Liberty Chronicles

In the Winter of 1837-1838, New York’s “Locofoco” or  Equal Rights Party tidily collapsed back into Martin Van Buren’s Democratic Party. It was the first libertarian movement in American history, and they’d fought a two-year political war against Tammany Hall to control the state and national party. In most ways, they were successful. But actually, 1840 was their year—their chance to permanently change America. It might just be the most important election year ever, and 178 years later, I’d say it still is.

Comegna, “The Dupes of Hope, Forever:” The Loco-Foco or Equal Rights Movement, 1820s-1870s. (PhD Dissertation: University of Pittsburgh). 2016.

Curtis, James C. The Fox at Bay: Martin Van Buren and the Presidency, 1837-1841. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. 1970.

Silbey, Joel. Martin Van Buren and the Emergence of American Popular Politics. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2002.

Widmer, Edward. Martin Van Buren. New York: Times Books. 2005.

Music by Kai Engel

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Abram D. Smith is a forgotten figure in American history. Smith was born in either Lowville or Cambridge, upstate New York, in 1811, just before the post-war boom years of rapid social and economic change. As a young man, he experienced and contributed to a wave of nationalistic romanticism, enraptured with the wonders of American republicanism and democracy.  He was in these regards fairly unremarkable, and yet in September 1838, probably in some Ohio forest, surrounded by blazing torchlight, a circle of revolutionary conspirators called the Brother Hunters elected Abram D. Smith—Mr. Average American—to be President of the Republic of Canada.  

“Abram D. Smith: Nullification,” on Classics of Liberty

Bonthius, Andrew. “The Patriot War of 1837-1838: Locofocoism With a Gun?” Labour/Le Travail 52 (Fall 2003), 9-43.

Dunley, Ruth. “A.D. Smith: Knight-Errant of Radical Democracy,” (PhD Diss.). The University of Ottowa. 2008.

Kinchen, Oscar. The Rise and Fall of the Patriot Hunters. New York: Bookman Associates. 1956.

James Gemmel, “Two Years in Van Dieman’s Land”

Benjamin Wait, Letters from Van Dieman’s Land

Music by Kai Engel

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The Young Americans were New York’s next generation of artists, intellectuals, and activists, and reformers, many of whom were inspired by the Loco-Foco movement, which challenged Tammany Hall for supremacy in the Democratic Party from 1835 to 1837. Their philosophies generally came from the great classical liberals, radicals like Tom Paine and William Leggett, equal in stature to most Young Americans, and they shared a deep faith in America’s world historical destiny. A Young American might have been in either party, but their philosophy [00:03:00] was almost always some strain of Loco-Focoism.

Comegna, “Art as Ideas: Thomas Cole’s The Course of Empire” and “The Artist as Exemplar: Thomas Cole’s The Voyage of Life”

John L. O’Sullivan, “The Great Nation of Futurity”

Tymn, Marshall, ed. Thomas Cole’s Poetry: The Collected Poems of America’s Foremost Painter of the Hudson River School Reflecting His Feelings for Nature and the Romantic Spirit of the Nineteenth Century. York, PA: Liberty Cap Books. 1972.

Walt Whitman’s “Democratic Vistas”

Widmer, Edward. Young America: The Flowering of Democracy in New York City. New York: Oxford University Press. 1999.

Music by Kai Engel

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During the painful Panic Winter of 1837, America’s first identifiably libertarian political party neared the end of its short life. After the February flour riots and facing nothing but dire circumstances, movement faithful gradually peeled away from the party.

Byrdsall, Fitzwilliam. The History of the Loco-Foco or Equal Rights Party: Its Movements, Conventions, and Proceedings with Short Characteristic Sketches of Its Prominent Men. New York: Burt Franklin. 1967.

Curtis, James C. The Fox at Bay: Martin Van Buren and the Presidency, 1837-1841. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. 1970.

Hugins, Walter. Jacksonian Democracy and the Working Class: A Study of the New York Workingmen’s Movement, 1829-1837. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 1960.

Lepler, Jessica M. The Many Panics of 1837: People, Politics, and the Creation of a Transatlantic Financial Crisis. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2013.

Roberts, Alasdair. America’s First Great Depression: Economic Crisis and Political Disorder After the Panic of 1837. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 2012.

Music by Kai Engel

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On 11 and 20 of January, 1836, the Equal Rights Democrats renounced all connections with Tammany and passed resolutions calling for ward me tings and delegate elections to a county convention.  Delegates assembled on 9 February in the Eighth Ward. Moses Jacques served as President and wrote the “Declaration of principles.” He was history embodied.  Moses’ father was a colonel in the New Jersey militia during the Revolution.

Bridges, Amy. A City in the Republic: Antebellum New York and the Origins of Machine Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1984.

Byrdsall, Fitzwilliam. The History of the Loco-Foco or Equal Rights Party: Its Movements, Conventions, and Proceedings with Short Characteristic Sketches of Its Prominent Men. New York: Burt Franklin. 1967.

Hugins, Walter. Jacksonian Democracy and the Working Class: A Study of the New York Workingmen’s Movement, 1829-1837. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 1960.

Lepler, Jessica M. The Many Panics of 1837: People, Politics, and the Creation of a Transatlantic Financial Crisis. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2013.

Music by Kai Engel

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The conspirators fully expected Tammany regulars would play whatever dirty tricks necessary to maintain control over the convention.  Each conspirator attended the meeting with pockets full of “Loco Foco” matches and candles. They were a new invention, friction candles ignited by striking the match tip against a surface. Locofoco supposedly entered the American lexicon as a bastardization of the Italian words for moving fire. And these people were definitely fireballs set into motion.

Ashworth, John. “Agrarians & Aristocrats:” Party Political Ideology in the United States, 1837-1846. London: Royal Historical Society. 1983.

Byrdsall, Fitzwilliam. The History of the Loco-Foco or Equal Rights Party: Its Movements, Conventions, and Proceedings with Short Characteristic Sketches of Its Prominent Men. New York: Burt Franklin. 1967.

Hugins, Walter. Jacksonian Democracy and the Working Class: A Study of the New York Workingmen’s Movement, 1829-1837. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 1960.

Lause, Mark. Young America: Land, Labor, and the Republican Community. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. 2005.

Music by Kai Engel

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Last week we explored the life and ideas of William Leggett—the founding father of America’s first identifiably libertarian movement. This week we begin with his attack on censorship as a gross abuse of government power, a sure sign that freedom was dying.

Earle, Jonathan. Jacksonian Antislavery & the Politics of Free Soil, 1824-1854. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 2004.

Grimstead, David. American Mobbing, 1828-1861: Toward Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press. 1998.

Sedgwick, Theodore III. A Collection of the Political Writings of William Leggett (2 Volumes). New York: Taylor & Dodd. 1840.

White, Lawrence, ed. Democratick Editorials: Essays in Jacksonian Political Economy. Indianapolis: Liberty Press. 1984.

Music by Kai Engel

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Somewhere during the course of his tour—somewhere in the Mediterranean—William Leggett developed a “life-long hatred of authority,” a libertarian spirit within him that revolted against power wherever it existed, wherever people attempted to constrict the liberty of others. Historians tell us the 1820s, 30s, and 40s was the Jacksonian Era, but this week and next we will follow Walt Whitman in declaring this “The Age of Leggett.”

Leggett, William. Leisure Hours at Sea: Being a Few Miscellaneous Poems, by a Midshipman of the United States Navy. New York: G.C. Morgon and E. Bliss & E. White. 1825.

Sedgwick, Theodore III. A Collection of the Political Writings of William Leggett (2 Volumes). New York: Taylor & Dodd. 1840.

White, Lawrence, ed. Democratick Editorials: Essays in Jacksonian Political Economy. Indianapolis: Liberty Press. 1984.

Worton, Stanley. “William Leggett, Political Journalist (1801-1839): A Study in Democratic Thought.” (PhD Dissertation): Columbia University. Columbia University Press. 1954.

Music by Kai Engel

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Nine Masons signed the Declaration of Independence, 13 helped draft and ratify the Constitution, George Washington and James Monroe were Masons, and for that matter so was Andrew Jackson. So was Henry Clay! Even the South American Washington, Simon Bolivar, was a Mason.  All four of Napoleon’s brothers joined Edmund Burke, Robert Burns, Lord Byron, Voltaire, Ben Franklin, and innumerable other important artists, philosophers, and scientists in the fraternity.

Elder David Bernard, ed. Light on Masonry, Utica, NY: William Williams, 1829.

Hugins, Walter. Jacksonian Democracy and the Working Class: A Study of the New York Workingmen’s Movement, 1829-1837. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 1960.

Pessen, Edward. Jacksonian America: Society, Personality, and Politics. Homewood, Illinois: The Dorsey Press. 1969.

Wilentz, Sean. Chants Democratic: New York City & the Rise of the American Working Class, 1768-1850. New York: Oxford University Press. 1984.

Music by Kai Engel

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While the two parties gripped one another in mock mortal combat, struggling for votes more than for principles, some precious few Americans remained unimpressed. In corners all over the country, people saw through the myth making and the gamesmanship. Put frankly, American democracy was a sham and the evolving two parties were vast conspiracies against the public’s liberty, security, and well-being.

Clay’s “American System” Speeches

Kohl, Lawrence. The Politics of Individualism: Parties and the American Character in the Jacksonian Era. New York: Oxford University Press. 1989.

Pessen, Edward. Jacksonian America: Society, Personality, and Politics. Homewood, Illinois: The Dorsey Press. 1969.

Music by Kai Engel

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