The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln

by Sean Wilentz

In this magisterial work, Sean Wilentz traces a historical arc from the earliest days of the republic to the opening shots of the Civil War. One of our finest writers of history, Wilentz brings to life the era after the American Revolution, when the idea of democracy remained contentious, and Jeffersonians and Federalists clashed over the role of ordinary citizens in government of, by, and for the people. The triumph of Andrew Jackson soon defined this role on the national level, while city democrats, Anti-Masons, fugitive slaves, and a host of others hewed their own local definitions. In these definitions Wilentz recovers the beginnings of a discontenttwo starkly opposed democracies, one in the North and another in the Southand the wary balance that lasted until the election of Abraham Lincoln sparked its bloody resolution. 75 illustrations.

Genres: History, American History, Politics, Nonfiction, American, 19th Century, Political Science

1044 pages, Hardcover

First published October 24, 2005

About the author

Sean Wilentz is the George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History at Princeton University. His many books include The Politicians and the Egalitarians: The Hidden History of American Politics (2016); Bob Dylan in America (2010); and The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974–2008 (2008). The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (2005) was awarded the Bancroft Prize, and he has received two Grammy nominations for his writings on music.

Reviews

[robin friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sean Wilentz On American Democracy

In "The Rise of American Democracy" (2005) Sean Wilentz has written a sweeping study of the pre-Civil War United States. His study explores the long-standing tensions in early America which led to the Civil War, and it emphasizes the nature and fragility of democratic government. Sean Wilentz is Professor of History and director of the Program in American Studies at Princeton. He has written extensively on American history.

The primary goal of Professor Wilentz' book is to show how democracy expanded and grew in the United States from the earliest days of the Republic through the election of Abraham Lincoln. The book is lengthy (796 pages of text plus over 150 pages of notes) and filled with learning and detail.

In his book, Professor Wilentz offers a traditional narrative history as he focuses, and stresses "the importance of political events, ideas, and leaders to democracy's rise -- once an all-too-prevalent assumption, now in need of some rescue and repair". (p. xx) The three primary characters in his story are Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Abraham Lincoln, and the history centers around the direction these leaders gave to the development of democracy in the United States.

There are three large sections in the book. The first section covers the United States from the Revolution through the War of 1812 and emphasizes the transition from an elitist government founded on property and privilege to Jeffersonian democracy. The second section covers the "Era of Good Feelings" (which Professor Wilentz recharacterizes as the "Era of Bad Feelings"), moves through the Missouri Compromise, and then concentrates on the presidency of Andrew Jackson with his destruction of the Second Bank of the United States and his confrontation with South Carolina over nullification. This section concludes with the formation of the Whig party and the election of 1840. The third section of the book covers the growing and increasingly polarized conflict between North and South over slavery. This conflict was exacerbated by the War with Mexico and the resultant questions about the extension of slavery into the new territories. North and South became increasingly militant following unsuccessful Congressional attempts to defuse the controversy in 1850 and 1854. Professor Wilentz gives the reader the history of this conflict, with perceptive treatments of the Fugitive Slave Act, "bleeding" Kansas, John Brown, Harriet Beecher Stowe, the Dred Scott decision and much else (including a good discussion of Herman Melville and "Moby-Dick"). This section culminates in a discussion of the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln's election to the presidency in 1860, and Southern secession.

The book has a thick, complex texture because of the disparate events it covers and the many threads Professor Wilentz integrates into his narrative. There are long economic discussions focusing on the Bank of the United States and the tariff. There are good treatments of American expansionism and "manifest destiny", of Indian policy, and above all else slavery. Professor Wilentz covers both national and state and local politics as he offers detailed discussions of how the individual States, both North and South, gradually expanded the franchise to include, by the outset of the Civil War, virtually all white males. Professor Wilentz gives a wealth of information about coalition politics and about compromise as the many movements in American pre-Bellum society, from the Federalists, to the Northern and Southern Whigs, to the Northern and Southern Democrats of every political stripe formed alliances with each other in an attempt to create a national politics and to cover over increasing dissension and disagreement resulting from the "peculiar institution". Professor Wilentz also emphasizes how much of American democracy developed "from the ground up" beginning from the time of President George Washington. Americans formed combinations and organizations outside the political system to make their voices heard. There are many instances, but the fullest treatment in this study belongs to abolitionism and to incipient unionist organizations of workers.

Professor Wilentz ties his material together by lengthy summations and preludes at the beginning and end of virtually every section. This allows the reader to keep track of what otherwise would be (and still remains) a complicated story. There is an excellent use of biography of many people,familiar and unfamiliar, and of the telling story or anecdote. In addition, Professor Wilentz' interest in democracy -- how it developed and how it was unable to keep the United States from falling into sectionalism and near destruction -- gives a center to the book. Professor Wilentz' sympathies are obviously with the growth, expansion, and inclusiveness of American participatory democracy as they developed up to the Civil War and continued with the "New Birth of Freedom" that President Lincoln proclaimed at Gettysburg.

This book probably will overwhelm readers who lack at least a basic grounding in pre-Civil War American history. For those with the requisite background and interest, the book presents an outstanding overview of America's pre-Bellum history, and a thoughtful account of where our country has been and where, Professor Wilentz suggests, it should be going.

Robin Friedman

[Aaron Million · Rating 5 out of 5]

While not a part of the Oxford History of the United States series, this weighty tome by Sean Wilentz shares some similar characteristics with those volumes. The scope is more narrow - democracy instead of a general history - but within that narrowness many different avenues are explored (labor relations, religion, immigration, politicians and their backgrounds, expansion). The font is the same as is the length: clocking in at almost 800 pages, with much of it devoted to political theories and philosophies, this is not light reading. Add in copious and excellent footnotes that help supplement the narrative, and the reader has quite the project to undertake to finish this one. Don't let that deter you though - this is a worthwhile and very important book.

Wilentz begins at the Founding, or more aptly just after it as the new government is taking form. The early parts of the book spend a lot of time discussing the differences between city democracy and the country (or rural) democracy. While both brands were democracies, they wanted different things. Think about how divided the country is today, and much although not all of that division, is evidenced in city vs country voting results and ways of life. The city democracy was much more concerned with issues such as wages and jobs, while the country democracy focused more on agricultural issues and tariff concerns.

Things went off the rails quickly from the Founders' point of view. From the point of view of many of the Federalists such as John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, the push for democracy is not why they started a revolution. They didn't want a full-fledged democracy. Some didn't want a democracy at all, instead preferring an aristocracy or perhaps an oligarchy. Not all of these men agreed amongst themselves of course, but in general they were not for the common people being able to exercise voting privileges. They wanted wealthy people (like themselves) to be able to call the shots, equating their elevated positions in society with superior ability to govern (if the American experiment has proven one thing, it is that wealth does not equal intelligence nor does it endow a person with the leadership qualities needed to govern such a diverse country).

