The
Young America Movement was
an American The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
political and cultural attitude in the mid-nineteenth century. Inspired by
EuropeanEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
reform movements of the 1830s (see Young Italy,
Young HegeliansThe Young Hegelians, or Left Hegelians, were a group of Prussian intellectuals who in the decade or so after the death of Hegel in 1831, wrote and responded to his ambiguous legacy...
), the American group was formed as a political organization in 1845 by
Edwin de LeonEdwin De Leon was a Confederate diplomat, writer, and journalist.-Biography:De Leon was born in Columbia, South Carolina of parents Mordecai Hendricks De Leon and Rebecca Lopez...
and
George H. EvansBorn in England, George H Evans was a radical reformer, with experience in the Working Men's movement of 1829 and the trade union movements of the 1830s...
. It advocated free trade, social reform, expansion southward into the territories, and support for
republican, anti-aristocraticRepublicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by means other than heredity, often elections. The exact meaning of republicanism varies depending on the cultural and historical context...
movements abroad. It became a faction in the Democratic Party in the 1850s. Sen.
Stephen A. DouglasStephen Arnold Douglas was an American politician from the western state of Illinois, and was the Northern Democratic Party nominee for President in 1860. He lost to the Republican Party's candidate, Abraham Lincoln, whom he had defeated two years earlier in a Senate contest following a famed...
promoted its nationalistic program in an unsuccessful effort to compromise sectional differences.
Perhaps
John L. O'SullivanJohn Louis O'Sullivan was an American columnist and editor who used the term "Manifest Destiny" in 1845 to promote the annexation of Texas and the Oregon Country to the United States. O'Sullivan was an influential political writer and advocate for the Democratic Party at that time, but he faded...
captured the general purpose of the Young America Movement in an 1837 editorial for the
Democratic ReviewThe United States Magazine and Democratic Review was a periodical published from 1837–1859 by John L. O'Sullivan. Its motto, "The best government is that which governs least," was famously paraphrased by Henry David Thoreau in On the Duty of Civil Disobedience.-History:In 1837, O'Sullivan...
:
Historian
Edward L. WidmerEdward Ladd Widmer is a historian, writer, and librarian, who served as a speechwriter in the later days of the Clinton White House.His parents were Eric G. Widmer and Ellen B. Widmer...
has largely placed O'Sullivan and the
Democratic Review in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
at the center of the Young America Movement. In that sense, the movement can be considered mostly urban and middle class, but with a strong emphasis on socio-political reform for all Americans, especially given the burgeoning European immigrant population (particularly
Irish-CatholicsIrish Catholic is a term used to describe people who are both Roman Catholic and Irish .Note: the term is not used to describe a variant of Catholicism. More particularly, it is not a separate creed or sect in the sense that "Anglo-Catholic", "Old Catholic", "Eastern Orthodox Catholic" might be...
) in New York in the 1840s.
Politics
Historian Yonatan Eyal argues that the 1840s and 1850s were the heyday of the faction of young Democrats that called itself "Young America." Led by Stephen Douglas,
James K. PolkJames Knox Polk was the 11th President of the United States . Polk was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He later lived in and represented Tennessee. A Democrat, Polk served as the 17th Speaker of the House of Representatives and the 12th Governor of Tennessee...
and
Franklin PierceFranklin Pierce was the 14th President of the United States and is the only President from New Hampshire. Pierce was a Democrat and a "doughface" who served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Pierce took part in the Mexican-American War and became a brigadier general in the Army...
, and New York financier
August BelmontAugust Belmont, Sr. was an American politician.-Early life:August Belmont was born in Alzey, Hesse, on December 8, 1813--some sources say 1816--to Simon and Frederika Elsass Schönberg, a Jewish family. After his mother's death, when he was seven, he lived with his uncle and grandmother in Frankfurt...
, this faction explains, broke with the agrarian and strict constructionist orthodoxies of the past and embraced commerce, technology, regulation, reform, and internationalism.
In economic policy Young America saw the necessity of a modern infrastructure with railroads, canals, telegraphs, turnpikes, and harbors; they endorsed the "
Market RevolutionThe Market Revolution in the United States was a drastic change in the manual labor system originating in south and later spread to the entire world. Traditional commerce was made obsolete by improvements in transportation and communication. This change prompted the reincarnation of the...
" and promoted capitalism. They called for Congressional land grants to the states, which allowed Democrats to claim that
internal improvementsInternal improvements is the term used historically in the United States for public works from the end of the American Revolution through much of the 19th century, mainly for the creation of a transportation infrastructure: roads, turnpikes, canals, harbors and navigation improvements...
were locally rather than federally sponsored. Young America claimed that modernization would perpetuate the agrarian vision of
Jeffersonian DemocracyJeffersonian Democracy, so named after its leading advocate Thomas Jefferson, is a term used to describe one of two dominant political outlooks and movements in the United States from the 1790s to the 1820s. The term was commonly used to refer to the Democratic-Republican Party which Jefferson...
by allowing yeomen farmers to sell their products and therefore to prosper. They tied internal improvements to free trade, while accepted moderate tariffs as a necessary source of government revenue. They supported the Independent Treasury (the Jacksonian alternative to the Second Bank of the United States) not as a scheme to quash the special privilege”of the Whiggish monied elite, but as a device to spread prosperity to all Americans.
