Empire for Liberty: America in the Long Nineteenth Century

[volksmarschall]

I admit I am surprised at your predilection for Quebec. Given the linguistic and religious differences, the only thing to recommend it is the St Lawrence Seaway. Personally, I'd rather take Ontario and let the British deal with Quebec.

Studying at Yale? I thought you were west of the Mississippi.

I suppose the affinity for "Quebec" stems from the fact that Upper and Lower Canada was "Quebec Province" back in the day. So I just take Quebec because of the name. Although, given the linguistic and religious differences, we'll see how that works itself out with the themes and narrative so far taken in the AAR. And the actual attempted conquests of Canada in '75 and 1812 were obviously planned to include Upper and Lower Canada. We'll settle for just Quebec I guess.

Did I accidentally say west? Perhaps it was just a misread? Yeah, all my time spent west of the Mississippi was for one of my sister's soccer tournament (she's full scholarship at the University of Pittsburgh) in St. Louis, some time back now. Otherwise all my other westerly travels have been at San Fran Airport and LAX for flights to and from East Asia: Korea, Japan, Philippines, China. All wonderful places if you, or anyone, ever gets that opportunity. Although I suppose this makes me a commie for spending months in China! And for someone who really really enjoys seafood, well, it beats even New England by a lot ... The Chinese were among the nicest people I've ever met. When they knew I was American, nothing but a bunch of questions about why Roosevelt liked China so much.

I was put on the spot. I didn't really want to tell them he was hardly a Sinophile, it was more pragmatic. They have long memories there. They haven't forgotten the help the U.S. gave them back in WWII. And they speak better English than most Americans too!

The visit was made even better since, through contacts, I kinda got VIP access in Beijing and Shanghai. Some very fine restaurants at the penthouse floors of some of those skyscrapers. I highly recommend it if possible.

Well Director, I'll always remember if I'm crossing over to Gettysburg or in that neck of the woods I'd let you know. Sadly, besides workshops and related study opportunities, I don't venture much from New Haven besides the occasional treks into and out of New York City and Boston. I find NYC to be incredibly overrated. I wouldn't really recommend it to tourists. But that's just me. Although, it must be nice to be nearby so many historical sites. I haven't visited since I was little with my parents. That was a long long time ago now.

 

[Director]

Oddly enough, I'll be in Connecticut in March. I work for a company that owns movie theaters, and we own a number in the area (including the new North Haven, which is very nice).
I'll let you know closer to time. If nothing else I can hook you up with some free passes.

 

[volksmarschall]

Oddly enough, I'll be in Connecticut in March. I work for a company that owns movie theaters, and we own a number in the area (including the new North Haven, which is very nice).
I'll let you know closer to time. If nothing else I can hook you up with some free passes.

Haha! I believe that's the Cinemark North Haven, in that nice shop complex with all those restaurants and shops? Been there multiple times. Got to detox from all that reading besides going to the bar!

Of course, I'd hate to disappoint you in the fact that I'm not your equal like some of the old guard might be. I'm just a 20s-something grad student and you clearly have many many years and wisdom and experience on me. Although it'd still be nice to sometime meet forumites. Especially the likes of the authors of Special Providence, or Yogi's Empire of Fu Manchu, and coz1's Into the West. But there's no need to go on a memory lane trip as to how I randomly found the forum and found the whole idea of the AAR quite novel.

Funny how this little world produces "classics" just like the real world of literature...

 

[volksmarschall]

CHAPTER IV: MANIFEST DESTINY AND ITS DISCONTENTS

I prefer the troubled ocean of war...to the tranquil, putrescent pool of ignominious peace.

~ Henry Clay


Manifest Destiny by any Other Name​

Antebellum America was dominated by the ideology of Manifest Destiny. It was the core plank of the Democratic Party’s ideology of citizen sovereignty and was integrally linked with democratic nationalism. The righteousness of democracy was inevitably combined with the ideology of westward expansion—the lands of Mexico, British Canada, and the virgin lands of the American West were seen as the quintessential land for democracy to flourish.

While Manifest Destiny emerged, in its codified form, antecedently with Jefferson (the Louisiana Purchase) before reaching an apogee with the Jacksonian Democrats, it would be wrong to think that this philosophy emerged in the early 1800s. In fact, the roots of Manifest Destiny go back to the very origins of the United States. The Puritans. No understanding of American culture and history would be complete without an understanding of who the Puritans were, their identity, consciousness, and legacy to the entity called the United States. Even long after their demise, their legacy and influence has long outlasted them—and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

The North American continent was seen as a contested battleground by the Puritans. The New Canaan, with the Puritans as the New Israelites. America’s messianic identity is inevitably connected to the Pilgrim and Puritan founders. In this New Canaan, a pure and holy land of Protestantism could be consummated—a pure Christianity. The Puritans saw the contest in North America as one been the noble savages (Native Americans) and Catholic agents of Babylon and Rome (the French and Spanish). The Puritans’ empire was equally political as it was religious. Spain and France were monarchies, despotic forms of government in the Puritan mind. By contrast, the Puritans were radical democrats. Democracy was envisioned as God’s original form of cooperative communitarian government—communitarian democracy. The Jews forfeited their covenant by overthrowing God with a human king. The Puritans, in their election, were to maintain the true republic of God’s democratic preference. Thus, it was both a religious and political duty to spread the gospel of Protestantism and democracy to the west coast in a race against the despotic Catholics.

Over time, this ideology of expansionism secularized itself and evolved into what we call “Manifest Destiny,” which once deconstructed is clearly rooted in the Puritans vision of Protestant empire (democracy) over the whole of North America. Certain aspects of this Puritan ideology migrated into the ideas of American internationalism, of which Henry Clay was a shining example of. Matters were later complicated with slave power politics come the 1800s. The Puritans, while engaging in the slave trade, never envisioned their North American empire as being dominated by slavery. The ironies of American history are replete all over.

