What do you think?
Rate this book
The Slave Power: The Free North and Southern Domination, 1780-1860
Through biographical cameos and narrative vignettes, the author explains the evolution of the slave power argument over time, tracing the often repeated scenario of northern outcry against the perceived slavery, and revealing the importance of slavery in the structure of national politics.
208 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2000
1 person is currently reading
123 people want to read
About the author
Leonard L. Richards
12 books4 followersLeonard L. Richards, Ph.D. (University of California, Davis, 1968; A.B., University of California, Berkeley), is Professor Emeritus of History in the College of Humanities & Fine Arts at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, focusing on 19th century United States. He has also taught at San Francisco State College and the University of Hawaii. His
The Life and Times of Congressman John Quincy Adams
was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1987.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 17, 2019
Sometimes the paranoid really are being followed.
During the 1830s American abolitionists asserted that the United States, ostensibly a free republic, had fallen under the sway of a “slave power,” a ruthlessly exploitative clique of rich slave owners and their lackeys. The Free Soil and Republican parties subsequently moved this hypothesis from the fringe to the mainstream, and added their own paranoid gloss. The slave power, they said, had become a conspiracy between Southern masters and ambitious Northerners, who together had turned the federal government into a plaything of the Southern master class.
Twentieth-century historians dismissed this belief as either sheer delusion or cynical rhetoric. Leonard Richards argues they were wrong to do so. In this provocative book, he observes that Southern whites did indeed enjoy disproportionate power in the early U.S. government. They dominated federal leadership positions like the House speakership and the presidency, and repeatedly used the legislature and executive to promote sectional interests: non-enforcement of the international slave-trade ban, acquisition of new slave states, and enforcing the South’s “intellectual blockade” of abolitionist publications. A foreign observer, visiting the antebellum national capital - a slave-owning city crouched in muggy, morbid swampland – and surveying its leaders and policies, would have found it easy to apply the label “slaveocracy.”
Northern politicians had a simple explanation for this disproportionate Southern power: the three-fifths compromise in Article I of the Constitution. With 60 percent of their slaves counted as free persons in each Census, the slave states got 15-25 more Congressmen and Electoral College votes than they otherwise deserved. Richards cautions against overstating this advantage. The rapid growth of the free states’ population and the slave states’ demographic stagnation eventually (by 1840) vitiated the advantages granted by the 3/5 clause. He finds other explanations for Southern whites’ influence. Southern Congressmen, coming as they did from police states, displayed rigid solidarity on matters pertaining to slavery. Southern white politicians also tended to cluster within one of the two national parties that formed in the 1790s and re-formed in the 1820s: the Democratic-Republicans and, later, the Democrats. Sectional solidarity gave the South control of these parties’ caucuses and presidential nominations, and party discipline ensured that it could draw on the votes of Northern D-Rs and Democrats when it needed them.
When that discipline broke down, Southern whites had another weapon in their quiver: parity in the U.S. Senate. The practice of admitting slave and free states in pairs meant that, between 1812 and 1849, there were an equal number of both in the Senate. Southern Senators could block unfavorable but popular legislation that passed the House, such as the Tallmadge Amendment (1819) and the Wilmot Proviso (1846). Their voting strength in the Senate and their control of the presidency – slave owners occupied the White House for 50 of the federal republic’s first 70 years – also gave them control of executive appointments and patronage, a powerful weapon to use against Northerners who fell out of line. The willingness of Northern Congressmen to toe the Southern line, either out of loyalty to party or desire for public salaries, earned the most egregiously pro-slavery Northerners a derogatory name: “doughfaces.” Richards identifies over 300 federal legislators who fell into this group. They became the indispensable stooges of the slave power. Without their help Southern politicians could only block or influence legislation; with it they could implement Indian Removal, impose the “gag rule” on antislavery petitions, and annex Texas.
The Slave Power collapsed, abruptly and spectacularly, when Southern politicians decided to resort to war rather than tolerate any federal threat to slavery. Their decision grew from a realization that the white South’s dominant status within the federal government had become untenable. The erosion of Southern control began in the 1840s, when voters and legislators from both free and slave states began a war of words over the future of American imperial expansion. Slave-state leaders recognized that unless new territories opened to slavery, the market value of human property (the white South’s largest investment) would plummet. Moreover, without the admission of new slave states to the Union, the South could not retain its indispensable voting parity in the Senate. Northerners concurrently wanted new western territories closed to slavery, not out of idealism but because they believed slave labor and free labor were fighting a zero-sum battle for resources, a battle in which slave-owners enjoyed an unfair advantage. For all their alleged devotion to “manifest destiny,” white American politicians had by mid-century come to see their continental empire as finite, and internal competition for land as more important than external competition for markets.