On the other side were the Republicans (which later became today's Democratic Party) with Thomas Jefferson leading the way. It is important to note that, while their views differed greatly from those of the Federalists, they too were divided on how best to govern the country. Some were pro-slavery, others were not. Some were southerners, others lived in the North. And then you had the city/rural divide, with Jefferson definitely sitting on the country side, hoping for a largely agrarian nation. Wilentz here really seeks to understand Jefferson. While I appreciated his effort at context (I consider Jefferson one of those historical figures who was held up as a saint for almost 200 years only now to be vilified as some evil being, when in reality I don't think that he was either although I am not personally much of a fan of his) in attempting to show why Jefferson did and said things, I thought overall he was a bit more favorable to him than need be. That is by a matter of degree though, and largely Wilentz treats him even-handedly which is really what you want from an author.

In that same vein, he seemed more generous to James Madison than I thought was needed. Oddly enough though, in a book about forms of government and a budding democracy, Madison is really overshadowed by Jefferson. At first I thought this a little odd, but when I thought more about it I think that is exactly right: that is how it was in real life for these two, with Jefferson always taking the lead role and exerting more influence, whereas Madison was more in the background creating the actual inner workings of government. Jefferson was the one who was the spokesperson for the Republican brand of government in the early republic.

Moving away from the founding, Wilentz turns towards Andrew Jackson and Jacksonian democracy. This is a huge chunk of the book, with Jackson being a bridge character between Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. Jackson was a populist, a southerner, a Unionist, and determined to let the people have a voice. He was also crazy, but that's another story entirely. Unlike remote figures such as George Washington or John Adams, Jackson was a peoples' President, wanting to give the people as much power as they could responsibly wield. He stared down South Carolina when that state threatened secession in 1832/33 over the nullification crisis. While Jackson was pro-slavery and sympathized with South Carolina's concerns over a high tariff, he valued the Union more. Gradually the country becomes more democratic as suffrage slowly increases. In the founding era, generally only wealthy white men (wealthy also meant they owned property) could vote. There were exceptions from state to state (amazingly, New Jersey actually allowed women to vote for several years), but you had to have money, be white, and be a male to vote. Slowly it expanded to where most white males could vote (although South Carolina, deep into the 19th century, still held democracy down by having a very limited suffrage). Wilentz writes about the beginnings of the women's suffrage movement as well.

As he did with Jefferson, Wilentz seeks to understand what Jackson did and explain why. His Indian removal policy is reviewed in a balanced fashion, with Wilentz depicting Jackson as someone who clearly deserves a large share of the blame for the genocide that took place under his watch and for policies that he put in motion but came to fruition after he left office. At the same time, he shows that Jackson did try to help various tribes when he could, and that - as sad as this is to say - there were people who were much more virulent and dehumanizing than he was.

As with the founding era, politicians in Jackson's time were not always aligned geographically. When the Federalist Party imploded after the War of 1812, eventually the Whigs formed as the opposition to the democracy. The Whigs carried on some of the Federalist principles (preferring aristocracy over democracy), and consisted of people in both the North and the South. Jackson too had northern supporters. Some supported him because they agreed with his anti-Bank of the United States stance. Others supported Jackson due to slavery or his more democratic principles. At this point, slavery had not yet divided people along sectional lines, although it was coming thanks to radicals such as John C. Calhoun in the South, who continually shifted to the right as time went on. He started out as an ardent Nationalist but eventually transformed himself into a full-throated proponent of unlimited and untouched slavery.

Two Presidents whom Wilentz shows to be largely ineffectual while in office (John Quincy Adams and Martin Van Buren) end up looking much better after they left the presidency. Adams especially with his work in the House of Representatives, where he became fully committed to the anti-slavery cause. James Monroe was more or less treated as a non-entity here, which I don't disagree with. However, there was very little about John Marshall, the longtime Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. I think that Marshall was one of the most important and influential people in his era, and even today overall in our history. Despite never being President, he changed the conception and role of the Supreme Court. Look how important that is today.

There was one President whose depiction by Wilentz is not one that I agreed with: James K. Polk. Wilentz argues that Polk was first and foremost a Nationalist and an expansionist, and his zest for expansion is what fueled his decision to go to war with Mexico over Texas (which had been annexed by the U.S. after becoming independent from Mexico) and what is now the Southwest. Polk fully bought into the Manifest Destiny wave that was sweeping across the country. Wilentz says that Polk did not attempt expansion so that he could expand slavery, but I have a difficult time believing that to be true. Polk was an unrepentant Tennessee slaveholder, and much of his political basis was slaveholders. It is inconceivable to me that he did not want to expand slavery, especially after the Missouri Compromise of 1820/21 forbid slavery in future northern territories.

Wilentz provides very good analysis behind multiple presidential elections, especially 1848 and 1860. He reviews the feckless Presidents of the 1850s who dithered while the nation careened towards disaster. He then charts the rise of Lincoln, discussing his famous 1858 debates with Stephen Douglas and how he managed to maneuver himself into becoming the Republican nominee in 1860. However, there is one point on Lincoln where he is incorrect. On page 613 he writes about Lincoln being only a one-term Congressman in the House: "After declining to run for reelection, he returned home to Springfield in 1849, the latest congressional one-term wonder." Not quite. While Lincoln did not run again, it was not because he declined. He had come to an agreement with two other Whigs in the Springfield area to rotate that seat so that they all could serve.

Wilentz ends with the beginning of the Civil War and the formation of the Confederacy. He provides an epilogue as well, explaining that the war brought on new issues for a new America, and that the democracy that existed pre-war in the South was gone. This is really a good book and it can be helpful in trying to understand how our form of government quickly changed from what the Founders' original intentions were. This is worth the time to read if you have interest in early American history. Wilentz clearly put a lot of time into creating this excellent history.

One final note: during the time that I was reading this, the city that I live in held municipal elections. The Mayor's seat, several City Council spots, school board positions, and an important bond measure were all on the ballot. Only 10% of the registered voters came out to vote. It made me wonder just how well our democracy is functioning when 90% of the people don't care enough to take 20 minutes to go vote. It also made me wonder what so many of the people in this book, people who fought hard for expanded suffrage, would say if they saw the low voter turnouts of today.

Grade: A-

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but flawed. Also his constant use of "The Democracy" is an accurate period usage but very annoying.

