Journal of Southern History

The American Whigs were the party that hated Andrew Jackson, and once he was gone, it fell apart. Those who have spent much time at all examining [End Page 162] antebellum America have probably come across that sentiment at least once since 1880 when Henry Adams declared the Whigs a party "most feeble in its ideas" (p. 4). Joseph W. Pearson's The Whigs' America: Middle-Class Political Thought in the Age of Jackson and Clay is a firm rejection of the notion that the Whigs lacked robust ideas and concrete goals extending beyond opposition to Jackson. The work examines how Whiggish Americans understood the rapidly changing world they lived in and how they communicated their ideas and goals to each other. This understanding is crucial as Pearson asserts that the Whigs "were the first political party speaking for, to, and about America's rising middle class" (p. 2).

Antebellum Americans found themselves facing rapid transformation as the industrial, transportation, and market revolutions catalyzed expansion in every sector of American life. According to Pearson, modernization provoked a middle-class response and an agrarian reaction that resulted "in a bitter ideological war for America's soul" (p. 6). Whigs and Democrats saw the same problems in society that resulted from fast, widespread change but sought different solutions to those problems. Forward-thinking Whigs wanted to establish order and institutions to shape a desirable future. At the same time, Democrats looked to the past for guidance and often rejected new ways in favor of traditionalism. Whigs thought Americans needed guiding institutions; Democrats argued people would be fine if left alone.

Democrats, who saw "a bit of bedlam" as a necessary price of liberty, found it better to allow even substantial rabble-rousing than to encroach on individual rights (p. 15). Whigs, abhorring disorder because it eroded public security, sought to prevent society from sliding toward a type of barbarism in which no one was truly free. Their focus was on correcting the "inherent tendencies toward violence, sloth, and drink" while building community (p. 16). The central tension was a struggle between liberty and order that placed the Whigs along a trajectory of political action in line with Federalists in the early republic and Progressives at the turn of the twentieth century.

Pearson's work traces the partnership between individuals, society, and the state that Whigs found necessary to achieve their goals. Everything began with the individual, for a society was no better than the character of its citizens. Whigs emphasized the importance of the family, especially middle-class mothers who were the primary source of virtue in society. The family instilled values like thrift, education, and social participation. Society was the next bulwark against decline; social institutions were crucial "in convincing [antebellum Americans] to work together" (p. 45). Churches, schools, and voluntary associations helped individuals navigate the modern world and shaped their views about the state's "proper size, scope, and purpose" (p. 72). Uniting the country into one community should be the aim of good government. Economic development was freeing and democratizing but required a national structure.

The book is a broad survey of Whig political culture as it was consumed and used by average Americans, so there is little discussion of regional divisions. However, the work addresses the compromises Whigs were willing to make on controversial issues like slavery to avoid splitting party support for national issues along regional lines. Pearson shifts the conversation away from focusing solely on Whig politicians and policies by examining speeches, sermons, [End Page 163] tracts, political cartoons, advertisements, and popular culture. His approach gives new insight into how "the rise of bourgeois political, social, and cultural dominance" created a worldview that unified the Whiggish Americans and shaped their political legacy beyond the Age of Jackson (p. 2).