These latter observations come primarily from other historians of the American Civil War and its origins. Richards’s original contribution to their conversation comes from his study of the Doughfaces, whose political immolation in the 1840s and ‘50s eliminated one of the few groups in Congress willing to compromise. The author identifies two presidents, James Polk and James Buchanan, as the Doughfaces’ assassins, and the patronage power as their weapon of choice. When Northern Democrats hesitated to support the addition of new slave states to the Union, knowing these would prove unpopular with their constituents, Democratic presidents retaliating by denying appointments and other favors to politicos who failed to toe the party line. The patronage weapon, however, fired in both directions. Once Doughface Democrats could no longer offer their constituents either lucrative government jobs or abundant free soil in the West, voters abandoned them. The Democratic Party splintered in its Northern stronghold of New York and virtually collapsed in neighboring New England, as once-conciliatory Democrats shifted their allegiance to the Free Soil movement and the anti-slavery Republican Party. In 1860 they gave the latter party an Electoral College majority. We all know where Southern Democrats chose to go after that.
During the 1830s American abolitionists asserted that the United States, ostensibly a free republic, had fallen under the sway of a “slave power,” a ruthlessly exploitative clique of rich slave owners and their lackeys. The Free Soil and Republican parties subsequently moved this hypothesis from the fringe to the mainstream, and added their own paranoid gloss. The slave power, they said, had become a conspiracy between Southern masters and ambitious Northerners, who together had turned the federal government into a plaything of the Southern master class.
Twentieth-century historians dismissed this belief as either sheer delusion or cynical rhetoric. Leonard Richards argues they were wrong to do so. In this provocative book, he observes that Southern whites did indeed enjoy disproportionate power in the early U.S. government. They dominated federal leadership positions like the House speakership and the presidency, and repeatedly used the legislature and executive to promote sectional interests: non-enforcement of the international slave-trade ban, acquisition of new slave states, and enforcing the South’s “intellectual blockade” of abolitionist publications. A foreign observer, visiting the antebellum national capital - a slave-owning city crouched in muggy, morbid swampland – and surveying its leaders and policies, would have found it easy to apply the label “slaveocracy.”
Northern politicians had a simple explanation for this disproportionate Southern power: the three-fifths compromise in Article I of the Constitution. With 60 percent of their slaves counted as free persons in each Census, the slave states got 15-25 more Congressmen and Electoral College votes than they otherwise deserved. Richards cautions against overstating this advantage. The rapid growth of the free states’ population and the slave states’ demographic stagnation eventually (by 1840) vitiated the advantages granted by the 3/5 clause. He finds other explanations for Southern whites’ influence. Southern Congressmen, coming as they did from police states, displayed rigid solidarity on matters pertaining to slavery. Southern white politicians also tended to cluster within one of the two national parties that formed in the 1790s and re-formed in the 1820s: the Democratic-Republicans and, later, the Democrats. Sectional solidarity gave the South control of these parties’ caucuses and presidential nominations, and party discipline ensured that it could draw on the votes of Northern D-Rs and Democrats when it needed them.
When that discipline broke down, Southern whites had another weapon in their quiver: parity in the U.S. Senate. The practice of admitting slave and free states in pairs meant that, between 1812 and 1849, there were an equal number of both in the Senate. Southern Senators could block unfavorable but popular legislation that passed the House, such as the Tallmadge Amendment (1819) and the Wilmot Proviso (1846). Their voting strength in the Senate and their control of the presidency – slave owners occupied the White House for 50 of the federal republic’s first 70 years – also gave them control of executive appointments and patronage, a powerful weapon to use against Northerners who fell out of line. The willingness of Northern Congressmen to toe the Southern line, either out of loyalty to party or desire for public salaries, earned the most egregiously pro-slavery Northerners a derogatory name: “doughfaces.” Richards identifies over 300 federal legislators who fell into this group. They became the indispensable stooges of the slave power. Without their help Southern politicians could only block or influence legislation; with it they could implement Indian Removal, impose the “gag rule” on antislavery petitions, and annex Texas.
The Slave Power collapsed, abruptly and spectacularly, when Southern politicians decided to resort to war rather than tolerate any federal threat to slavery. Their decision grew from a realization that the white South’s dominant status within the federal government had become untenable. The erosion of Southern control began in the 1840s, when voters and legislators from both free and slave states began a war of words over the future of American imperial expansion. Slave-state leaders recognized that unless new territories opened to slavery, the market value of human property (the white South’s largest investment) would plummet. Moreover, without the admission of new slave states to the Union, the South could not retain its indispensable voting parity in the Senate. Northerners concurrently wanted new western territories closed to slavery, not out of idealism but because they believed slave labor and free labor were fighting a zero-sum battle for resources, a battle in which slave-owners enjoyed an unfair advantage. For all their alleged devotion to “manifest destiny,” white American politicians had by mid-century come to see their continental empire as finite, and internal competition for land as more important than external competition for markets.