For a further review: http://susannag.booklikes.com/post/63... .

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sean Wilentz’s The Rise of American Democracy provides a panoramic overview of antebellum American politics. Wilentz (The Age of Reagan, etc.) focuses on the evolution of politics, particularly of the Democratic Party, from the province of elites to the raucous, rowdy, often violent electioneering of the 1830s, ‘40s and ‘50s. In Wilentz’s telling, the egalitarian ideas of the Revolution were mostly granted lip service by the early leaders, whether the openly elitist Federalists or Jefferson’s Republicans, whose rhetoric was subverted by their support for slavery. As Jefferson’s followers slowly evolved into the Democratic Party, it gained a broader base of support that encouraged mass participation, culminating in Andrew Jackson’s presidency. While Wilentz offers a more generous appraisal of Jackson’s legacy than many modern readers might like (one's strongly tempted to challenge his characterization of Indian Removal as “paternalistic”), he does demonstrate that Old Hickory’s popularity and affected anti-elitism did a great deal to popularize politics. This led, in turn, to ferment as Americans grappled with what expanded democracy actually meant: abolitionists and freed blacks battling against slavery, immigrants struggling to enter American society, women chafing at receiving few rights and no representation, early stirrings of the labor movement. Thus election battles were often matched with personal squabbles, riots and full-scale protest movements, from the Anti-Masonic scare of the 1820s (which Wilentz frames less as conspiratorial demagoguery than backlash against entrenched wealth) and the anti-Catholic Know-Nothings to Rhode Island’s Dorr Rebellion and the Anti-Rent protests in New York. Even extant party structures struggled to reconcile regional and ideological differences: Martin Van Buren cements his place in history by welding the Democratic Party’s factions into a Jacksonian alliance, only to see them fall over slavery, expansion and differing conceptions of government’s role in society. The book has the length and fine-grain detail of a textbook, but Wilentz’s brilliant, lively writing (providing mini portraits of Americans as diverse as Aaron Burr, John Ross, Frederick Douglass and the Grimke Sisters) and shrewd analyses makes it worth the time invested. Sets the standard for fluent, informative popular history.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Winner of the Bancroft prize and finalist for the Pulitzer prize in history, this volume does not disappoint. We are treated to a very nuanced and detailed history of American politics from the administration of Thomas Jefferson to the administration of Abraham Lincoln. My only criticism of the book is that it seems to spend a large part of the narrative focused on the administration of Andrew Jackson. Other than that, and the tome's impressive page count, it was a very rewarding book.

[Steven Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sean Wilentz provides an excellent commentary on the tensions bedeviling the republic--and wrecking the parties--from the origins until Lincoln's election.

Underlying much of the tension was slavery. In the South, we saw the development of competing visions of democracy, with slaveholder aristocracy at one end of the spectrum. The Democratic Party found it hard to hold its already unruly coalition together after the Jacksonian ascendancy (northern Democrats were in conflict wit one another, with different states having different divides; north was in conflict with the south; etc.).

The Federalists began as the opposition to the Jeffersonian party. That party declined as it could not adapt to the developing democratic currents. The Whig Party, in opposition to Jacksonians, ended up falling to pieces over the sectional conflict.

What sets this book apart from others is the author's command of the historical context. The reader will learn of competing interests within the different parties, and how the balance of power between these competitors helped shape political discourse and helped propel the country toward Civil War. After having read this book, the reader would be a welcome addition to cocktail parties by disseminating little known information about the democratic political development of the country. Some reviewers find the detailed analysis daunting--but that is, in my mind--what sets this book apart. The small details provide a context for understanding the big picture issues. One needs, in short, a good treatment of the "trees" in order to better understand the "forest."

This is a must read for those interested in the development of democratic ideas from the origins of the republic to the Civil War.

[AC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Long, slow, brilliantly detailed, yet synoptic, this is a fine book. Never one for americana, and especially uninformed about 18th and 19th century American history and literature, I had long had difficulty in coming to terms with the Civil War. What I lacked, I finally realized, was a full understanding of the events that had produced it, and which no book on the Civil War itself could substitute itself for. In the event, this meant going back to Jefferson and to the Jeffersonian struggle first with federalism, and then with its decay and with the rise of Andrew Jackson. This book filled all these many gaps for me. While I am sure, that experts will have many points of difference with Wilentz, the author is extremely well-informed and judicious. Certainly a great starting point, especially for those who find the need to start with an advanced immersion.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading for anyone interested in American history and democracy. Wilentz' book is a rich, fascinating dissection of the evolution of the meaning(s) of democracy in the US from the ratification of the Constitution to the first shots of the Civil War.

Wilentz scrupulously teases out very different notions of what "democracy" meant across an evolving and expanding landscape, from inner-city wards of Philadelphia to the farms of New England and the charred remains of Bloody Kansas. This is a very dense, detailed book, but it never becomes tiresome or feels like work - the story is too important and too interesting.

I first picked this up to help me better understand something that I'd never completely grasped: how did "democracy" become the self-evident, universally acknowledged description of our best-of-all-possible-worlds system of government, when "democrat" was for decades after the Revolution an epithet you threw at your opponents to discredit them (with every bit as much de-legitimizing effect as "socialist" or "liberal" has now in some quarters)?

Wilentz ably explains that in the first 70 pages or so. One of the strongest and simplest factors is that the soil for truly aristocratic kudzu in America was surpassingly thin. Society in the former colonies simply didn't support the rigid and stark caste distinctions of the old world, and pretending otherwise could only work so long and only so well.

The South, as in so many other ways, is exceptional on that point, and the other great accomplishment of Wilentz' book is illustrating in relentless, painful detail how conflict over slavery (and ultimately a war to settle the issue) was baked into the founding. No one who's read this is likely to imagine the Civil War could have somehow been avoided; one of the striking elements of the second half of the book is how hard a leading element of the South had been pushing for a fight with the North well ahead of the 1860s.

I'll finish with one of the highest compliments I can give a book: I have no doubt I'll re-read it at some point.

[Henry Sturcke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is long and detailed, a bit of a slog at the beginning, but I stuck with it, and felt rewarded for it. In some ways the book is old-fashioned history in its broad narrative sweep and its resuscitation of the hero-approach, as the subtitle implies. Along with role played by Jefferson and Lincoln, but not quite on their level because of his own personal flaws and the irreconcilable contradictions in his political movement, is the treatment devoted to Jackson. But the real hero of the book is democracy itself, in Wilentz's recounting something never fully achieved and constantly under threat from elitist impulses, or simply from the desire to distort the system for the benefit of a few.
The broad disparity of ratings in the reviews posted so far is a fair reflection of the fact that this book is not for everyone. If you are looking for a first orientation on US political history in the first half of the nineteenth century, you would be better served by a shorter treatment. In my case, I was basically up to speed on the broad outlines of the period, but was hazy on the details of the various sectional crises, and never understood the fuss Jackson made over a national bank. I was fascinated by the author's attention to state and local political developments. They were not only affected by national trends but also shaped them in turn.
My three-star rating is not a reflection on the quality of the book; those with an interest in the subject will find it excellent.

[Colleen Browne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't let the length of the book put you off. This is a well written, well researched book by an exceptional historian. Never one to accept the status quo, Wilentz questions assumptions and then researches them thoroughly to form his own conclusions. This book does an excellent job of exploring and explaining the development of democracy and the political parties in our history. I will use it as a reference book in the classroom. I would recommend it highly. I re-read the book for a class and recommend it as highly now as I did when I originally read it.

[Lisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was the slowest trudge I have ever taken! I was annoyed from cover to cover. The author's obvious adoration for Jefferson and Jackson dripped from nearly every page and bordered on sycophancy. Could not wait to be finished with it. Unfortunately, now it takes up a ton of space in my closet.

[Andrew Canfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

The breadth of The Rise of American Democracy is truly sweeping in its scope.

This work encompasses both the big and small movements in democracy from the founding of the United States through the onset of the Civil War. While the subtitle is Jefferson to Lincoln, the book actually begins its focus even prior to the Washington administration. It does not simply focus on the major leaders-presidents, senators, etc.-but gets into the nitty-gritty of local movements in various states. Jefferson's name lands in the title because it paints him as the first presidential carrier of democracy's banner, showing Washington and Adams to be good men but nevertheless not ones enamored with movements led by Americans of everyday backgrounds.

The Rise of American Democracy really starts out by focusing on "of the people" movements in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Virginia, and New York. The Democratic-Republican organizations which arose in protest against the perceived consolidationist tendencies of George Washington tread oft-covered ground, but lesser known movements in the early years of the country's founding are written about by Wilentz with impressive depth.

The rural-based democratic uprising in Pennsylvania run by a group known as the Clodhoppers and headed up by future governor Simon Snyder gave an enlightening look at the state of American democracy in the early 1800s. The political battles between Mr. Snyder and Thomas McKean are nuggets from America's past usually lost in the thicket of Anti-Federalist vs. Federalist debates, but having this section on Pennsylvania's past unearthed makes the book that much richer. It is just one portion on the various urban and rural democratic movements that make up the backbone of the first half of the book, showing how change in states often came from the bottom up.

The sections about Massachusetts (expect to read about Theodore Sedgwick and Joseph Story) underscore the manner in which a state could transform from a Federalist stronghold during the time of John Adams to one a bit more tolerant of democratic ideals.

Divisions in Virginia between a largely slave holding, Tidewater elite and the more egalitarian section west of the Alleghenies previewed the splitting up of the state during the Civil War. The manner in which Thomas Jefferson went from favorite son status in the commonwealth to, as the middle of the 19th century rolled around, being viewed as a naive proponent of a scary form of democracy (of a type which was not fully embracing of slaveholder principles) also showed how the South transformed as the 1800s rolled along. The struggles between the men loyal to the principles of Jefferson and those more distrustful of democracy who embraced John Randolph (nicknamed Tertiary Quids) laid bare divisions which existed in the (especially Upper) South.

The attempted impeachments of judges Pickering and Chase during the Jefferson administration never make for boring reading, but probably for purposes of brevity the saga of Aaron Burr's treason trial and much of his other shenanigans are not covered in as much detail as other events in The Rise of American Democracy.

New York contained the most complex democratic stirrings. The back and forth between the more conservative Hunker and the more liberal Barnburner factions in the state, along with the existence of a hard money group known as the Loco Focos are confusing enough, but the presence of Martin van Buren in the Empire State's politics only makes it all the more head-spinning.

The Little Magician-head of the Albany Regency and a political trickster with a dislike for Governor De Witt Clinton-at first comes across as a scoundrel who will do anything for power. Despite being from New York, he appears to be a sop for the South even decades before the likes of "Northerners with Southern sympathies" like James Buchanan came on the scene. But in his post-presidential career van Buren became outspoken in the abolitionist movement, even accepting the nomination for the short-lived Free Soil party. It is never entirely clear if he was doing this for raw political motives or because he genuinely became interested in the cause of abolitionism in his later years.

Less of a question mark when it comes to devotion to good causes is John C. Calhoun. He is a man Wilentz views as a sectionalist, borderline treasonous American. Both he and his home state of South Carolina are not treated well in the Rise of American Democracy.

For most of the book the Palmetto State has the feel of an undemocratic entity, a land where slave holding grandees were more than happy to maintain power while rarely bothering to throw rhetorical scraps toward democratic niceties. They were only willing to share some of their power when they viewed it as necessary to keep non slave holding South Carolinian whites from calling for too many changes to the status quo, a chain of events they feared might lead to the sort of common cause with African-Americans that was underway in the North.

South Carolina's threatened secession in the 1830s over tariff rates followed a consistent line all the way to the end of 1860, when yet another issue was used as a pretext to fully break away from the United States.

The Jackson administration (1829-1837) is given some of the most extended coverage. The relevance of these eight years in moving America from a quasi-democratic polity to one which embraced more suffrage (albeit of the white male variety) was not lost on Wilentz.

He seems to go further is defending Jackson than many historians do, not glossing over his faults but trying to put them into context and explain the positive ways he moved the democratic ball forward. This section, about midway through the book, contained some of the book's best writing and, 1852 to 1860 aside, is the most important eight year stretch covered in this 800 page book.

During the Jacksonian Era the tale is told of Nathan Dorr's rebellion in Rhode Island, a standoff overlooked by many books but nevertheless one of the more interesting side stories in U.S. history. The Dorr Rebellion and the Kentucky Court battles underscored the crises of legitimacy which sprung up during America's developmental phase.

Henry Clay's efforts to hold the Union together in the years leading up to the 1860 election are an important component of this work, and Wilentz does an admirable job of filling readers in on the Kentucky icon's contributions to the country. One gets the feeling he is not too admiring of Clay, as the text seems to come down harder on his shortcomings and vices than it did those of Jackson. He is also lukewarm on John Quincy Adams. The author dose not slam him, telling of the good he did later in this career (much like van Buren) in opposing the spread of slavery, but also shows him to be someone not overly interested in turning too much power over to everyday Americans during his four years as president. Considering who his father was, J. Quincy's less than full embrace of the type of democracy inherent in the Jackson years is not too surprising.

