As Daniel Peart observes in his important new study of political participation during the early 1820s, “Historians have tended to overlook the decade following the War of 1812 because it does not fit into their orderly model of democratization” (8). I would hasten to add that political scientists have equally overlooked or downplayed this period for just the same reason. In his effort to challenge what he calls the “party-equals-participation model” (9) that celebrates the role of parties in the political process, Peart provides a carefully documented analysis of several episodes where political activists of various stripes sought to influence policy outside the channels of the existing two-party framework. Each case opens a distinct window onto the challenges activists confronted as they experimented with alternative modes of participation. Two challenges were particularly vexing: the burden of legitimating more direct means of influencing policy and the task of coordinating the efforts of like-minded citizens.
Much has been written about the ideas and philosophical traditions that have shaped the anti-partisan views of statesmen during the long early national period (“long” if one extends the standard periodization to the mid-1820s). Peart's study contributes to this conversation by documenting some of the practical implications of anti-partisan ideological commitments. Though it is not explicitly framed in these terms, Era of Experimentation asks readers to consider a question that was very much alive in the 1820s: if not political parties, then what? This book explores how activists, politicians, and everyday citizens might have answered this question.
Peart introduces us to the Middling Interest in Boston, a third party made up largely of former Federalists who objected to the elitism and secrecy of the Federalist Party organization. The Middling Interest's struggle to gain electoral power calls attention to the difficulty of effecting a more democratic conception of representation, one that embraces the “right to instruct” representatives with directives on specific policy questions. Peart's second case study, set on the Illinois frontier, presents another experiment in fashioning an alternative to the conventional party politics. Unlike Boston politics, Illinois politics in the 1820s was not dominated by a two-party schism. Prompted by a proposal to authorize the introduction of slavery into the state, anti-slavery activists organized a network of associations to coordinate efforts to shape public opinion and turn out voters against the idea. In the process, leaders of these associations had to fend off allegations that their organizations were comparable to the secretive and self-serving party organizations that prevailed in the eastern states. Peart then turns to Pennsylvania and Virginia, where rival organizations resembling “pressure groups” (to use the twentieth-century expression) sought to mobilize public opinion and directly lobby Congress in support of or in opposition to protective tariffs. These groups, however, struggled to impact policy without mobilizing voters; their later efforts to appeal directly to the electorate were thwarted by voters' partisan sympathies.
Peart follows these case studies with a careful treatment of the presidential election of 1824. Scholarly examination of this election is too often limited to the circumstances that sent the contest to the House of Representatives and the so-called “Corrupt Bargain” between John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay that gave Adams the presidency. Peart's analysis unearths the ways in which anti-partisan commitments shaped the rhetorical dynamics of the election.
Peart's treatment of the election of 1824 does, however, raise one difficulty. Indeed, one need not subscribe to a simplistic version of the “party-equals-participation model” to draw a different conclusion from the events he catalogues. After noting the abysmally low voter turnout for the election, Peart asserts that “[n]ot until the party builders succeeded in reconnecting with real issues of popular concern would turnout begin to rise, first to 58 percent in 1828 and then to 80 percent in 1840” (136). Yet two such “issues of popular concern” politicized by the parties from 1828 to 1840, the tariff and internal improvements, were also on the agenda in 1824. National party organizations, however, were at their nadir: the Federalist Party was no longer a viable national entity and the Republican label was shared by all of the major candidates. Improved turnout in the 1830s may be attributed to the development of a new institutional vehicle, the national nominating convention, which consolidated political factions and rallied partisan energies behind individual nominees. The formation of the Whig Party, moreover, offered voters a clearer choice at the polls and raised the salience of issues like the tariff and internal improvements. Empowered party organizations and the renewal of party competition may have imbued issues with more meaning, made elections more exciting, and motivated more voters to participate.
Though Peart's evidence lends itself to alternative interpretations, his contribution to our understanding of the organizational possibilities available to citizens and activists in the 1820s is vital. This study therefore deserves careful attention from scholars who examine the historical development of participatory practices and institutions.