As the south and west became the nexus of expansionist politics, the heartlands of the Puritans became the nexus of moralist politics. The Whigs were not anti-expansionists as sometimes claimed and certainly not moral paladins. Many Whigs accepted slavery; it had its economic benefits of course—especially in Whig dominated New England where the “Cotton Whigs” controlled New England politics for the most part except in states like New Hampshire and Vermont. Other Whigs, such as Clay, eventually saw America expanding to the west—but only after industrialization and modernization had run its course. This goes back to Hamilton’s original vision of American hegemony and dominance of North America. In Hamilton’s vision, the new republic of the United States was outclassed by Britain and Spain. Later, it was considered that the Mexican Empire, then republic, was in a stronger position of dominance than the nascent republic was because of its Spanish inheritance. Likewise, Britain remained the most powerful force in the western hemisphere despite North America being the home of the American republic. Therefore, it is somewhat misleading to assert the Whigs truly opposed westward expansion even if they nominally opposed “Manifest Destiny.”

The famous painting by Emanuel Luetze, "Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way," 1860. The painting captures the spirit of American westward expansion and Manifest Destiny. By 1840, some seven million Americans had already moved westward to seek their fortunes. It reflected a moment of mass migration and "illegal immigration" into territories that were not controlled by the United States. America was from 1800-1860, a nation without borders.​

For Hamilton, only an industrially strong, efficient, and capitalist America would be able to emerge out of the shadow of Britain and Spain (later Mexico) to wrestle control of North America from America’s rivals. Clay agreed.

Henry Clay had a unique history and heritage. Originally a Jeffersonian hawk in the War of 1812, he shared with Jefferson a liberal internationalist outlook. He called for war and the conquest of Canada. As Secretary of State under Adams, he called for American intervention for the Greek War of Independence. As President, he brutally invaded British Canada during the Quebec War. Although he opposed westward expansion, not because of anti-slavery politics, he did so because of his political-economy program more than anything else as already mentioned.

As President, Clay reflected the pragmatic Whiggish position concerning the issue of Manifest Destiny. As mentioned, the pragmatic wing of the Whig Party nominally opposed Manifest Destiny—but this is not to say they didn’t believe America would come to control the westerly territories of the American continent. Going back to Hamilton, that empire had long been envisioned both by the Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians, but under different pretexts and pretensions. Clay was no different. The Jeffersonian-Jacksonians believed the west was ideal land for the agrarian virtues of republican democracy to be firmly planted. The irony is the settlers and pioneers—mostly of Scotch-Irish descent, were already undertaking this goal for their own self-survival more than pure adoration to democratic politics. The Hamiltonians to Whigs believed westward expansion would inevitably bring conflict with Spain (followed by Mexico) and Britain. Only a strong, economically sound, and industrious United States could wrestle the western lands from superior foes (at the time).

Clay, therefore, “opposed” Manifest Destiny on three major grounds during his presidency. First, Protestant dissenters in Quebec and Quebecois nationalists were clamoring for revolution and independence. These brothers in arms were viewed as a common ally in throwing off the shackles of British dominance in North America and the oppressive Papist overseers “denying” liberty to fellow Protestants. (Again, we must remember that even among the “Anglophile” elite in America, it was largely superficial. From Hamilton to Clay, the love of England was a love of the English system of efficiency and economic strength—to which America should explicitly mold itself in the image of if America would come out of the shadows of the British Empire in North America. The so-called “Special Relationship” is a modern phenomenon that emerged in the 20th century. Furthermore, we also see a certain Pan-Protestantism emerging in the United States in opposition to Catholicism despite various squabbles among Methodists, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians in intra-Protestant doctrinal matters.) Second, Clay believed westward expansion would bring America into a conflict with Mexico; a conflict the United States was not yet ready to embrace in Clay’s mind. Third, westward expansion would unnecessarily drain the American treasury from tax revenue that was planned to be used to industrialize and modernize the east coast of the United States. Clay’s American System concentrated on industrializing and modernizing the coast, but also allotted a substantial fund for internal improvements projects (roads, bridges, canals, etc.) in the Midwest (Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana). The American System sought to create an economically industrious, capitalist, and sound United States (primarily in the north but also some of the more important southern coastal cities); only then could westward expansion be easily undertaken.

Here, we see in Clay and the pragmatic faction of the Whigs no genuine concern over the issue of slavery. He was the “Great Compromiser” after all. Only the Whigs rallied around Adams were genuinely concerned over the possibility of slavery’s expansion.

A painting of President Henry Clay, President of the United States from 1841-1845. The painting alludes to Clay's American System, where you can see the American flag draped over the globe. The ideal outcome of the American System was to produce an economically and industrially strong America that could use this strength to subsequently come to dominant the North American continent and Western Hemisphere. As such, it is a bit misleading to understand Whig opposition to westward expansion as an actual fixed anti-expansionism. The Whigs, much like the Democrats, envisioned an America that stretched from coast to coast.​

Likewise, the emergent Free Soil movement that is sometimes said to have opposed Manifest Destiny on the grounds that it would expand slavery is deeply misleading. The Free Soil movement was a highly conservative movement in that it sought westward expansion but to prevent slavery’s expansion in accordance with the already established laws of the Northwest Ordinance and Missouri Compromise that explicitly stated the westerly territories would not be open to slavery. Their fear of slavery’s expansion was motivated more by their own ideology of free-state territory than it was over the immorality of the peculiar institution.

