment chronologically, starting with 1850 compromise debates and ending with presidential election of 1860. He recounts that decade's familiar events-Kansas-Nebraska, Lecompton, and so on-with an eye on northern Democrats' responsiveness to southern demands. He wisely pays attention to state-level politics as well, giving us glimpses of Senator Jesse Bright's Indiana political machine and New York Democrat William L. Marcy's chronic factional frustrations. He clearly shows how northern Democrats acted as accomplices of southern Slave Power, backing its bid for control of party and federal government. Northern Democrats became doughfaces who advanced South's slavery-expansion agenda in their quest to hold power within organization. In process, he argues, they actually formulated a doctrine of minority rule (reminiscent of John C. Calhoun's concurrent majority theory) that justified ignoring their own free-state constituents and voting with [sjouthern bosses (24) instead.Landis combines admirable archival digging with a brisk narrative style to take us deeper behind scenes of party intrigue and negotiation than any previous analysis. He covers careers of key northern Democratic leaders, from Lewis Cass to James Buchanan and many lesser lights, and demonstrates how conciliation of southern proslavery ideologues became a central means of gaining nominations and appointments. Landis's contribution is not in realm of partisan ideology and political thought (he belittles rhetoric repeatedly), but in workmanlike back-room operations of party apparatus (a la classic studies on this subject by Roy F. Nichols).There is nothing factually amiss in Landis's expose; it is a witheringly accurate and thorough depiction. But there are problems galore when it comes to framing, context, and interpretation. First, by implying that his is only story to be told about antebellum northern Democrats, he distorts nature of party by essentializing it. From Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. to Jean Baker to Sean Wilentz, scholars have told many worthwhile stories about northern Democrats: their localist constitutionalism, which cannot be reduced entirely to race or slavery; their liberal views on European immigration, non-Protestant religion, and old-world republicanism; and their courageous stands on banks, monopolies, and trade unions. Landis rejects these features of organization as mere rhetoric (3, 225): all that is real, to him, is southern appeasement.Landis's misleading categorical statements, such as Southern power and slavery expansion were fundamental principles of antebellum Democracy (3), convey impression, again, that there are no other valid narratives about northern Democrats, that interpretations of Schlesinger and Jonathan Earle, Robert Johannsen and Charles Sellers, have no value. …