The Slave Power: The Free North and Southern Domination, 1780-1860

Abstract

The Power: The Free North and Southern Domination, 1780-1860. By Leonard L. Richards. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000. Pp. x, 228. Cloth, $39.95; paper, $19.95.) Pop quiz: name prominent proslavery extremist in antebellum America who rose in federal ranks and received presidential appointment to high national office. Good students will quickly come up with John C. Calhoun, who served as secretary of war under President Monroe and secretary of state under President Tyler. A+ students also will name individuals such as Nicholas P. Trist (in Polk's State Department), William Henry Trescot (in Buchanan's), and Peter V. Daniel (a Van Buren appointee to Taney court). Now, think of prominent antislavery extremist in antebellum America who held similarly powerful national post. Stumped? It's trick question; there were none. As Leonard L. Richards argues in his latest work, that is just one example of considerable influence that South and slaveholding interests held over United States during seven decades of republic's existence. In The Power, Richards examines why northern politicians, reformers, and even southerners themselves came to believe in Slave thesis, an argument that held that slaveholders, slave states, and South as whole exercised inordinate power over national affairs (7, 28, 51, 54). Taking up question eight decades after historian Chauncey S. Boucher seemingly delivered it a knockout punch (17), Richards gathers considerable evidence to support claim that a slaveholding oligarchy ran country-and ran it for their own advantage (1). In federal government, southerners, more often than not, controlled both White House and Senate, steered presidential appointments, and acted as the dominant voice on Supreme Court (91, 92, 94). In party matters, southerners took lead among first Jeffersonian Republicans and then Jacksonian Democrats (57). In legislation, South was able to preserve, protect, and expand property in slaves. And in general policy, region rules of national politics (58). How did southerners pull this off? Many nineteenth-century critics located root cause in Power conspiracy. Richards sees no need to track down covert maneuvers by slave interests; according to him, calculations at work were more numerical than nefarious. Richards argues that three-fifths clause of Constitution provided main underpinning of southern political power. The formula ensured that the slave states always had one-third more seats in Congress than their free population warranted (56). Additional votes in House (along with purposeful parity in Senate) shaped close legislative battles, electoral college contests, and critical federal appointments. There was no mystery to South's political domination, Richards argues; just do math. The second base of Power's dominance was emerging party system. Both Jeffersonians and Jacksonians, Richards contends, were initially southern based, proslavery at heart (112). In new organizations, as in House, South's disproportionate influence sprang largely from three-fifths clause, which, according to evolving rules of party practice, played a decisive role in every political caucus and every political convention (57). Southern interests called shots in formative-and subsequent-years of party development. …