Furthermore, the Free Soil movement was both agrarian (Democratic leaning wing) and industrial (Whig leaning wing). The agrarians, like Jefferson and Jackson, saw the west as fertile land for agrarian lifestyle and culture. The industrialists, in accordance with Whig economic programs, saw much of the Upper Midwest as perfect ground for a new industrial base. The Great lakes, many rivers and causeways, would easily allow for transportation of natural resources without the need for roads. Both, however, believed in the rule of law and the authority of previous legal pronouncements like the Northwest Ordinance and Missouri Compromise. Like the pragmatic Whigs, the Free Soil movement did not outright oppose westward expansion; they were merely worried about westward expansion being used as a mechanism for slavery’s expansion which was, in their reading of legal treaties and congressional authorized treaties, illegal. Thus, the movement simply wanted to enforce existing laws.

Clay understood the severity of the political situation. The Jacksonian ideology was clearly the will of the American majority, but perhaps the people didn’t know any better. Clay understood his election was primarily the result of the economic recession of 1838-1839, his victory over Sam Houston also gifted by the anti-Catholic sentiment of voters when it was revealed Houston had converted to Catholicism while in Texas. (Although this didn’t harm Houston’s character as a popular American hero nonetheless—American Protestants weren’t willing to have a “Roman Papist” as “King.”)

Clay recognized he treaded on thin ice. Ever the intellectual, he carefully produced funding efforts for new factories and industrial projects primarily in New England during his first year as president; all the while sending a quiet recruitment notice for 20,000 volunteers to bolster the American army for the coming war for Quebec. But Clay also agreed with the industrial wing of the Free Soil movement, hence is appropriation of funding to internal improvements in the Midwest for the consummation of a future industrial base there.

The problem with Clay and the Whig Party was that it was deeply divided over how to approach the issue of slavery. Clay had initially opposed the annexation of Texas because he felt it compromised the integrity of the Union. Clay and the Whigs were very much a conservative movement insofar that conservatism meant Unionism in the American context, not to mention the Whig Party’s strongest base of support came from northern moralistic Protestants with strong anti-Catholic prejudice. That opposition to Texas cost Clay, ultimately, the presidency when Texas voted for Polk granting him the 5 electoral votes necessary to move from 140 to 145, thus securing his victory (the winner needed 141). That opposition turned much of the South against Clay, save his home-state. The Midwest, which had suffered from a British counter-invasion during the Quebec War, also turned against Clay despite the states having received many benefits from his administration.

Clay and the Whig Party didn’t seek slavery’s abolition, but they did seek to contain its expansion much like the Free Soil Party. Likewise, by simply refusing to acknowledge it as a problem that needed to be addressed, Clay and the Whigs perpetuated the problem even more. As Democratic newspapers wrote, “Clay’s reticence over slavery tells all.”

What becomes clear, outside of a few notable radicals, was that westward expansion was envisioned by all parties and movements. The issue over “Manifest Destiny” was ultimately just a war over ideology. From Hamilton to the Whigs, the industrialists and modernizers were pragmatic in their approach to westward expansion. America would inevitably conquer the west, but only after it achieved a high level of economic strength first. Britain, Spain, and later Mexico were considered stronger nations—and thus it was necessary for America to build up its own strength before embarking on the conquest to the Pacific Ocean. From Jefferson to Jackson and the Democrats, Manifest Destiny was “in the now.” The irony is Clay’s American system of industrialization propelled Manifest Destiny forward at even more alarming rate than before. The industrialization and capitalization of the American coast was extremely disconcerting for many agrarian Jeffersonians and Jacksonians. Capitalism would poison the virtue of democracy, and therefore the west was seen as the last refuge of virtue and integrity against the cesspool of corruption, mercantilism, and “crony” capitalism emerging in the northeast. (Oh how that culture has not died…)

Manifest Destiny, then, could not be stopped. And when mixed with a certain Scotch-Irish Presbyterian determinism, God willed it. This was militant revolutionary ideology of the highest theological order: God had preordained Protestantism and democracy to flourish across the continent—so why wait and merit his wrath? The holy trinity of agrarian virtue, democracy, and Protestantism also propelled Manifest Destiny proponents into the grand frontier. Catholics, especially Catholics, and Mexicans were all inferior peoples to God’s chosen Anglo-Saxon Protestant peoples in this unique blending of theology, politics, and Enlightenment determinism. Indeed, there seems to be much confusion as to the role of “Enlightenment” in American history and culture—in part, few seem to properly understand its relationship. The Enlightenment took root in America as in no other country. The United States was the pure Enlightenment nation par excellence. Enlightenment understandings of liberty, freedom of action, Newtonian determinism, and moralism all deeply sowed itself into the fabric of American society and culture. In many ways, Manifest Destiny was what the Enlightenment had wrought to America; the blending of Reformed Protestantism (stemming from the English Civil Wars) and Newtonian Determinism (which was very compatible with Calvinist theology) produced an untamable monster.

A painting of the Battle of Los Angeles during the Second Mexican War. The American victory consummated westward expansion from coast to coast. Although the Mexican Campaign had yet been won, the victories at San Francisco and Los Angeles meant that the Pacific had finally come under American control.​

The Free Soil Party, likewise, didn’t really oppose westward expansion, it just was worried that the new territories would become infect by slavery—a clear violation of the many laws and statutes that had been passed by Congress that prohibited slavery’s westward expansion. And westward expansion, as mentioned, goes all the way back to the Puritans. The Whig opposition to Manifest Destiny, if it could really be called opposition at all, was deep down facile and a farce. They, like the more ardent proponents, envisioned an American Empire of Liberty stretching from coast to coast. They, however, were a bit more pragmatic in their approach—less enthusiastic and without the hard theological determinism of many of the restless Calvinist pioneers and settlers. Likewise, they believed America would only get “one chance” to stretch from coast to coast. War with Mexico or Britain, and America’s defeat because of unpreparedness, would soil that dream of a coast-to-coast republic. Even many of the abolitionists, the most ardent opponents of Manifest Destiny, equally didn’t really oppose westward expansion. Westward expansion was inevitable—even desired. But only after the question of slavery had been settled, thereby westward expansion wouldn’t threaten to disintegrate the Union. Those writers and visionaries were the most prescient of them all. Opposition to Manifest Destiny was really just a temporary phenomenon that masks the reality that most Americans believed the west would eventually become part of the American republic.