Wilentz did his due diligence when it came to detailing the rise of the Whigs in response to what they perceived to be the excesses of Andrew Jackson's administration. The twenty years the party lasted for-before splintering and helping to birth the Republican Party-are covered in intensive detail.

This portion on Whiggery primarily traces the lead up of the Civil War, where a century of movements calling for more power to be distributed downward caused polar results in the North and South. The rise of outspoken anti-slavery advocates in the North like William Lloyd Garrison, William Seward, and Frederick Douglass, along with more moderate ones like Harriet Beecher Stowe, was countered by the rise of strident fire eater secessionists like Preston Brooks and James Hammond in the South. This tension was what Lincoln referred to in his "House Divided" speech, and it forms the crux of the latter portions of the Rise of American Democracy. For all the good done for democracy during the Jacksonian Era, the inherent contradictions in the calls for more freedom in a land where slavery was tolerated by many in the North and embraced by many in the South meant something eventually had to give.

Wilentz sums the contradictions of mid-nineteenth century America in an excellent passage toward the end of the book: "By the mid 1840s and 1850s, two distinctive democracies, northern and southern, had finally arisen out off the strivings of the city and country democrats of the infant republic. The southern democracy enshrined slavery as the basis for white men's political equality (except for those disunionists who recoiled at any sort of equality). In national politics, southern democrats proclaimed what they called the Jeffersonian idea of state sovereignty, but only as filtered through the writings of Jefferson's factional adversaries, the Old Republicans, (and then) through the pro slavery stalwart John C. Calhoun. The northern democrats thought slavery a moral abomination that denied the basic humanity of blacks and whose expansion threatened the white men's political equality (to say nothing, as free blacks and a minority of whites charged, of full political equality for all men.) They stood, forthrightly, for Jeffersonian ideas about the rights of man, including free speech, which southern democrats perforce had to curtail."

The passage goes on to state that "neither of these democracies was fully formed at the nation's founding. Federalism's defeat at the hands of the Jeffersonian Republicans, along with a myriad of reform efforts at the state and local level, undid many of the prevailing hierarchical political assumptions that had survived the eighteenth century. Thereafter, the largest vehicle for expanding democracy became the flawed Jackson Democracy. This democracy brought together the evolving city and country democracies into a national political force. They also created a new kind of political party, more egalitarian in its institutions and its ideals than any that had preceded it, unabashed in its disciplined pursuit of power, dedicated to securing the sovereignty that, as its chief architect Martin van Buren observed, 'belongs inalienably to the people.' Yet Jackson and van Buren's democracy had its contradictions as well, which brought, initially, the great mass of southern planters into its ranks."

It is this latter development on which the final part of the book turns. The blowing up of the Democratic party in 1860, a result of the schism between the northern wing represented by Stephen Douglas and the southern wing represented by secessionists like Edmund Ruffin and James Hammond, is the final failure of the Democratic party's attempts to hold together its "myriad contradictions." Abraham Lincoln's rise to the presidency merely provided the final straw for South to declare they could no longer abide in a country antagonistic toward the economic way of life represented by slavery. As Wilentz puts it when referencing how the acquiring of new territories from Mexico plunged the country into sectional debates, "Two factors-the expansionist pursuit of Jefferson's empire of liberty, and the extraordinary continued growth of plantation slavery thanks to the cotton revolution-upset the Democratic and Whig Parties that had formed by 1840, and hastened the growth of the antagonistic northern and southern democracies. Americans experienced the crack-up primarily as a political crisis, about whether slavery would be allowed to interfere with democratic rights-or, alternatively, whether northern tyranny wold be allowed to interfere with southern democracy."

The book continued its explanation of how the country splintered in the middle of the nineteenth century. "First the Wilmot Proviso and the Free Soil revolt temporarily split the Democracy; then the Whig Party collapsed under the weight of sectional discord; and finally a new Northern Republican coalition emerged-its name borrowed from Jefferson's old party-consisting of northern antislavery Whigs, Free Soil Democrats, and the long-beleaguered political abolitionists."

The arc from the Revolutionary era of the 1700s to a different revolutionary era a century later is traced with brilliance in this work by Sean Wilentz. Reading it will nurture a strong understanding of democratic currents throughout the country's past looked at from an uncompromisingly fair point of view.

-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado

[Paige McLoughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wilentz is a good mainstream narrative historian. I like his writing style. He is a mainstream academic who can write good history books for a popular audience. Of course, he writes from a kind of mainstream liberal narrative of such a historian. He covers well aspects that appeal to the good government liberal historian. He of course mentions the problem of slavery in the early republic and the growing sectional tension. He covers it from the perspective of actors on the political stage which is fairly standard (while not focusing sharply on the evils of the institution of slavery and the racist ideology employed for its bulwarks, also pretty standard from a lot of liberal history) So it has the reformist somewhat optimistic progressive feel with a narrative of expanding sphere of enfranchisement and growth of the country. It doesn't hide the downsides of times but it does play up the sunnier and progressive aspects much more. I don't blame him. For most of my life, I swam in the sunny liberal narrative as well. I don't want to down this kind of history it definitely picks of some important facets of the American story but de-emphasizes others that one might draw lessons that might call for a politics a little or a lot further left. Still enjoyable but historians have a point of view as everyone else. Take what you like from him but remember others see our history through other lenses. Solid history recommended reading but probably needs to be supplemented by other voices.

[David R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A monumental and detailed examination of the development of American democracy in its earliest years. Wilentz does a splendid job connecting the dots from the emergent Jeffersonian conception (one in reaction to British monarchy and oligarchic Federalism) through Jacksonian and Calhounian tracks to the ultimate showdown between southern and northern polities: the War Between the States of 1861-1865. Wilentz demonstrates that there was no one American democracy; at every important juncture we find competing vision. However, he is clearly disposed to the winning formula at every turn, displaying contempt not only for John Calhoun et al's corrosive sectionalism but also to Federalism, Whiggery and and the Constitutional Unionist movement. There is perhaps one exception: While Wilentz generally lauds the contributions of the Jacksonians he does admit to concerns about the contradictions of the Jacksonian model -- ideological problems that did ultimately deepen the sectional divide. Overall, a masterful critique and solid piece of scholarship.