These latter observations come primarily from other historians of the American Civil War and its origins. Richards’s original contribution to their conversation comes from his study of the Doughfaces, whose political immolation in the 1840s and ‘50s eliminated one of the few groups in Congress willing to compromise. The author identifies two presidents, James Polk and James Buchanan, as the Doughfaces’ assassins, and the patronage power as their weapon of choice. When Northern Democrats hesitated to support the addition of new slave states to the Union, knowing these would prove unpopular with their constituents, Democratic presidents retaliating by denying appointments and other favors to politicos who failed to toe the party line. The patronage weapon, however, fired in both directions. Once Doughface Democrats could no longer offer their constituents either lucrative government jobs or abundant free soil in the West, voters abandoned them. The Democratic Party splintered in its Northern stronghold of New York and virtually collapsed in neighboring New England, as once-conciliatory Democrats shifted their allegiance to the Free Soil movement and the anti-slavery Republican Party. In 1860 they gave the latter party an Electoral College majority. We all know where Southern Democrats chose to go after that.
February 21, 2008
This book changed the way I looked at American History, politics in American and so much more.
The focus of the book is on the pre-Civil War South, a place of uncompromising undemocratic power and how those elements served as a strangle hold for the Northern states. The book is well written and the argument is thought provoking. It sheds a new light on American political heroes and questions institutions and processes that are still in existence today.
I read it as a junior at UC Berkeley for one of my history courses and quickly changed the course of my studies from modern American history to history before the Civil War.
The focus of the book is on the pre-Civil War South, a place of uncompromising undemocratic power and how those elements served as a strangle hold for the Northern states. The book is well written and the argument is thought provoking. It sheds a new light on American political heroes and questions institutions and processes that are still in existence today.
I read it as a junior at UC Berkeley for one of my history courses and quickly changed the course of my studies from modern American history to history before the Civil War.
October 20, 2010
the book is difficult to read. no joke. there isn't a traditional introduction, nor layout for this history book. also unlike most history books published today, it's a political history. there has a real push for social history since the '60s, and for this to be a purely political history is unexpected.
all that being said, it's a good book. politics is complex, and instead of having it being dumbed down to be told in a straight forward, the complexity is left in all of its spectacular glory. you have to take your time to read this. time is a must! you can't understand this stuff and try to rush through it. slave power isn't something often explored by antebellum historians, but it is often mentioned by them. if you decide to learn about sectionalism, you must read this book!
all that being said, it's a good book. politics is complex, and instead of having it being dumbed down to be told in a straight forward, the complexity is left in all of its spectacular glory. you have to take your time to read this. time is a must! you can't understand this stuff and try to rush through it. slave power isn't something often explored by antebellum historians, but it is often mentioned by them. if you decide to learn about sectionalism, you must read this book!
April 9, 2010
Powerful revival of the idea that the South conspired to control the government up to the civil war. Incredible scholarship in searching out details and doing comparisons across time frames. In the end, the Democrats, whose support for the South was critical, did no listening to their constituents and no compromising. The Democrats imploded themselves and the South followed suite. Part of this was driven by the huge differential in regional populations driven by the immigrant preference for the North. Why would they ever prefer the South, in which they would barely be above the slaves?
(Separately, a major reason the Democrats lost in 1860, aside from splitting the vote, was corruption. America rejected Democrats because they were soaked in it.)
(Separately, a major reason the Democrats lost in 1860, aside from splitting the vote, was corruption. America rejected Democrats because they were soaked in it.)
Read
July 26, 2012Scholarly and readable, and untainted by pomo nonsense. Traces in detail the ramifications of the 3/5 compromise, and how the 15-odd votes it put in control of the pro-slavery oligarchy allowed them to dominate federal process for 60 years.
This context is crucial for understanding why Southern hotheads went batshit insane over the election of Lincoln.
Makes passing reference to the dilemma of abolitionists: to attack the 3/5 compromise on the grounds that it under-counts black people, or over-counts them? The answer may be quite situational, as a matter of political strategy.
This context is crucial for understanding why Southern hotheads went batshit insane over the election of Lincoln.
Makes passing reference to the dilemma of abolitionists: to attack the 3/5 compromise on the grounds that it under-counts black people, or over-counts them? The answer may be quite situational, as a matter of political strategy.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews