Democratizing the Old Dominion: Virginia and the Second Party System 1824-1861.  By William G. Shade.  Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1996.

       William G. Shade, professor emeritus at Lehigh University, produced in 1996 a study that considered the impact that the emergence of the second party system had upon the state of Virginia.  The author attacks old myths that have arisen about the political history of the Old Dominion.    Virginia antebellum politics, according to traditional scholarly interpretations, largely remained unchanged from the colonial era.  The state largely remained in the hands of a planter elite.  In addition, Virginia remained aloof from the emergence of the second party system and the growing partisanship that swept the rest of the country during the 1820s and 1830s.  However, Shade challenges those assumptions.  He concludes that Virginia was a rapidly changing and diversified state and was not atypical. In fact, many of the issues that sparked intense political debate in the remainder of the country also arose in Virginia politics. Virginia became the arena for a vital two party system.

       Shade notes that the population of Virginia, by 1850, was still populated by a large share of residents of English descent.  Nevertheless, ethnically diverse groups like the Germans of the Valley and the Scotch-Irish of the West had come to settle in large numbers in the state.  These groups also pursued numerous and diverse business activities.  The state, unlike the colonial era, no longer relied solely upon the staple crop of tobacco for economic prosperity.  Many were engaged in manufacturing and trade having little contact with agriculture or the slave system.  These divergent groups had differing interests and expected their political representatives to reflect their differing concerns.

       Shade then turns to the political culture of the commonwealth.  Factions arose even as the first state constitution was constructed.  Thomas Jefferson, the author of Virginia’s first constitution, conceded that the wealthy planter class of the Tidewater was overrepresented in the state legislature.  James Madison also stressed the need for broader representation.  These debates over who should govern crystallized as the first party system emerged during the 1790s.

       The Federalists became the defender of the elites and the Democratic-Republicans reflected the interests of the yeoman farmer.  At the same time as factions emerged Virginia, like all other regions of the country, experienced an upsurge in political participation.  This occurred despite the fact that universal white male suffrage was not granted to the citizens of Virginia until 1850.  A thriving democratic culture arose in the commonwealth and only deepened with the emergence of the Democrats and the Whigs during the Age of Jackson.

       National disagreements over policy that sharpened the differences between Democrats and Whigs were also reflected in Virginia politics.  Virginia Democrats reflected the conservative ideology of the Tidewater area.  These Democrats, much like their national counterparts, supported the maintenance of slavery, state banks, and low tariffs.  They also supported limited governmental expenditures on education and internal improvement and an adherence to laissez-faire economic theory.  Virginia Whigs tended to support an activist government, a national bank, and increased spending on education and internal improvements.  Whigs of the Old Dominion also advocated the gradual abolition of slavery in hopes of diversifying Virginia’s economy.  Democrats tended to be members of the rural classes that had little or no contact with the burgeoning market economy of the 1830s and 1840s. State Whigs tended to be members of the growing Virginia commercial class and embraced economic modernity.

       Shade’s work is well written and researched.  He uses numerous charts, grafts, and maps that illustrate Virginia voting patterns and tendencies during the antebellum era.  In all, the author provides some needed context for the development of the second party system in the Old Dominion.

Robert Butts

Democratizing the Old Dominion: Virginia and the Second Party System, 1824-1861. By William Shade. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1996.

Historians of the past have characterized antebellum Virginia as a state behind its time, especially when one looks at the politics of the Old Dominion.  Forces within the state resisted popular democracy and maintained their stronghold on the nation through landholding requirements, court appointments, and legislative representation.  For these scholars, Virginia more closely resembled colonial America than it did the rest of the United States during the mid-nineteenth century.  A voice to contend with this interpretation arrives in the work of William G. Shade.  In Democratizing the Old Dominion, Shade challenges this characterization of an anachronistic Virginia and argues for a diverse state that resembled in almost every aspect—socially, economically, and religiously—the rest of the United States.  With this social diversity also arose political diversity and legitimate challenges to the stronghold of tidewater Virginia.  Therefore, throughout the antebellum period, Virginia developed a democratic system long before the constitutional changes in 1850 that officially established democracy in the commonwealth.

Shade begins his work with an overview of the diversity of antebellum Virginia.  Ethnically, various communities formed throughout the land.  While the English still maintained a high share of the populace in 1850, the German population rose in the Valley, Scotch-Irish families had strength in the west, and pockets of French, Irish, and Welsh groups dotted the entire landscape.  Each brought its religious commitments, which added to the mixed population.  Protestants still the loomed large over other groups, but within the broad Protestant camp were German Moravians, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, revivalistic Baptists, and travelling Methodists, in addition to those adherents to the former state religion, Anglicans.  The economy of the state also experienced a great amount of diversity.  Trade and manufacturing grew along the east coast, milling—whether it be flour, wood, or grain—could be found in every county of Virginia, and even a growing coal mining presence that challenged Pennsylvania existed in the piedmont.  Virginia did not rely solely upon tobacco nor did its citizens always require slave labor to gain prosperity.  Antebellum Virginia, then, experienced numerous changes, changes that commonly occurred throughout the rest of the United States.

With this diversity in mind, Shade turns to the political life of the commonwealth.  Even with Virginia’s first constitution, political factions arose.  Although an author of the document, Thomas Jefferson himself challenged the power structure of the state, a structure that he believed placed too much power in the hands of a legislature dominated by slaveholders in the southeast tidewater region.  Madison also chimed in on Jefferson’s complaints and stressed the need to increase representation in the government.  Against these more progressive voices stood the keepers of the Old Dominion—those slaveholders in the tidewater.  These men argued along republican ideological lines for the need to maintain the current structure of the state.  To remove factions and self-interest, each must defer to the good of the whole, as defined by the intelligent leaders of the land.  A democracy, where people pandered to the interest of the individual rather than the whole, had to be avoided to maintain a republic.  In time, these arguments for increased representation versus the maintenance of deference, contributed to the debates that changed the constitution.  However, the political landscape of Virginia continued to move, regardless of the structure of the representation.

To see the shift in this landscape, Shade points to voting data, congressional debates, and the rise of the two-party system in Virginia.  Although universal white male suffrage was not established until 1850, voter turnout percentages increased during the antebellum period.  If these individuals had been told that Virginia was not a democracy, they certainly did not act as if they believed it.  Through these elections came a diverse group of politicians, each looking to the interests of his own constituency.  Under the one-party system, these politicians divided roughly along two lines—the tidewater planters with Republican rhetoric and the more nationalistic and Federalist-minded leaders along the periphery of the tidewater.  With the emergence of Jackson and the two-party system, the diversity exploded as pockets of Whigs and Democrats were scattered throughout the state.  The Democrats reflected the conservative bent of the tidewater region, who argued for the maintenance of slavery, state banks, and low tariffs.  On the other hand, the Whigs reflected the manufacturing interests of the state and insisted on a national bank, protective tariff, and a gradual abolition of slavery for the purposes of expanding the Virginia economy.  When one steps back from this picture, one begins to see a political system that reflected the experiences of states throughout the Union.

Shade presents a heavily researched and well-argued book.  His challenge to think about Virginia as diverse is well-heeded and helps in interpreting Virginia’s uneasy stance for secession.  The work comes out of the “new political history” camp, and is heavily influences by charts, tables, and demographic data.  If you wish to find the inner mind of those who voted for Whigs or Democrats, do not look here.  If you wish to see numbers crunched on Virginia politics, then Shade’s work will serve you well.

Blake Killingsworth