Young America movement
The Young America Movement was an American political, cultural and
John L. O'Sullivan described the general purpose of the Young America Movement in an 1837 editorial for the Democratic Review:
All history is to be re-written; political science and the whole scope of all moral truth have to be considered and illustrated in the light of the democratic principle. All old subjects of thought and all new questions arising, connected more or less directly with human existence, have to be taken up again and re-examined.[1]
Historian
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
In economic policy Young America saw the necessity of a modern infrastructure of railroads, canals, telegraphs, turnpikes, and harbors; they endorsed the "
The movement's decline by 1856 was due to unsuccessful challenges to "old fogy" leaders like James Buchanan, to Douglas' failure to win the presidential nomination in 1852, to an inability to deal with the slavery issue, and to rising isolationism and disenchantment with reform in America.[4]
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 exceptionalism often attached to O'Sullivan's "Manifest Destiny" was an 1850s perversion that can be attributed to what Widmer called "Young America II".[5] O'Sullivan even contended that American "democracy needed to expand in order to contain its ideological opponent (aristocracy)".[6] Unlike Europe, America had no aristocratic system or nobility against which Young America could define itself.[7]
Literature
Aside from Young America's promotion of
Whatever that past generation of statesmen, law-givers and writers was capable of, we know. What they attained, what they failed to attain, we also know. Our duty and our destiny is another from theirs. Liking not at all its borrowed sound, we are yet (there is no better way to name it,) the Young America of the people: a new generation; and it is for us now to inquire, what we may have it in our power to accomplish, and on what objects the world may reasonably ask that we should fix our regards.[9]
One of Young America's intellectual vehicles was the literary journal Arcturus. Herman Melville in his book Mardi (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.[10] The North American Review referred to the movement as "at war with good taste".[11]
Hudson River School
Apart from literature, there was a distinct element of art associated with the Young America Movement. In the 1820s and 1830s, American artists such as
Young America II
In late 1851, the Democratic Review was acquired by George Nicholas Sanders. 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. Although he "brought O'Sullivan back into the fold as an editor", the periodical's "jingoism achieved an even higher pitch than O'Sullivan's [original] dog-whistle stridency".[13] Even Democratic Representative John C. Breckinridge remarked in 1852:
The Democratic Review has been heretofore not a partisan paper, but a periodical that was supposed to represent the whole Democratic Party ... I have observed recently a very great change.[14]
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,
The combined cause of land and labor reform was perhaps best exemplified by George Henry Evans' National Reform Association (NRA). In 1846, Evans stated:
National Reformers did not consider the Freedom of the Soil a
labor.[16]
Eventually, former members of the radical Locofoco faction in the Democratic Party recognized the potential for reorganizing New York City's labor system around principles such as the common good.[17] In contrast to the Europe in the days of the 1848 revolutions, America had no aristocratic establishment against which Young America could define itself in protest.[18]
See also
Citations
- ^ Widmer, p. 3.
- ^ Yonatan Eyal, The Young America Movement and the Transformation of the Democratic Party, 1828–1861, (2007)
- ^ Eyal, The Young America Movement and the Transformation of the Democratic Party, 1828–1861, p. 79
- ^ David B. Danbom, "The Young America Movement," Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Sept 1974, Vol. 67 Issue 3, pp. 294–306
- ^ Widmer, p. 189.
- ^ Widmer, p. 217.
- ISBN 978-0-19-156827-5.
- OCLC 460118260.
- ^ Widmer, p. 57.
- ^ Andrew Delbanco, Melville, His World and Work. (2005) p. 93.
- ^ Widmer, p. 110.
- ^ Widmer, p. 126. Many elements of the Hudson River School were closely aligned with the Whig party as well. And while some Hudson River School artists celebrated the use of property and the upward trajectory of civilization, others, like Thomas Cole had concern over the course of democracy. See, e.g., Alfred L. Brophy, Property and Progress; Antebellum Landscape Art and Property Law, McGeorge Law Review 40 (2009): 601.
- ^ Widmer, p. 189.
- ^ Widmer, p. 189.
- ^ Lause, pp. 118–19.
- ^ Lause, p. 35.
- ^ Lause, p. 119.
- ISBN 9780847678426.
Cited sources
- Danbom, David B. (September 1974). "The Young America Movement", Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. Vol. 67, Issue 3, pp. 294–306.
- Eyal, Yonatan. (2007). The Young America Movement and the Transformation of the Democratic Party 1828–1861. ISBN 9781139466691Cambridge University Press.
- Lause, Mark A. (2005). Young America: Land, Labor, and the Republican Community. (University of Illinois Press) online.
- Widmer, Edward L. (1999). Young America: The Flowering of Democracy in New York City New York: Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-514062-1. online copy
Further reading
- Curti, Merle E. "Young America." American Historical Review 32.1 (1926): 34-55. online
- Eyal, Yonatan (September 2005). "Trade and Improvements: Young America and the Transformation of the Democratic Party". Civil War History. 51#3, pp. 245–68. .
- Ryan, James Emmett. "Orestes Brownson in Young America: popular books and the fate of Catholic criticism." American Literary History 15.3 (2003): 443-470 online.
- Smith, Mark Power. Young America: The Transformation of Nationalism before the Civil War (University of Virginia Press, 2022). online
- Stafford, John. The Literary Criticism of "Young America": A Study in the Relationship of Politics and Literature 1837-1850 (U of California Press, 1952) online copy of the book; see also online book review.
- Varon, Elizabeth R. (March 2009). "Review: Balancing Act: Young America's Struggle to Revive the Old Democracy". Reviews in American History. Vol. 37, Issue 1, pp. 42–48. JSTOR 40210980.