SUGGESTED READING

Conrad Cherry, God’s New Israel

Charles Coulombe, Purtian’s Empire

Reginald Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny: Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism

Frederick Merk, Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History

Eric Nelson, The Hebrew Republic

James Ronda, Astoria and Empire

Eran Shalev, American Zion: The Old Testament as a Political Text from the Revolution to Civil War

Anders Stephens, Manifest Destiny, American Expansionism and the Empire of Right

Stephen Woodworth, Manifest Destinies: America’s Westward Expansion and the Road to Civil War

Avihu Zakai, Exile and Kingdom: History and Apocalypse in the Puritan Migration to America​

 

[AvatarOfKhaine]

Baja California, Baja California, America is not complete with those ugly borders

 

[volksmarschall]

Baja California, Baja California, America is not complete with those ugly borders

You're right. But I can't have war with Mexico every 4 years.

I think it will just be Baja when that time comes...

 

[RossN]

Very interesting insight into the American mentality at the time. Hard to admire from our modern perspective but still interesting.

 

[Director]

One wonders (well, I wonder) if war for Canada has anything to do with tying up those Loyalist 'loose-ends' left over from the Revolution.

I've heard it said that it was the aggressive push to expand slavery that finally mobilized public opinion against it, and I think there is some merit to that. Without the agitation over whether or not to extend slavery into the territories, and after the Dred Scott decision basically legalized slavery throughout the US, a lot of people who had not been passionate about slavery came to feel the rules had been changed without their permission.

As to the other - I'll drop you a PM closer to time. If we have a chance to say, "Hi" then that would be great - I'm all about putting faces to names.

 

[volksmarschall]

Very interesting insight into the American mentality at the time. Hard to admire from our modern perspective but still interesting.

It's all about being true to American history here in this "AAR."

One wonders (well, I wonder) if war for Canada has anything to do with tying up those Loyalist 'loose-ends' left over from the Revolution.

I've heard it said that it was the aggressive push to expand slavery that finally mobilized public opinion against it, and I think there is some merit to that. Without the agitation over whether or not to extend slavery into the territories, and after the Dred Scott decision basically legalized slavery throughout the US, a lot of people who had not been passionate about slavery came to feel the rules had been changed without their permission.

As to the other - I'll drop you a PM closer to time. If we have a chance to say, "Hi" then that would be great - I'm all about putting faces to names.

Possibly.

As for westward expansion, I think that has a lot of merit. In fact, I'm going to be relying on a lot of scholarship on that theme when we get to that section of the game: our firing of the K-N Act, John Brown, and all that fun. Especially when we get to Brown. The whole "rules be changing" is something I'm trying to emphasize with the Free Soil Movement. They're not really mobilized to abolish slavery. They mobilized to maintain the rules and laws that said the west would be free territory, hence "free soil movement" In a certain "rule of existing law" sense, they were a one-issue conservative movement party. The Northwest Ordinances, Missouri Compromise, et al. said this land was free. Keep it free. Etc.

I also do like McPherson's separation between anti-slavery (preventing slavery's expansion) vs. abolitionism (calling for the end of slavery outright). It allows us to better understand there were anti-slavery Democrats, who also believed in westward expansion. This inherent tension, however, came to fruition and new lines had to be drawn inevitably.

 

[Tankman987]

Just something I want to ask. We hear of an war for Quebec during Clay's presidency yet there has not been an update specifically about the war. Is this just foreshadowing for the Quebec war?

 

[volksmarschall]

Just something I want to ask. We hear of an war for Quebec during Clay's presidency yet there has not been an update specifically about the war. Is this just foreshadowing for the Quebec war?

Pretty much. Again, this "AAR" /History is organized thematically. Since the last chapter was about the "origins" of sectionalism, the Mexican Wars fought before and after Clay's presidency got written about in that chapter since it's important to understand the role that westward expansion also played in developing sectional tensions. This Chapter which is an exploration over the concept of Manifest Destiny better relates to how I'm going to explain the Quebec War. Hence it is in this chapter.

Either my next or second to next update has commentary explicitly about the Quebec War.

As @Specialist290 has said, you have essentially a big puzzle before you. This is my way of writing a "History" like a regular history book you'd read. I'm writing as if you know the history (but obviously keeping some things hidden), and am just giving a more intellectual and cultural commentary to explain the events as they happened in the game.

I'll also state because of this style, some events won't be discussed at all, others will simply be shortly stated or referenced to as it relates to a broader topic. Otherwise we'll never finish this AAR!

 

[Tankman987]

Pretty much. Again, this "AAR" /History is organized thematically. Since the last chapter was about the "origins" of sectionalism, the Mexican Wars fought before and after Clay's presidency got written about in that chapter since it's important to understand the role that westward expansion also played in developing sectional tensions. This Chapter which is an exploration over the concept of Manifest Destiny better relates to how I'm going to explain the Quebec War. Hence it is in this chapter.

Either my next or second to next update has commentary explicitly about the Quebec War.

As @Specialist290 has said, you have essentially a big puzzle before you. This is my way of writing a "History" like a regular history book you'd read. I'm writing as if you know the history (but obviously keeping some things hidden), and am just giving a more intellectual and cultural commentary to explain the events as they happened in the game.