[Bookmarks Magazine]

Going against prevailing historical fashion, Sean Wilentz delivers a long, exhaustive survey of political machinations, both grand and minute. Though he forays into social and cultural history, the bulk of The Rise of American Democracy is a blow-by-blow account of what happened in the corridors of young America with a "house divided." Wilentz, author of Chants Democratic (1984) and professor of history and director of the American studies program at Princeton University, tells this compelling story with precision and poise, but reviewers question whether anyone but scholars will slog through the 1000-page tome. Within academic halls, at least, this impressive volume is certainly eligible to be the definitive synthesis of the era.

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

[Stuart · Rating 5 out of 5]

The period between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War was cloudy for me until I read this book. It's interesting to see how Jefferson's party evolved into the pro-slavery party and to read of the rise of the Republican party. That's right, in the mid-19th century, the Republicans were the good guys and the Democrats were basically the political wing of the KKK. A century later the parties decided to swap their positions on civil rights.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un-friggin-believable. This book was astonishing. That's all I can say.

[Jared · Rating 5 out of 5]

Princeton professor Sean Wilentz here presents the in-depth story of the turn in American politics toward democracy. I suppose it is relatively well-known that the Founding Fathers (especially, say, John Adams) considered the phrase "democratic government" simply another way of saying "mob rule." Rules governing enfranchisement were written into the early state's charters…rules specifically designed to exclude persons of color and the poor from having a voice in government.

However, from its inception—no matter how much the Founding Fathers feared its outcome—a deeply democratic impulse was a key engine of American political development. However, this impulse took different forms: in fact, it might be more accurate to speak of American democracies, ultimately rooted in the differing socioeconomic spheres of the city and the country.

Wilentz demonstrates how this fundamental struggle to define American democracy shaped every major early American political debate the rise (and fall) of the federal banking systems, labor, and—most importantly—slavery. In particular, Wilentz I think does a fine job of demonstrating how the American Civil War was rooted in both concerns about state's rights and about slavery. He is also adamant that, though the break was an outworking of the "city" and "country" democracies birthed in the nation's founding, the institutionalization of slavery and white racial superiority was fundamental to the founding of the Confederate States of America; in the twisted logic of the time, the establishment of white superiority was seen as necessary to preserving true democratic rule.

On one level, this book is spectacularly well-done. The writing is clear, the research is meticulous (nearly 200 pages of endnotes are provided!), and his characterizations of the key figures are lively and even entertaining. However, at another level, the amount of detail can be almost excruciating for non-specialist readers like me. To be honest, I reached a point where I continued to read the book simply because I had read so much already that I felt that I must see it through. I'm glad that I did, but I knew that I was not probably getting as much benefit from Wilentz's work as I could or would have if I would have had a better background in the history of the period.

At the end of the day, I must give the book high marks, recognizing that any fault I found with it more relates to my poor preparation as a reader than to any flaw with the book itself. I would definitely say this is a book for connoisseurs not dilettantes. Wilentz shows that American politics has, from our birth, been infinitely complex, shaped by the forces of stalwart principle and expedient compromise.

Perhaps the most important part of the book for me was found in the final chapter, where Wilentz demonstrates how Abraham Lincoln saw himself as the inheritor of Thomas Jefferson's mantle. Many postmoderns have noted the oddity (and seeming hypocrisy) that the man who penned the Declaration of Independence with its self-evident truth that "all men are created equal" still owned slaves. However, Wilentz's story shows both how Jefferson was not hypocritical in his own time and yet laid the foundation for the rise of American democracy that eventually demanded the end of slavery. I'm left to ponder the reality that, like the writers of Scripture, it is possible that Jefferson wrote "better than he knew," his words giving shape to a reality even he couldn't see at the time. It causes me to ponder the nature of the continuing work of the Spirit as a reality of human life, and wonder where might the Spirit be at work today in our midst, speaking to us in the most unlikely of voices in the most unlikely of ways.

[Louis Picone · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book that details the history of democracy & political parties from Washington to Lincoln. I saw it described as monumental & a tour-de-force, which can be over-used, but in this case they are on point. Fair warning, it's not a quick or easy read, but well worth your time and effort. Wilentz's knowledge of the intricacies of the politics of the 70 year period (state & federal) is astounding & his narrative style is engrossing. 800 pages of text and I never found it to be a slog. This really helped me connect pieces of historical knowledge (such as Van Buren & Fillmore's third party run after their presidencies) and allows one to understand each president as part of a continuum. Well done!

[Andy Wiesendanger]

Wow, what an incredible book. Well worth the 800 pages. I just don't understand how people aren't interested in history.

The book follows the US government, from Jefferson to Lincoln. The rise of American democracy, from its original inception to the Civil War, and how it changed over those 7 decades. One of the more interesting things (especially at this time when Congresswoman Giffords was shot and immediately calls about the terrible political rhetoric/atmosphere being blamed), was how from the very beginning, there were always strong, passionate debates/arguments about what American government was all about. There never really was a time when one could say, "this is what American democracy is supposed to be". There were only times were one could say, "this is what American democracy is at this time".

Yet even today, its quite common to hear people say, we need to return to the Founders' idea of government. There was no unified idea, first of all. The Federalists, men like Washington and Adams, wanted pretty strict republic - land restrictions on voting (and of course, only white men) in most states were pretty high, b/c it was assumed if you didn't own land, you weren't intelligent, and therefore unable to know who should rule. And not owning your own land meant you were reliant on someone else, to easy a situation for them to influence you in how to vote. Even after the Civil War, when talk about blacks and women even being allowed to vote gained traction, John Adams' great grandson spoke about how silly it would be to allow everyone to vote, democracy would be the rule of the "ignorance and vice". I wonder if that's the original idea of democracy those today are calling for?

What's interesting about that, is there's some merit to the charge. Think about today, the average citizen doesn't really care about politics, and government, yet we vote for people to rule over us. How can we say we're educated enough to vote people that will rule wisely? We don't know how government works, the economy, whatever issue is important to us. But I can't imagine the alternative, how and who would decide the rulers of this country? Its probably why Churchill said something to the effect that Democracy is a terrible form of government, but its the best we got.

Wilentz does a great job of following the trend of change throughout the 7 decades til 1860. He chronicles the rise and fall of political ideas, doing a good job showing how certain ideas became popular, how first certain states would change, then influence national politics. And, the importance of Andrew Jackson, and his 2 presidencies. His vision of American democracy was a big step toward popular sovereignty, and of course faced alot of opposition from those who still believed the populace was a rabble and couldn't be trusted.

And the author did a great job showing hypocrisy throughout this time. A great example is Jackson, who had a few big politcal battles during his 8 years, one over nullification. John Calhoun develop the political theory that states could nullify a federal law, in this particular case, b/c of a tariff levied by Congress against all states. The southern states tended to hate the tariff, and the northern states tended to support it. Push came to shove, and Jackson, replying that since Congress was given the express right in Constitution to levy tariffs, the states could not nullify such an action, and threatened military force to enforce the collection. The south backed down.

