Customer Reviews

DEMOCRACY & SLAVERY IN FRONTIER ILLINOIS: THE BOTTOMLAND REPUBLIC

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It was during the 1820s that Illinois experienced one of the earliest and most important battles between the slavery and anti-slavery forces that unleashed riots, arson, and mob violence across the state -- and that would eventually culminate in the American Civil War. James Simeone's supports his contention that the contest over slavery in Illinois prefigured the course of national politics that would lead to four racking years of war with meticulous and scholarly research, revealing and documenting the complexity of the slave problem in fragile American republic. In attempting to bring slavery to a free state, white migrants from southern states hoped to create a "Bottomland Republic" of free and equal white yeoman farmers who could own slaves on the basis of popular sovereignty. Abolitionists allied themselves with the governing class of "aristocrats" against the upstart, pro-slavery migrants in a struggle that would alter the state's political culture and foreshadow the Democratic-Whig cleavage in antebellum politics. Democracy And Slavery In Frontier Illinois: The Bottomland Republic is an impressive and very welcome contribution to 19th century American history in general, and the neophyte struggles between pro- and anti-slavery forces on the Midwestern frontier in particular.

James Simeone's fine history describes events, issues, and key people involved in whether to call a constitutional convention in Illinois in 1824. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 prohibited slavery and the first Illinois Constitution (1818) did not alter the law. By 1824 the "white folks", as the poor upland southerners called themselves, wanted to make Illinois a slave state. The call for a convention was defeated by a vote of 6,640 to 4,972 on on August 2, 1824. The "big folks" saved Illinois for the Union.

The Missouri Compromise of 1820 allowed Missouri to become a slave state, and "white folks" believed they could compete economically with Missouri only by importing slaves into the fertile bottomlands in the southern part of Illinois. Professor Simeone argues that the "white folks" wanted slavery at least short term. They needed slaves "to ease the present labor shortage, to protect the commonalty, to enhance the status of the poor whites and, most essentially, to do the extremely difficult work of clearing the bottomlands to make agriculture possible."

The battle was bloody. 13 persons of a total population of 55,000 were killed during the period. "As conventionist battled non-conventionist, mobs, murders, and effigy burning became common occurrences and the sense of foreboding spread. Under these crisis conditions, the state's new politics struggled to get organized."

Simeone discusses many of the people involved in the battle and also discusses the role that religion and preachers played. Milk-and-cider Arminians (salvation by works) and Cumberland, Methodist and Presbyterian clergy were opposed to the Convention. Most whole-hog Calvinists (salvation by grace) and the largest religious group, the Regular Baptists, favored the Convention. Baptists hymns "signal(ed] God's special interest in the poor white folks."

Simeone's basic theme is that "an egalitarian social revolution motivated the reorganization of Illinois politics." Settlers came to Illinois for a better life and to escape the social strictures in the East. "White folks were concerned only with the rights and status of one class, race, and gender: poor white males."

After the defeat of the Convention, Simeone traces the development of the Democrat and the Whig parties brought about by "the clash of cultural styles and the redefinition of economic interests." He argues that in Illinois "the cultural division between Democrats and Whigs [was symbolized by the] dispute between the white folks and the big folks over the Convention."

The history of this battle is complex, with many players and themes, but Professor Simeone makes the story come alive, a harbinger of the Civil War and a much bigger stage.

Robert C. Ross 2008