Politics and Power in a Slave Society: Alabama 1800-1860. By Mills Thornton III. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978)
In Politics and Power in a Slave Society, author Mills Thornton III explores the role state politics played in influencing Alabama’s secessionist convention. While the book’s title suggests that the work will cover sixty years of Alabama history, the first fifty years only serve as back story and a “straw man” to compare the state’s political scene in the 1850’s. Thornton’s rather controversial thesis is that, despite what historians like Eugene Genovese have written, there was no “slaveocracy” that forced or cajoled the white masses of the South into secession. Rather, Politics and Power in a Slave Society argues that it was the Jacksonian Democratic masses that argued for secession in defense of state’s rights, of which the Republican Party and slavery were only the most recent manifestation of an ongoing political debate.
Thornton’s survey of Alabama political culture in the first half of the nineteenth century, revels a consistent trend of lower and middle class whites aligning against large land holding elites. These elites were often in favor of federally sponsored internal improvements or more restrictive enfranchisement. The frontier Jacksonian masses consistently argued against federal intervention in their region and wanted the national government to have as small a footprint as possible in their daily lives. By the 1850’s, these lower and middle class political supporters had successfully fought for the better side of compromises throughout the early nineteenth century. According to Thornton, these political groups did not pay a great deal of attention to national politics that did not affect the state of Alabama though. By the time of the Republican Party’s rise to power, middling planters more aware of national issues, brought the Republicans to the attention of the Jacksonian masses in an attempt to coalesce state political power in their favor. Jacksonians in northern Alabama, where there was less slavery were less impressed by fears that the Republicans would limit slavery, while those in the southern portion of the state began to increasingly ally themselves with the planters. The planter’s plans were in fact later hijacked by the Jacksonian masses who took the anti-Republican sentiment farther than many of the planters would have preferred. While slavery was the issue in question, it was only the most recent of a long series of political debates over state’s rights. The difference in the 1850’s though, was that this time the lower and middle class Jacksonians had the temporary support of large planters and their venues for communication and political control.
In his work, Thornton presents a compelling argument that the politics of the 1850’s in general, and the time of the secession conventions in particular, should not be explored in a vacuum. Each state’s individual history, politics, and economy should be studied through a wider lens that looks farther back so as not to make fallacious assessments of the political decisions they reached. His book uses an excellent amount of manuscripts and newspapers while investigating his topic. The book does fail to discuss if there were and ethnic or religious distinctions that might have also influenced the politics of the era under investigation; and they may not have, but since Thornton doesn’t address it in his narrative or footnotes the reader can be left wondering. Politics and Power in a Slave Society is an interesting book that is sure to spark debate and controversy over his findings, as such, it should contribute to the historiography significantly.
Joseph Stoltz
Politics and Power in a Slave Society: Alabama, 1800-1860.
By J. Mills Thornton III. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, c. 1978. Pp. xxvi, 492. $22.50.
ISBN 0-8071-0259-8.)
J. Mills Thornton III produces a long, localistic look into the state politics of Alabama in order to trace the ideological threads of the secession movement. The Jules and Frances Landry Award winner Politics and Power in a Slave Society serves an excellent study of the political mindset of white antebellum Alabamian males in a slave society. This book, which developed from Thornton’s doctoral dissertation, reflects a distinguished career at the University of Michigan. The thrust of the author’s thesis challenges the assertion that the development of secession ideology sprung from the slaveholder’s fear of being ruled by emancipated slaves, but actually flowered due to fears of the yeoman farmer losing his perceived freedoms. Thornton traces the political foundations of Alabama in order to illustrate that “democracy as a form of government is merely a mirror of men” (4).
Politics and Power in a Slave Society begins by discussing the “Birth of Style.” Thornton elucidates the educational, political, and social background of all the men who influenced Alabama politics from its territorial inception through statehood. The pattern reveals that the electorate predominately sent middle-class farmers to the Alabama legislature. This pattern explains the reason why secession became the only option for Alabama; the yeoman farmer found it unacceptable to accept Lincoln’s election. Thornton traces this evolution to Jacksonian democracy and its ideological tenets that embraced egalitarian liberties. Privilege and aristocracy were not fundamental elements of Jacksonian democracy and the slaveholding planters realized the tenuous position of their power and aligned their rhetoric with the middle-class farmers, speaking against elitism. Thornton’s argument departs from the historiographical principle that “slavocracy” ruled the legislatures of the Deep South and served as the impetus for secession.
In order to piece the developing political philosophies in Alabama Thornton reviewed magazines and newspaper editorials to link similar and differentiating ideologies about states’ rights, race, and economics. These particular facets of Alabama life played an integral part in the sectional crisis of 1850. Thornton discusses how the Crisis of 1850 affected the state and his research reveals that the Democrats in the northern and southern regions, of the state, developed an antagonistic relationship because of the politicking of Dixon H. Lewis and William King. Lewis was elected to fill the Senate seat vacated by King when he was appointed to become minister of France. Lewis was able to congeal Jacksonian Democrats with Nullifiers and enjoyed great loyalty with the voters. Upon leaving his post in France, King sought to regain his senatorial seat. The match-up between Lewis and King set the stage for sectional strife within the state. Thornton argues that King and Lewis are sometimes portrayed as examples for well-defined Unionist and Southern Rights factions. Lewis represented electorates who backed Calhoun ideologies. Thornton states that, “it is profoundly misleading to identify this group with the south Alabama Democrats, who for the most part took up Lewis’ cause” (170). The Crisis of 1850 and the Lewis-King contest were really based on “personal rivalries and sectional jealousies”(170). These types of assertions and analysis abound and make Thornton’s local probing interestingly thought-provoking.
Although Thornton’s intricate look at Alabama politics, during the antebellum era, serves an important addition to the historiography, he separates the key issue of slavery and reduces the main thrust of Alabama’s decision to proceed with secession as a struggle to maintain the source of political power. This power was derived by the middle-class farmers and managed through a delicate political balance with the wealthy plantation elite. The idea that slaveholders desired to keep their economic system intact and the yeoman farmer needed blacks to be slaves in order to avoid enslavement themselves seems an overstated analysis of this local study. Also, the fact that Thornton superimposes this assertion on the national landscape proves problematic.
Politics and Power is an ambitious endeavor to take the reader back to antebellum Alabama and view the political environment in which they lived. Thornton would have the reader see Alabamians as frightened electorates and therefore they had little option but to embrace secession. His thesis challenges that of Eugene Genovese who argues that slaveholders held hegemony within the political structure of the Southern states. On the other hand, Thornton’s analysis falls in line with historian Michael Holt and Eric Foner who are proponents of the ideology that “party conflict on the local level helped produce the crisis of the 1850s” and that “republic ideology among free men of the North, for whom the shackles of political slavery were every bit as fearful as for the small Alabama farmer”(Brugger, 155). The opposing dichotomy that Thornton supports has important elements to consider. The importance of the political ideologies of the middle-class farmer are often overlooked or dismissed as secondary to the power wielded by the slaveholders. Thornton is able to interconnect the economic and political threads between both classes and this bind does serve to enlighten the reader about the difficulties that plagued the country on a national level. Both classes wanted to keep the status quo intact, but the issue of slavery was central to the balance and this aspect ultimately divided the country.
Thornton spends a great deal of time discussing the development
of the pre-Civil War two party system of Whigs and Democrats. The
major difference separating the two parties was urbanism versus rural involvement
of government in the development of the economy. The book’s detailed
information on the formation of the ideologies, similarities, and differences
of these two parties helps to illuminate the growing political imbalance
nationally. Also Thornton’s in depth look at the role of the “fire-eaters”
and the colorful career of William Yancey make for lively reading in an
otherwise tedious endeavor. Politics and Power and its thesis
prove to be an important element to the study of antebellum politics in
the South and the subsequent Civil War. Thornton asserts that, “the fundamental
business of Alabama politics, therefore, was the manipulation of the popular
dread of manipulation”(161). The length and detailed anecdotes, biographical
information, and political developments, within the book, will be weary
to those who are not serious students of the Old South’s political landscape,
particularly at the local level; but historians should be aware of the
broader themes and analyses that are addressed.
| Texas Christian University |
Liz Nichols
|