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Chris Masone
His 141 Blog
In chapters 14-16 of The Rise of American Democracy, Wilentz discusses the fight between the Whig-Calhounites and Jacksonian Democrats during the end of Jackson’s second term and into Martin Van Buren’s presidency. In his blog post, Will summarized this period well. Will said, “The Democrats efforts to attract nationwide appeal led to catastrophic contradictions, and the Whig’s hatred for Jackson provided only an ephemeral glue to hold together members with sharply different ideologies.” However, I believe Wilentz puts too much blame on the Whig Party and intentionally avoids criticizing Jacksonian Democrats.
While Jackson and his admirers fought “for the common man” against a corrupt closed-door aristocratic system running America, John C. Calhoun and the Whig party insisted Jackson had developed “a new class of selfish elected and appointed officials.” These politicians, the Whigs said, were the “true oppressors of the people.” (Wilentz 255) It feels as though Wilentz portrays the Whig party as the villain in this political mess, especially when discussing Martin Van Buren’s presidency and I don’t know if Wilentz is warranted in doing so.
Wilentz describes a sense of inherited guilt with Martin Van Buren. He leads us to believe that “Van Ruin’s” presidency was overshadowed by the problems inherent with the divide in Jacksonian Democracy in the southern stronghold. Rather than attributing guilt to Andrew Jackson or Martin Van Buren, Wilentz describes the panic of 1837 as an inevitable “long-feared financial crash” as a result of the “Whig-Calhounites’ Deposit Act” which stripped banks reserves. (239) This idea of inherited guilt attempts to relieve Van Buren of blame, even though the panic of 1837 happened directly under Van Buren’s leadership.
While there is merit in Wilentz’s argument that the financial meltdown of 1837 could have been directly caused by the Whig-Calhounites, I think the second collapse in October of 1839 can be attributed to Van Buren. Wilentz makes the point that the collapse helped Van Buren in the short term as it “reminded the public of his link with the hero of the Bank War, Andrew Jackson.” (243) Even with the country belly-up in a second bank collapse, Wilentz describes the effect as bolstering the “Jacksonians’ contentions” regarding a nationalized bank. Even though the country was suffering financially due to political fighting in Washington, Wilentz does not blame this on Van Buren. Rather, he attributes Van Buren’s eventual political fall to a split in southern politics instead of any fault in leadership.
However, as Will pointed out, the Jacksonian Democrats’ attempt to appease everyone actually hurt their overall position. Blame for this period of corrupt policies and confusion, illustrated by the financial crisis’ of 1837 and 1839, should be shared equally between the Whig-Calhounites and the Jacksonian Democrats rather than, as I think Wilentz portrays, the blame resting solely on the shoulders of the Whig Party.