I'll also state because of this style, some events won't be discussed at all, others will simply be shortly stated or referenced to as it relates to a broader topic. Otherwise we'll never finish this AAR!

Ah, thank you. But you should really fix the borders of the Quebec war, it simply looks very dreadful from a map painting perspective.Perchance an annexation of the maritines and lower Canada?

PS: keep up the great work

 

[volksmarschall]

Ah, thank you. But you should really fix the borders of the Quebec war, it simply looks very dreadful from a map painting perspective.Perchance an annexation of the maritines and lower Canada?

PS: keep up the great work

Thanks!

Of course, there are reasons why I don't like to do too many screenshots. It's just so odd to have this jutting American province shooting up across North America!

EDIT: I just checked my document of the AAR. Quebec War will be after the next update.

 

[Director]

Or you could (I think) set Quebec loose as a separate nation.

Thanks to you and RossN I've taken up Vic2 again and am halfway through a rollicking ride as Bavaria. A somewhat 'expanded' Bavaria now. Heh.

 

[volksmarschall]

CHAPTER IV: MANIFEST DESTINY AND ITS DISCONTENTS


Westward Flight or Westward Expansion?​

Perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of westward expansion is what is considered “the Jeffersonian Flight” by some historians. That is, with the growth of industrialization and commercialization of American coastal society—which was seen in agrarian democratic ideology as a threat to virtue and democracy itself—those proponents of Jeffersonian agrarian democracy fled westward to secure the uncorrupted virgin lands of the American west before the Federalists, Whigs, and their merchant and capitalist allies could infect these lands with their poisonous economic ideology.

There seems to be some truth to this. Westward expansion, as mentioned, was envisioned by most parties and individuals. However, the unfolding of westward expansion is complex and complicated. On one hand, you had the “Manifest Destinarians” who mixed the politics of democracy with Calvinist theological determinism and Election and believed it was America’s God-given right to control the North American continent. On another, you had the Scotch-Irish Presbyterian frontier settlers who were invited to pacify the regions from the Puritans and Cavaliers when they arrived in the colonies. As this population grew, they again trekked further westward to seek their land and living. On yet another, you had the Federalist-Whig economic nationalism that envisioned American hegemony over the Western Hemisphere but only after economic industrialization that would allow the United States the power to throw off the shackles of British and Spanish/Mexican rule. And then you had segment of Jeffersonians I have just described whereby they were reacting to the economic industrialization of the coast and saw the lasts of the West—unindustrialized—as the ideal land to counter the rise of an industrial and commercialized coast. Yet, all westward expansion has now been appropriated under the name “Manifest Destiny” even though in the 1830 and 1840s that had a very specific connotation to it.

Here, however, I would like to dispel some myths. While it is true that the northeast, in particular, had begun to experience industrialization and commercialization, it is also true that major Southern hubs like Charleston, Atlanta, Richmond, and New Orleans were experiencing their own industrialization. Harbor cities like New Orleans and Charleston were comparatively wealthy cities due to trade. And even though the north was experiencing a greater degree of industrialization, the north was still predominately an agrarian economy until the early 20th century. By the time of the Civil War, the north produced more agricultural output than the south did.

Nevertheless, there was still a fear from ardent Jeffersonians of the evils of corruption and capitalism that would create what Marxists call “bourgeois democracy,” a democracy nominally about the people but dictated by the power of money. In a bid to counter the weight of the tide of industrialization, ardent agrarian democrats pushed westward to claim the new lands of the Mississippi River Valley and beyond as fertile land to serve agrarian and democratic interests.

Although there was some considerable improvements in industrialization between 1820-1840, the vast majority of the American economy was still agrarian. This was true of north and south. In fact, the American north remained the largest agricultural region of the American economy until the 1930s. The portraits depict some technological improvements that made farming easier and more productive, and the industrial complex is a factory in New England.*​

Here, we must understand the Cavalier and Scotch-Irish understanding of freedom, which is not synonymous with liberty. Going back to Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, freedom is the freedom of action. The history of the United States is one of flight action to find freedom. The Pilgrim and Puritans who fled Europe, then the Cavaliers who fled England, also the Scotch-Irish dissenters. In America, various groups moved further west to exercise their freedom of action. The boundless territory of the American West, unlike the bonded serfdom of Old Europe, meant that the American West was “more free” than Europe. Without state religion, established landed aristocracy, and a land that was essentially still in the Lockean State of Nature meant that there was a boundless freedom of action in North America unlike elsewhere in the world. The “Frontier Spirit” was essentially the unfolding of action in Locke’s State of Nature as described in his Two Treatises of Government.

The irony is, of course, Locke favored restricted action. Locke famously declared that when coming upon land, people should only take what was necessary for them and their progeny and leave the rest of the land to others. Locke’s Social Contract, guaranteed a parameter of proper action , the freedom of action now confined to the parameters of life, liberty, and property. And it was precisely this absolute freedom of action possible in North America that Locke wrote “In the beginning all the world was America.” This is not a statement of American Exceptionalism, or the exceptionalism of American liberty and freedom as often misappropriated. It is a reflection of Locke’s understanding of primordial man and nature—the State of Nature that had no restrictions or laws that restricted free action. America was the one place Locke knew of where that ideal was still alive. Again, the irony of Locke’s relationship with America is both the Jeffersonians and Hamiltonians were essentially Lockeans in political philosophy, though not in political economy.