However, another issue, as was the case throughout the 7 decades, was slavery. During Jackson's presidency, there was a rise in abolitionists, of course, particularly in the north. A few societies decided to print pamphlets, and flood the south w/them, through the US Postal Service. The south reacted predictably, claiming it was starting an insurrection and creating unrest, and many states instructed their postmaster generals to confisticate the pamphlets. Jackson was pressured to respond, b/c, after all, the Constitution spoke about delivering mail, it was a federal dept, like levying tariffs, and therefore the states could not nullify or interfere. However, Jackson owned slaves, but even more important, agreed w/southern leaders that the pamphlets were inflammatory, and so did nothing to prevent the confiscation. So, that states could not interfere or nullify federal law, unless they had good reason too. Ah, human nature...

Another great example, again w/slavery, is that in general, the southern states were big on states' rights. They wanted smaller federal government, and most power was held w/the states. Unless of course the state wanted to interfere w/slavery. There was a Fugitive Slave Act passed by Congress, I think around 1850, which said a runaway slave could be apprehended by fed agents, and that people of a free state were actually supposed to support the apprenhension, despite any state's laws about how to deal w/such a situation. Again, state's rights were vitally important, unless they did something we don't like.

I doubt it was intended by the author, but I don't see how you can't get a little angry at political hypocrisy, especially against the south. One particular man stands out, and it was a great ending to the book: Edmund Ruffin, fire-eater and pro-slavery VA senator of the 1830s. When it came time to fire on Fort Sumter, the 67 year old former senator, who had joined the South Carolina milita, was proud to fire the first mortar at the fort - the rebellion had begun. So ends the last chatper. The epilogue begins w/Ruffin committing suicide in 1865, after the north has won. I couldn't help thinking, good riddance to a wasted life.



But the anger builds as you see how southern leaders flaunted their power, even over other whites who weren't slaveholders. Yet they were able to use master race politics to get those non-slaveholders to support them, rather than the idea of free blacks. There was even a beating in Congress, when a northern Congressman was at his desk in the chamber, and a southern Congressman beat him w/his cane, while 2 accomplices fended off others, b/c of the northern's audacity to claim slavery was a moral wrong. The southern Congressman was fined $300. The northern could not return to full time work for 4 years.



It was good timing for me, in that the next book for my book club is "Uncle Tom's Cabin", and Wilentz spent some time talking about that and "Moby Dick", and describing how they came about in the political time when they were written, and how the characters portrayed certain people during that time, it will give me a good background about the times to understand the book a bit deeper, I hope. What I didn't know, was that Harriet Beecher Stowe thought slavery should be abolished, but that blacks should be returned to Africa, b/c the different races would just never be able to live together.



There is a lot this book covers, and leaves the reader with a lot to think about. A great book, highly recommended.

[Joelle Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joelle Reads Her Bookcase #16

We have this idea that the Constitution was written, and universal suffrage happened. In reality, Georgia was the only original colony to grant it in their state constitution. Even after the United States was created in 1789, thousands of men were still disenfranchised. It wasn't until the Jacksonian Democratic Revolution that ordinary, common people were finally able to begin to take control of the the voting process - oh the horrors of mob rule. 🙄 Even the beloved Thomas Jefferson didn't trust anyone who wasn't educated and didn't own property to be able to vote.

Insidiously making its way throughout this entire narrative on democracy is the question of slavery: is it a right, or is a moral abomination? Should it be banned by the federal government, and by majority opinion, or should the states be allowed to maintain it, through the wishes of their minority slaveholders?

We take for granted today that anyone can vote when they turn 18 - granted they meet the conditions of being a citizen and not a felon - but this would have HORRIFIED the Founding Fathers, and the political leaders continuing. 21 was a young age to vote then, but they allowed it from the generosity of their hearts. And most Southern states enfranchised because they needed the support of the yeoman to keep a strong stance against the "bullying North". To think of allowing an 18 year old to vote would have caused outright panic. The masses were barely responsible as it was; now you're going to include CHILDREN!?

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a solid single-volume American history reader. I read it in conjunction with some college coursework many years ago, and while Wilentz does compromise a bit of his researching intensity for readability, most readers will thank him for it. This is a book I will return to later, because it is a pleasure to read while being densely packed with useful historical information. Moreover, Wilentz is careful to not try to weave a unifying historical narrative out of disparate events. Rather, he is willing to note outliers, anomalies, and oddities in American history. In this way, the book avoids that dreaded "single voice" history that so many other single-volume texts like it fall victim to.

There are few books on American history that can give you this much in just one volume.

[John McGrath · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very long narrative of the development of democracy in America. Covers a lot of rather obscure events, and I felt that I was seeing lots of trees, but the forest was hard to make out. Still, it does give a good sense of how democracy developed, from the end of the Federalist era to the Civil War.[return][return]Wilentz does seem somewhat enamored of Jefferson, Jackson, and the Democrats, and not at all pleased with the Federalists and the Whigs. So while he does mention some of the horrible ways that Jeffersonians and Jacksonians treated Blacks and Indians, he is rather forgiving of their human rights abuses. At the same time, he is very harsh in his treatment of the undemocratic tendencies of the Federalists and Whigs.

[Lexi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a monster. The Levain cookie of US political history. And I'm all for that. But there is a point at which blow by blow details of (often state or local) electoral outcomes and the factions involved (the 'Loco Focos', 'Grey hairs', 'Silver foxes'...) gets a little tired. Also, in a thousand pages you'd think Wilentz could devote a little more attention to economic or technological transformations.
I want to give this 3.5. But alas....

[Eric Hatting · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing composite sketch of the schizophrenic development of the US's two party system starting with the late Federalist era and ending at the very beginnings of our current Republican-Democratic configuration. Well worth the time.

[David Montano · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hello Mr. Wilentz, maybe it's best if I start this review with how I stumbled upon this brick of a book. One warm day in March after visiting the Monterey Bay Aquarium with a stubborn migraine, I sought out a used bookstore to salvage the remains of a weekend trip. Musty second-hand bookstores are a place of comfort for me, especially because musty second-hand books possess a faint smell that I enjoy. My friend Amanda has told me this smell is called "bibliochor", a neologism which almost definitely originates from nerds on Tumblr or some other internet blog where these types of afflictions are celebrated. Blah Blah Blah, okay David what are you getting at here? Well, it turns out there’s another affliction I have: I kinda love large books. Ever since I was young they've piqued my curiosity: "What in the world could be the subject of so many pages?" or "If someone wrote that much about something, it must be important!" Alongside with the challenge these "tomes" present. Why does the page count matter? They don't, but the mindset may be found in the perceived investment by the author to a mammoth book and the need to reflect the same investment as a reader.

