Please note that some of the links referenced throughout this work may no longer be active.
ABBREVIATIONS
BBFFP |
Benjamin Brown French Family Papers, Library of Congress |
DOP |
David Outlaw Papers, UNC |
GPO |
Government Printing Office |
JER |
Journal of the Early Republic |
LC |
Library of Congress |
LSU |
Louisiana State University |
MHS |
Massachusetts Historical Society |
NHHS |
New Hampshire Historical Society |
NYPL |
New York Public Library |
NYT |
The New York Times |
UNC |
University of North Carolina |
UVA |
University of Virginia |
AUTHOR’S NOTE
1. Tim Alberta, “John Boehner Unchained,” Politico, November–December 2017, www
2. On the sweeping cultural and political impact of collapsing political structures in the 1850s, see John L. Brooke, “Party, Nation, and Cultural Rupture: The Crisis of the American Civil War,” in Practicing Democracy: Popular Politics in the United States from the Constitution to the Civil War, ed. Daniel Pearl and Adam I. P. Smith (Charlottesville: UVA Press, 2015). Selinger argues that a permanent settled two-party system provided an alternative to violence. Jeffrey S. Selinger, Embracing Dissent: Political Violence and Party Development in the United States (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2016).
3. This book begins in the 1830s because violence took an upswing in that decade. The congressional record supports this observation; 40 percent of all recorded breaches of comity between 1789 and 1956 took place between 1831 and 1860. Eric M. Uslaner, The Decline of Comity in Congress (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1993), 40. This shift was partly a product of the rise of the divisiveness of the Second Party System, partly a product of the ongoing slavery crisis, and partly due to the expanding growth and reach of the press. Close study of both the Globe and congressional correspondence shows growing interest in the exposure and impact of the press beginning in that decade. Also note: the Register of Debates in Congress began in 1824, the Congressional Globe began in 1833, and the Annals of Congress began in 1834. Mildred L. Amer, “The Congressional Record: Content, History and Issues,” January 14, 1993, CRS Report for Congress (93–60 GOV). For a handy look at the burst of new newspapers in the 1830s and 1840s, see Judith R. Blau and Cheryl Elman, “The Institutionalization of U.S. Political Parties: Patronage Newspapers,” Sociological Inquiry (Fall 2002): 576–99, figure on 590.
4. The phenomenon is sometimes called “Fenno’s Paradox.” Richard F. Fenno, “If, as Ralph Nader Says, Congress Is the ‘Broken Branch,’ How Come We Love Our Congressmen So Much?,” in Congress in Change: Evolution and Reform, ed. Norman J. Ornstein (New York: Praeger, 1979); idem., Home Style: House Members in Their Districts (Boston: Little, Brown, 1978).
5. On the importance of institutional trust to the functioning of government, see Josh Chafetz, Congress’s Constitution: Legislative Authority and the Separation of Powers (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), esp. chapter 1.
6. On competing ideas of “exclusionary nationalism,” see Michael E. Woods, “What Twenty-first Century Historians Have Said about the Causes of Disunion: A Civil War Sesquicentennial Review of the Recent Literature,” JAH (September 2012): 415–39, quote on 427; Robert E. Bonner, Mastering America: Southern Slaveholders and the Crisis of American Nationhood (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Bonner notes that Southerners were true to national values in joining slavery with nationalism; slavery had been baked into America’s national identity since the founding. On Americanism, un-Americanism, and conflicting views of American democracy, see Shearer Davis Bowman, At the Precipice: Americans North and South During the Secession Crisis (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2010); Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (New York: Norton, 2005).
7. For the 1874 memorandum, see Simon Cameron Papers, LC. The three men were probably inspired to write their statement by the recent failure of a bill promoting black civil rights. In the final tally, only 45 of 79 senators voted; neither Chandler nor Cameron voted, because their constituents wanted them to vote against it. William Gillette, Retreat from Reconstruction, 1869–1879 (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1982), 193–94, 204–207; Journal of the Senate of the USA, 43rd Cong., 1st Sess., May 22, 1874, vol. 69, 605–609.
8. The three men each put a copy of the statement in their confidential papers for future eyes to read. For passing references to the statement, see Albert T. Vollweiler, “The Nature of Life in Congress (1850–1861),” Quarterly Journal of the University of North Dakota 6, no. 1 (October 1915), 145–58; Wilmer C. Harris, The Public Life of Zachariah Chandler, 1851–1875 (Lansing: Michigan Historical Publications, 1917), 48; Lately Thomas, The First President Johnson: The Three Lives of the Seventeenth President of the United States of America (New York: William Morrow, 1968), 126; William Parker, The Life and Public Services of Justin Smith Morrill (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1924), 92; Albert Gallatin Riddle, Life of Benjamin Franklin Wade (Cleveland: Williams, 1888), 250–51; Arthur Tappan Pierson, Zachariah Chandler: An Outline Sketch of His Life and Public Services (Detroit: Post and Tribune, 1880), 146; Hans L. Trefousse, The Radical Republicans: Lincoln’s Vanguard for Racial Justice (New York: Knopf, 1969), 116–17; Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 146.
9. See esp. Norman Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann, The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), which argues that the spurning of norms and a lack of respect for the institution of Congress from congressmen themselves, dating back to the 1990s—including the disappearance of oversight, indifference to reform, the weakening of institutional identity, tolerance of executive secrecy, and the so-called nuclear option—have contributed to Congress’s decline. See also Juliet Eilperin, Fight Club Politics: How Partisanship Is Poisoning the House of Representatives (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006); Burdett A. Loomis, ed., Esteemed Colleagues: Civility and Deliberation in the U.S. Senate (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2000); Sunil Ahuja, Congress Behaving Badly: The Rise of Partisanship and Incivility and the Death of Public Trust (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2008); Uslaner, Decline of Comity in Congress.