The capitalist system being promoted in Americanism was allowing for the freedom of action to conquer nature for industrialization, urbanization, and commercialization that advanced Locke’s ideals of life, liberty, and property. The agrarian and democratic republicanism also reflected the life, liberty, and property ethos of Locke from the Jeffersonian perspective. But unlike the Hamiltonians, the Jeffersonians really did believe that the virtues of agrarianism were necessary for democracy to succeed. Thus, they marched westward to counter-balance the rise of industry and capital in the United States. Or, more precisely, to escape the chains of industrialization. They were progressive agrarians, who believed agrarian virtue and politics was the basis of equality and democracy.

Of course, this freedom of action often marginalizes others: the Native Americans, then the later Mexican populations, and so on. But perhaps even more ironic then, this strand of westward expansion is the opposite of classical Manifest Destiny. It was westward expansion to escape the constrictive and oppressive forces of labor and capital rather than some Protestant-Calvinist and Enlightenment determinist movement. John C. Calhoun aptly summarized the dangers of industry and capitalism in his speeches in the Senate, how industrialists and capitalists would come to “own” people who enslaved themselves to penny wages that perpetuated the destruction of the natural world.

There was a schizophrenic division in America’s Lockean heritage then, a conflict brewing between how the Social Contract should be understood. Which would produce greater liberty. Which, more importantly, retained a closer reflection of the absolute freedom of the State of Nature. Thomas Jefferson himself, was equally influenced by the German philosopher Samuel Pufendorf, who, unlike Locke, actually separated divine and natural law from one another and explained how following the natural law led to civil society and the establishment of political governance (not out of conflict like in Locke, but by the conformity to reason). Jeffersonian naturalism was, in a way, Lockean, but it was more than it. It idealized the original State of Nature as desirable—whereas in Locke it was desirable to move away from. However, Pufendorf also endorsed a social contract for society to which the United States embodied come 1788, embodied by conformity to natural reason rather than the avoidance of individualist conflict as in Locke.

Samuel Pufendorf, a well-known German Enlightenment philosopher who was instrumental in the formation of the United States' political philosophy. He was widely read among the American Founding Fathers. He was actually an influence upon John Locke. Far from Locke being the "Father of America," some would say that Pufendorf is. His espoused a universalist philosophy of reason for guiding human action and a distinction between civil society and the state of nature before Locke and Rousseau. He also separated natural law from divine law. He engaged in a notably feud with fellow German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz. The two men despised each other. Leibniz assaulted Pufendorf as "a small jurist and very small philosopher." Notwithstanding, he held considerable influence over both Locke and Rousseau, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and various other American Founding Fathers. He remains one of the most influential Enlightenment philosophers that is generally unknown and under read considering his importance to Locke, Rousseau, and the French Jacobins.​

Unlike the urbanizing and industrializing coasts, the westerly lands were a picturesque image of the State of Nature of Locke and Rousseau. Per Hamilton, the new American aristocracy would be the capitalists and bankers who would inherit what others had built before them. While there was a sense of meritocracy in filling these positions, one realizes that Hamilton’s capitalist American had to be the American equivalent to Europe’s landed nobility. Without a proper nobility, a new system that would control land and politics had to be established: Hamilton’s American System.

Like Rousseau, this materialist social contract was necessarily restrictive and destructive in the eyes of the Jeffersonians. They saw this as a subversion of nature and reason, per Pufendorf, reason dictated life of a healthy civil society, which was clearly not the case with the American System being promoted by Clay. In order to save American civil society, the west had to become the future heartland of an agrarian American. It would save itself from the corruption of the coasts, the marriage of capital and government, and produce a hearty and virtuous people who would be the real beacon of democracy. The freedom to act, movement westward, became essential.

Americans moved westward in droves, over seven million by 1840, to escape the essentially equivalent nature of indentured servitude to factories. But this flight westward allowed for quick upward social mobility. The birth of a new agrarian “middleclass” was forming quickly in the American West. Much to the chagrin of the Whig Party in New England, although the Whig Party in the Midwest essentially divided itself between seeking industrialization and supporting the new middleclass in these regions. Hence the Whig Party, although nationally sought industrialization, was regionally far more diverse and included vast agrarian interests among the wealthier northern and farming interests.

A major ramification of westward flight was social mobility. Unlike in Europe, where the serfs and peasants were either tied to the land or the factory, in America one could move westward and free oneself the chains of industry and the Cavalier agrarian system of the South. The independent farmer and miner went from poor man to middle-class man. Thus, there was cynicism among the Whigs who opposed westward expansion—the seven million Americans who ventured west by 1840, were people who are not laborers in industry. As John C. Calhoun said, industrialism was another form of “wage slavery,” binding men to cities and factories and restricting his freedom of action and movement. The American West offered that new frontier of free action and social mobility that no other nation in the world could offer.

This was the heart of the “frontier spirit.” Most of the people who moved westward were poor. Rich and middleclass Americans had no reason to leave their homes for the “wild west.” Some believe the reason why socialism and Marxism never rose to prominence in industrial America is because those who sought refuge from capitalism and industrialism could venture westward and seek their own riches and social mobility. And many did. In Europe, it was either stay a farmer to the aristocracy or join the industrializing factory cities. In America, one had many more opportunities of self-advancement and choices of action. Whatever one considers of the conflicts of westward expansion, one of the reasons for the growth of the American middle-class was not industrialization and capitalism as wrongfully proclaimed, but the boundless and open frontier that created a new middle-class of pioneers. In fact, the open spaces of the west is what attracted European immigrants, not the industrial cities. The true American middleclass that was forming in antebellum America were moderately wealthy farmers and laborers in the Midwest and American West (and South). The cities retained the highest disparity between the scions of the Protestant forefathers and the factory workers who were trapped in the cities and unable to venture west. Many did, however. The latter Grange wars were often a conflict between the original settlers and pioneers fighting off the newcomers in defense of their property and wealth.

John C. Calhoun, along with Thomas Jefferson, John Randolph of Roanoke, and Henry Clay, is generally considered one of the more intellectual of American statesmen. He was an original thinker, unlike many others who merely continued and expanding preexisting liberal thought in nineteenth century America. He was noted for his invocation of natural law arguments from Aristotle and the medieval nominalists in defending his political positions. He also gave a unique condemnation of American industrialism and capitalism, claiming an equivalence to wage slavery long before Marx critiqued capitalism. However, it was in defense of the land-holding agrarian interests, and not the proletariat as in Marx. Hence his "The Marx of the Master Class" by American historian Richard Hofstadter.​

Whig opposition to westward expansion was economically motivated, more than just solely about being worried about the crisis of slavery. Most Whigs believed concentrating on economic industrialization meant that American citizens could not go west. They were needed to build the factories, work the factories, which would produce the arms and wealth for a future American generation to take the west by force. The Whigs came to strongly oppose westward expansion not because westward expansion was ultimately not desired (they envisioned the West’s conquest as well), but because it freed, in essence, millions of Americans from living and working in cities for the goals of the American System. In reality, the Whig “opposition” to Manifest Destiny and westward expansion, if we can even truly call it opposition, had less to do with slavery and more to do with economics. Again, westward expansion meant Americans would be moving west and make industrialization harder to complete. In turn, this would prolong the date of a proper westward conquest in the Whig vision.

And this is what precipitated an eminent 20th century American historian to call Calhoun “the Marx of the Master Class.” In irony, Calhoun saw the capitalist superstructure in much the same manner as Marx did in Europe—the major difference was that Calhoun was defending the slaveholding and agrarian interests in his condemnation of industry and capitalism along the same lines that Marx was in Europe. Although Calhoun was, ironically, the one Democrat who voted against the Second Mexican War,[1] his condemnation of industrialization was also one of the greatest philosophical and economic arguments for westward expansion—to escape the horrors of industrialization and working in factories.

Industrialization and modernization, according to Clay’s system, would enslave a new majority of Americans to work in an industrial and metal plantation that lacked humanity. Here, it is easy to criticize Calhoun for his defense of plantation slavery as a moral good that was benefitting Africans, but one ought to be remarked by how insightful and brilliant an original thinker Calhoun was in political matters. Calhoun was an inverted Marxist in many ways, but wrote a critique of industry and capitalism long before Marx and Engels did. He was equally narrow sighted in not seeing the sectional crisis of slavery, but is also very prescient in recognizing the conflict between agrarianism and industrialism that would break out in the late 1800s.

The West always had an allure to American settlers and pioneers. It was the region to escape civil society. It was the region to create your own fortunes. It was the region to be tamed for industry. It was the region ideal for agrarian democracy (and later “popular democracy”). Is it any surprise that the West was the most democratic of regions in the 19th century with direct elections, and the election of women?

The freedom of flight become the conflict of competing visions and understanding of liberty, freedom, and what was the proper vision the United States when the fleers had no other alternative. While the Jeffersonian-Jacksonians were the first to trek westward, the tagging along capitalists and land speculators ensured that the new middle class would be pro-Whig. The worst fears of the agrarians who dominated Western politics would later come to fruition in the 1880s and 1890s, so the age of sectionalism does not end with slavery and the Civil War, but continues into the “Agrarian Revolt” of the late 19th century, and still influences politics and identity in America today.

Westward expansion not only laid the groundworks for the tension over slavery, it also set up the later showdown in the 1880s and 1890s over agrarian democracy and "corporate kleptocracy" that culminated in the election of the William Jennings Bryan and marked the high watermark of the era of populism right before it would be eclipsed by the Progressive Era that arose in reaction to suppress and ultimately supersede the populist revolt that carried a relative nobody into the White House.


*Sticking to historical reality, under Clay, I began to build most industrial factories and textiles, etc. in various New England territories, especially Massachusetts and Connecticut.

[1] Calhoun was one a few Democrats who opposed the Mexican War in real life. Although not for noble reasons like John Quincy Adams. Calhoun rejected war with Mexico for two reasons. First, he believed war was destructive in general. More importantly however, the main reason was that he didn’t want to extend citizenship to the Mexicans who would be part of the newly captured territories. He noted that the inclusion of Mexican-Americans would add only another thread of racial tension in the American Union.

SUGGESTED READING

John Allen, Passage Through the Garden: Lewis and Clark and the Image of the American Northwest

Irving Bartlett, John C. Calhoun: A Biography

Guy Emerson, The New Frontier, a Study of the American Liberal Spirit, Its Frontier Origin, and Its Application to Modern Problems

*This unknown gem is probably just as influential as Turner’s “Frontier Thesis” but hasn’t won the same memory and praise as Turner’s essay.

Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America

Richard Hofstadater, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It

Jerome Hoyer, Locke in America

Ken Robinson, Confederates in Montana Territory

Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”

Scott Weidensaul, The First Frontier​

 

[Director]

I quite agree that it was the possibility of owning land that drew so many to America. Escaping the lords and landlords, having freedom, being your own man... very heady stuff.

Northern agriculture may have exceeded that of the South by volume, but not in value. Cotton, rice, hemp and indigo were all high-value crops, especially cotton - the most millionaires, and the highest concentrations of wealth were in the South and Southerners could boast that their cotton made up most of the value of the nation's exports. The fact that cotton rapidly destroyed the soil only meant that new land had to be found, somewhere. Southern planters were like junkies looking for one more good vein to keep the rush coming.

It is also possible (I think) to look on westward population movement as a form of fluid dynamics. As the population rose in the east, it would naturally flow west and south (not north - climate there acted as a dam). The Appalachians (and British prohibitions on crossing them, for colonists) acted as a flow-control - the level in the east had to rise to push people over the barrier, but once past that the dynamic was to spread out using the channels of the Ohio, Tennessee, Cumberland and Mississippi Rivers. Then there was the barrier of the 'Great American Desert', broken by a technological development - the steel plow. But westward flow implied the level had to be kept up or increased in the East; before the building of railroads you needed a failry high 'water level' to push people over the Appalachians.