Well, in that bookstore I couldn't find an interesting book to check out. But what caught my wandering eye? A wide spine atop the tallest shelf. Inspecting Wilentz's "Rise of American Democracy" in a cursory manner set my tame expectations. This wasn't a deeply engrossing narrative of the most flawed concept in America, it was a large and detailed-oriented survey of the early years and important figures which formed the various political parties. I was torn. I really liked Wilentz, his "Chants Democratic" was a formative history book that pulled me in with its detail, scholarly sources, all that good stuff! Surely, this would be worth the time. Plus! It’s a big book! What could go wrong? I checked out the book from my library, in addition with another more recent title Wilentz edited. At the very least, it would have a massive amount of footnotes to delve into.

My expectations were low, but they weren't this low. The book is informative, hell it has the most minutiae covering Early American political development I've seen since Eric Foner's "Reconstruction". The problem isn't its historical value, the problem is that personally I knew a lot of what Wilentz was uncovering in this narrative of America's descent into sectarian conflict. That makes the task harder for "Rise of American Democracy" if a person has a college-level understanding of American History pre-1865, the book has to add something to keep a reader interested in 800 odd pages. It doesn't have that. The novelty starts and ends with the fact that if you want to know -literally everything- about Early America's political movers-shakers and their influences on the different political parties of the era, here's your book! But really, who are we kidding in thinking that most people want to know everything about Martin Van Buren.

Wilentz may have oriented this as a “one-stop shop” for casual readers to soak in all the ups and downs of Jacksonian Democracy, the radical nature of New York politics, and successive crises which were basically pre-ordained to rip the nation apart. But personally, it felt like a laundry list of facts and events I mostly knew already, making its “run-time” a slog.

Rating: 2/5

[Russel Henderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An impressive accomplishment, Wilentz's book is a dense tome that tracks the development of democracy in America from the founding generation through the great upheavals of the "Age of Jackson" and on to the outbreak of Civil War. It's a slog of a book, exceedingly detailed and not especially florid, but the reward for reading it is a broadened perspective of developments that are too often poorly understood. Striking is the sheer multiplicity of mini-parties and inter-party factions and splinters, as the Republic developed around a growing number of axes during its initial expansion. Wilentz is perhaps too charitable to Jackson - not in contextualizing some of the modern race-based criticism of his conduct, which is appropriate - but in his appraisal of his second term and his approach to banking. But on the whole his larger historical judgments are relatively sound. He makes a quite persuasive case for the development of at least two approaches to antebellum republican governance that emerged north and south of the Mason-Dixon line. North of that line, a mostly democratic (especially after Connecticut and later Rhode Island bowed to the regional trend) North and Northwest in which free speech was burdened but little, "workies" and other laborers had real influence in decision-making, and the political conversation was rich and varied. South of that line, particularly in the Old South, a Calhounian/Randolphian republic in which property qualifications still occurred, influence was skewed toward the planter class and away from the upcountry yeomanry, where superiority over chattel slavery rather than political power was the salve for the white "rabble," and where political life and even speech were heavily burdened by the necessity - statutory or informal - of avoiding the elephant in the room. He also lays out in bold relief that between Texas, Kansas, and the splintering of the Democratic Party (largely a conscious design with secession in mind), the South had far more to do with the crisis of 1860-61 than did the vilified abolitionists. Wilentz's book fills in the gaps between Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln and sites them well in their appropriate context. It's a period in history that is remarkably important to understanding how America became what it is today, and Wilentz helps explain how much change was still to happen after 1776 and even after ratification of the Constitution to put the country on that path.

[Dan Gorman · Rating 4 out of 5]

LONG political and economic history of the early republic, through the Civil War. Wilentz excels at making the political debates of the era comprehensible, so the book is a useful study tool. I disagree with points of Wilentz's analysis, however. He credits Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren's emphasis on hard currency (gold and silver specie) with being deflationary, but Richard Sylla and Peter Rousseau (2001) showed that this policy actually worsened the inflation of the 1830s. [See: Richard Sylla's review of Peter Temin's "The Jacksonian Economy," http://eh.net/book_reviews/the-jackso....] Wilentz also downplays Andrew Jackson's prejudice against anti-Native Americans. At times, Wilentz's criticism of the National Republicans and Whigs feels excessive. Wilentz is a vocal Democratic Party member, and occasionally I felt like he was massaging the Democrats' history to make it more favorable. Nonetheless, Wilentz highlights the Democrats' culpability in nullification, preserving slavery, and secession. I learned for the first time how Andrew Jackson's defense of the common man included strong opposition to urban bankers and monopolies. Even if I do not agree with all of Wilentz's analysis of the Democrats, Wilentz conveys the long duration of American class struggle.

[Casey Michel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Magisterial, almost encyclopedic work, and yet consistently readable. As devastating an argument to the "Lost Cause" sympathizers as anything ever written. The only reason it's not five stars is because of the near-apologia with which Wilentz treats the U.S.'s - and especially Jacksonian - policies of ethnic cleansing of Indigenous nations, primarily in the American Southwest. And even then, there's distressingly little on the multiple Trails of Tears among Indigenous nations in the American Old Northwest, and glaring silence regarding the genocides of Indigenous nations situated along the American Pacific Coast - and how all of this developed or informed the evolution of mid-19th century American democracy. More recent scholarship - Saunt's Unworthy Republic, Ostler's Surviving Genocide, etc - have dismantled this whitewash of Jackson's role in America's most devastating ethnic cleansing campaigns.

[Bernard English · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really nicely done and not at all as heavy as the size of the book would suggest. He is one of the few mainstream historians to actually cite Murray Rothbard (The Panic of 1819) and as far as I can tell gets the economics right. It's a matter of taste, but there is a marked emphasis on politics rather than economic history.

Some reviewers focused on his treatment of Jackson, but what struck me was his account of Lincoln and the steps towards war. Wilentz's account confirms my suspicion that the war could and probably should have been avoided. Although not directly quoted by Wilentz, Horace Greeley, editor of the New-York Tribune, expressed it thus: "If the Cotton States shall become satisfied that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace."

But the "Rise of American Democracy" is valuable in that it not only covers the presidencies deemed most important nowadays, but also gives significant coverage to the the intervening and mostly forgotten presidencies as well.