The movement's decline by 1856 was due to unsuccessful challenges to "old fogy" leaders like
James BuchananJames Buchanan, Jr. was the 15th President of the United States . He is the only president from Pennsylvania, the only president who remained a lifelong bachelor and the last to be born in the 18th century....
, Douglas' failure to win the presidential nomination in 1852, an inability to deal with the slavery issue, and rising isolationism and disenchantment with reform in America.
Manifest Destiny
When O'Sullivan coined the term "Manifest Destiny" in an 1845 article for the
Democratic Review, he did not necessarily intend for American democracy to expand across the continent by force. In effect, the American democratic principle was to spread on its own, self-evident merits. The
American exceptionalismAmerican exceptionalism refers to the theory that the United States is qualitatively different from other countries. In this view, America's exceptionalism stems from its emergence from a revolution, becoming "the first new nation," and developing a uniquely American ideology, based on liberty,...
often attached to O'Sullivan's "Manifest Destiny" was an 1850s perversion that can be attributed to what Widmer called "Young America II." O'Sullivan even contended that American "democracy needed to expand in order to contain its ideological opponent (
aristocracyAristocracy , is a form of government in which a few elite citizens rule. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning "rule of the best". In origin in Ancient Greece, it was conceived of as rule by the best qualified citizens, and contrasted with monarchy...
)." Yet unlike Europe in the nineteenth century, America had no particular aristocratic structure against which Young America could define itself.
Culture
Aside from Young America's promotion of
Jacksonian DemocracyJacksonian democracy is the political movement toward greater democracy for the common man typified by American politician Andrew Jackson and his supporters. Jackson's policies followed the era of Jeffersonian democracy which dominated the previous political era. The Democratic-Republican Party of...
in the
Democratic Review, the movement also had a literary side. It attracted a circle of outstanding writers, including
William Cullen BryantWilliam Cullen Bryant was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post.-Youth and education:...
,
George BancroftGeorge Bancroft was an American historian and statesman who was prominent in promoting secondary education both in his home state and at the national level. During his tenure as U.S. Secretary of the Navy, he established the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1845...
,
Herman MelvilleHerman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
and
Nathaniel HawthorneNathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...
. They sought independence from European standards of high culture and wanted to demonstrate the excellence and exceptionalism of America’s own literary tradition. Other writers of the movement included
Evert Augustus DuyckinckEvert Augustus Duyckinck was an American publisher and biographer. He was associated with the literary side of the Young America movement in New York.-Life and work:...
and
Cornelius MathewsCornelius Mathews , was an American writer, best known for his crucial role in the formation of a literary group known as Young America in the late 1830s, with editor Evert Duyckinck and author William Gilmore Simms....
. It was Mathews that adapted the name for the movement. In a speech delivered June 30, 1845, he said:
One of Young America's intellectual vehicles was the literary journal
Arcturus.
Herman MelvilleHerman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
in his book
MardiMardi, and a Voyage Thither is the third book by American author Herman Melville, first published in 1849.-Overview:Mardi is Melville's first pure fiction work...
(1849) refers to it by naming a ship in the book
Arcturion and observing that it was "exceedingly dull," and that its crew had a low literary level. The
North American ReviewThe North American Review was the first literary magazine in the United States. Founded in Boston in 1815 by journalist Nathan Hale and others, it was published continuously until 1940, when publication was suspended due to J. H. Smyth, who had purchased the magazine, being unmasked as a Japanese...
referred to the movement as "at war with good taste."
Hudson River School
Apart from
literatureLiterature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, there was a distinct element of
artArt is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
associated with the Young America Movement. In the 1820s and 1830s, American artists such as Asher B. Durand and
Thomas ColeThomas Cole was an English-born American artist. He is regarded as the founder of the Hudson River School, an American art movement that flourished in the mid-19th century...
began to emerge. They were heavily influenced by
romanticismRomanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
, which resulted in numerous paintings involving the physical
landscapeLandscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of...
. But it was
William Sidney MountWilliam Sidney Mount was an American genre painter and contemporary of the Hudson River School.-Biography:...
who had connections to the writers of the
Democratic Review. And as a contemporary of the Hudson River School, he sought to use art in the promotion of the American democratic principle. O'Sullivan's cohort at the
Review, E. A. Duyckinck, was particularly "eager to launch an ancillary artistic movement" that supplemented Young America.
Young America II
In late 1851, the
Democratic Review was acquired by
George Nicholas SandersGeorge Nicholas Sanders was a former official of the United States who was believed to have some involvement in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Sanders was born in Lexington, Kentucky. His father was Lewis Sanders, and his mother was Ann Nicholas.During his early career he was involved in...
. Similar to O'Sullivan, Sanders believed in the inherent value of a literary-political relationship, whereby literature and politics could be combined and used as an instrument for socio-political progress. And although he "brought O'Sullivan back into the fold as an editor," the periodical's "
jingoismJingoism is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy. In practice, it is a country's advocation of the use of threats or actual force against other countries in order to safeguard what it perceives as its national interests...
achieved an even higher pitch than O'Sullivan's [original] dog-whistle stridency." Even Democratic
RepresentativeThe United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
J. C. Breckinridge remarked in 1852:
The change in tone and partisanship in the
Democratic Review that Breckinridge referred to was mostly a reaction by the increasingly divided Democratic Party to the growth of the Free Soil movement, which threatened to dissolve any semblance of Democratic unity that remained.
Rise of Labor Republicanism
By the mid-1850s,
Free Soil DemocratsThe Free Soil Party was a short-lived political party in the United States active in the 1848 and 1852 presidential elections, and in some state elections. It was a third party and a single-issue party that largely appealed to and drew its greatest strength from New York State. The party leadership...
(those who followed
David WilmotDavid Wilmot was a U.S. political figure. He was a sponsor and eponym of the Wilmot Proviso which aimed to ban slavery in land gained from Mexico in the Mexican-American War of 1846–1848. Wilmot was a Democrat, a Free Soiler, and a Republican during his political career...
and his
ProvisoThe Wilmot Proviso, one of the major events leading to the Civil War, would have banned slavery in any territory to be acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War or in the future, including the area later known as the Mexican Cession, but which some proponents construed to also include the disputed...
) and
anti-slavery WhigsThe "Conscience" Whigs were a faction of the Whig Party in the state of Massachusetts noted for their moral opposition to slavery. They were noted as opponents of the more conservative "Cotton" Whigs who dominated the state party, led by such figures as Edward Everett, Robert C...
had combined to form the
Republican PartyThe United States Republican Party is the second oldest currently existing political party in the United States after its great rival, the Democratic Party. It emerged in 1854 to combat the Kansas Nebraska Act which threatened to extend slavery into the territories, and to promote more vigorous...
. Young America's New York Democrats who opposed slavery saw an opportunity to express their
abolitionistAbolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
sentiments. As a result,
Horace GreeleyHorace Greeley was an American newspaper editor, a founder of the Liberal Republican Party, a reformer, a politician, and an outspoken opponent of slavery...
's
New York TribuneThe New York Tribune was an American newspaper, first established by Horace Greeley in 1841, which was long considered one of the leading newspapers in the United States...
began to replace the
Democratic Review as the central outlet for Young America's ever-evolving politics. In fact, Greeley's
Tribune became a major advocate of not only abolition, but also of land and labor reform.
The combined cause of land and labor reform was perhaps best exemplified by
George Henry EvansBorn in England, George H Evans was a radical reformer, with experience in the Working Men's movement of 1829 and the trade union movements of the 1830s...
' National Reform Association (NRA). In 1846, Evans stated: Eventually, former members of the radical
LocofocoThe Locofocos were a radical faction of the Democratic Party that existed from 1835 until the mid-1840s. The faction was originally named the Equal Rights Party, and was created in New York City as a protest against that city’s regular Democratic organization . It contained a mixture of...
faction in the Democratic Party recognized the potential for reorganizing New York City's labor system around principles such as the
common goodThe common good is a term that can refer to several different concepts. In the popular meaning, the common good describes a specific "good" that is shared and beneficial for all members of a given community...
.
See also
- Locofocos
The Locofocos were a radical faction of the Democratic Party that existed from 1835 until the mid-1840s. The faction was originally named the Equal Rights Party, and was created in New York City as a protest against that city’s regular Democratic organization . It contained a mixture of...
- Wilmot Proviso
The Wilmot Proviso, one of the major events leading to the Civil War, would have banned slavery in any territory to be acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War or in the future, including the area later known as the Mexican Cession, but which some proponents construed to also include the disputed...
- Popular Sovereignty
The American Revolution marked a departure in the concept of popular sovereignty as it had been discussed and employed in the European historical context. With their Revolution, Americans substituted the sovereignty in the person of the English king, George III, with a collective sovereign—composed...
- David Dudley Field II
- Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
- Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
Further reading
- Danbom, David B. "The Young America Movement," Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Sept 1974, Vol. 67 Issue 3, pp 294-306
- Eyal, Yonatan. The Young America Movement and the Transformation of the Democratic Party 1828-1861. (2007) Cambridge University Press.
- Eyal, Yonatan. "Trade and Improvements: Young America and the Transformation of the Democratic Party," Civil War History, Sept 2005, Vol. 51 Issue 3, pp 245-268
- Lause, Mark A. Young America: Land, Labor, and the Republican Community. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2005.
- Varon, Elizabeth R. "Balancing Act: Young America'S Struggle to Revive the Old Democracy," Reviews in American History, March 2009, Vol. 37 Issue 1, pp 42-48
- Widmer, Edward L. Young America: The Flowering of Democracy in New York City. (1999) ISBN 0-19-514062-1