Even today, most of the interior of the US is lightly populated by old-world standards. For that matter, the East and West Coasts are not very dense outside the SF-LA metro on the west coast and the NY-Phil-Bal-DC metro on the east.

A joke from my old home: "Scientists predict that the small cities of New Orleans, Mobile and Pensacola on the Gulf Coast will grow together into a metroplex. It will be known as the NO-MO-COLA area."

 

[Specialist290]

It is also possible (I think) to look on westward population movement as a form of fluid dynamics. As the population rose in the east, it would naturally flow west and south (not north - climate there acted as a dam). The Appalachians (and British prohibitions on crossing them, for colonists) acted as a flow-control - the level in the east had to rise to push people over the barrier, but once past that the dynamic was to spread out using the channels of the Ohio, Tennessee, Cumberland and Mississippi Rivers. Then there was the barrier of the 'Great American Desert', broken by a technological development - the steel plow. But westward flow implied the level had to be kept up or increased in the East; before the building of railroads you needed a failry high 'water level' to push people over the Appalachians.

It's funny that you bring this up, because it reminds me of something I read about how macroecnomics on the whole can be understood in terms of fluid dynamics -- and, in fact, some people actually built a hydraulic computer to test the idea. I think the comparison is especially apt when you extend it out to consider that excess land has always been one of America's "safety valves" it can release to draw off pressure and avert unfortunate "boiler explosions," rather unlike the case in Europe.

 

[volksmarschall]

I quite agree that it was the possibility of owning land that drew so many to America. Escaping the lords and landlords, having freedom, being your own man... very heady stuff.

Northern agriculture may have exceeded that of the South by volume, but not in value. Cotton, rice, hemp and indigo were all high-value crops, especially cotton - the most millionaires, and the highest concentrations of wealth were in the South and Southerners could boast that their cotton made up most of the value of the nation's exports. The fact that cotton rapidly destroyed the soil only meant that new land had to be found, somewhere. Southern planters were like junkies looking for one more good vein to keep the rush coming.

It is also possible (I think) to look on westward population movement as a form of fluid dynamics. As the population rose in the east, it would naturally flow west and south (not north - climate there acted as a dam). The Appalachians (and British prohibitions on crossing them, for colonists) acted as a flow-control - the level in the east had to rise to push people over the barrier, but once past that the dynamic was to spread out using the channels of the Ohio, Tennessee, Cumberland and Mississippi Rivers. Then there was the barrier of the 'Great American Desert', broken by a technological development - the steel plow. But westward flow implied the level had to be kept up or increased in the East; before the building of railroads you needed a failry high 'water level' to push people over the Appalachians.

Even today, most of the interior of the US is lightly populated by old-world standards. For that matter, the East and West Coasts are not very dense outside the SF-LA metro on the west coast and the NY-Phil-Bal-DC metro on the east.

A joke from my old home: "Scientists predict that the small cities of New Orleans, Mobile and Pensacola on the Gulf Coast will grow together into a metroplex. It will be known as the NO-MO-COLA area."

Yeah. There's a lot of possible ways to explain westward expansion contra the one way taught in high school textbooks!

Though, geographic and weather history isn't our theme in this AAR! Speaking of however, I read a essay in a journal discussing the role geography and weather played in the tensions between north and south which led to Civil War. It was a very fascinating approach to take. While I could pick some criticisms of it, I did think it had a certain degree of truth to it. There's just so much out there.

Not that this is about the U.S. but David Blackbourn's The Conquest of Nature is a wonderful history of how geography and weather influences history--for Germany in his case (besides the most famous of geographical determinist histories GGS by Diamond). Seeing that you're having a game as Bavaria, not sure about your interests in such topics. Though something must have compelled you to choose Bavaria!

As for your joke.

It's funny that you bring this up, because it reminds me of something I read about how macroecnomics on the whole can be understood in terms of fluid dynamics -- and, in fact, some people actually built a hydraulic computer to test the idea. I think the comparison is especially apt when you extend it out to consider that excess land has always been one of America's "safety valves" it can release to draw off pressure and avert unfortunate "boiler explosions," rather unlike the case in Europe.

Shalln't this be a perfect example of "American ingenuity" then?

 

[Director]

It's funny that you bring this up, because it reminds me of something I read about how macroecnomics on the whole can be understood in terms of fluid dynamics -- and, in fact, some people actually built a hydraulic computer to test the idea. I think the comparison is especially apt when you extend it out to consider that excess land has always been one of America's "safety valves" it can release to draw off pressure and avert unfortunate "boiler explosions," rather unlike the case in Europe.

Oh dear God! THE GLOOPER!*





*In Terry Pratchett's "Making Money" the Royal Mint has a tame mad scientist in the basement who has successfully modeled the economy with a glass-and-water monstrosity called "The Glooper". If anyone hasn't read Pratchett, go do it now. There's only twenty books or so - you'll have to give up work, food, sleep and all the rest of that rubbish, and you can thank me later.

 

[Idhrendur]

Oh dear God! THE GLOOPER!*

*In Terry Pratchett's "Making Money" the Royal Mint has a tame mad scientist in the basement who has successfully modeled the economy with a glass-and-water monstrosity called "The Glooper". If anyone hasn't read Pratchett, go do it now. There's only twenty books or so - you'll have to give up work, food, sleep and all the rest of that rubbish, and you can thank me later.

Yep, based on a real thing. As is a rather large number of things in Pratchett's works.