Politics of race in a free and a slave society: Free black issues in the legislatures of Antebellum Ohio and Tennessee

Abstract

Scope and Method of Study: An examination of legislative proceedings and roll-call voting behavior on free black issues in the antebellum general assemblies of Ohio and Tennessee.

Findings and Conclusions: Historians disagree as to whether two-party politics provides compelling evidence that a white consensus prevailed in antebellum America which elevated common ideological racist convictions to the foremost imperative in the public forum. This study indicates political behaviors show the relationship between free black issues and two-party alignments was rather unstable, especially prior to mid-century. Hence, modal theories emphasizing either broad bipartisanship or vigorous two-party conflict each seemingly have limited value as explanatory devices. One instead must seek such evidence in the realm of thought or in what parties did not do rather than in what they did. Generally speaking, however, the argument for bipartisanship has greater applicability in the period of early party formation prior to the mid-1830s, although among Tennessee legislators this pattern endured more prominently. The case for two-party conflict, alternatively increasingly fits the Ohio scenario better. As a rule of thumb, however, the major parties in both states--while often in agreement on particular policy options--perennially bickered on specifics or fragmented internally on a host of collateral considerations. Nor was the trajectory of legal reform parallel across state lines. Simply put, while Democrats typically acted in more racist fashion than did their party foes, it is not clear that systematic institutionalization of white supremacy stood at the apex of their overall agenda on most occasions. At the same time the gap between party responses to free black roll calls also indicates notions of bipartisan agreement require heavy qualification and nuance. While the so-called "Negro Question" did become increasingly more salient in political discourse and more closely integrated into party warfare over time, it rarely proved the primary fulcrum upon which antebellum two-party politics normatively turned, especially compared to various economic and cultural issues which vied for issue space in the public forum.