Lessons from the 36th Congress on Party Rigidity Today
The air in Washington stinks these days and I am not referring to the springtime heat that stirs up the swampy odours of the Potomac. My favourite animated eight-year old, Lisa Simpson, sums up my sentiments perfectly: “The city of Washington was built on a stagnant swamp some 200 years ago, and very little has changed. It stank then, and it stinks now.” The stench that Lisa and I refer to clings to the political environment. It does not emanate from the bog, but rather from the halls of the nation’s governing institutions. In particular, partisan conformity continually plagues the national political clime. Americans in 2010 are experiencing inflexible expectations of who can belong to what party. One hundred and fifty years ago, politicians experienced the similar forces of compulsory partisan compliance.
In the 36th Congress (1858-1860), Republicans and Democrats were engaged in a struggle between partisan dogmas. The issue of the day was the expansion of slavery into the unorganized national territories. Unlike today, one man bravely stood above party lines. Eli Thayer, a Republican Congressman from Massachusetts’ Ninth Congressional District, sacrificed his political career by refusing to conform to party demands. For promoting his convictions, Thayer contributed to his own political demise. He was warned by the Republicans to keep quiet. Defiantly Thayer met his opponents on the floors of Congress. The machinations of party control became too much for Thayer. According to him, the nation, not the party came first.
On May 10, 1860, Thayer rose in Congress to deliver a little known but powerful address. As the Chairman of the Committee on Public Lands, Thayer was influential in determining the procedures for the organization of the nation’s unorganized territories. The central concern of all politicians regarding territorial organization during this time was either the sanctioned extension of slavery into the territories or the explicit prohibition of slavery from the territories altogether. The debate was extremely nuanced. Eli Thayer held a firm position. Only the settlers of the territories had the authority to decide how that territory should be organized. Only when these people were free from the interference of politicians, political parties and sectional antagonists could they adequately govern themselves. As an anti-politician, Thayer placed the impetus of national progress upon the nation’s people, not their elected representatives and certainly not on the political parties.
Eli Thayer rose to national prominence through his efforts in organized emigration into the unorganized territory of Kansas. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 opened Kansas for settlements. The Act stipulated that the territory would be organized by popular sovereignty. That is, the settlers decided by vote whether the territory would allow or ban slavery. Thayer saw this as an opportunity for the people of the North to affect the progress of the nation. Northern politicians acquiesced in the face of conflict, turning their backs on the constituents argued Thayer. His hope was that the people of the North would go into Kansas, secure it for freedom, and all without the aid of one Northern Congressman.
Upon the opening of Kansas to settlement, Thayer created the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Society (later to become the New England Emigrant Aid Society). This company provided reduced travel fares to Kansas, and erected the cities of Lawrence, Manhattan and Topeka to provide settlers with a familiar atmosphere upon their arrival in a foreign land. It also financed economic projects from these cities. The stability provided by Thayer’s emigration corporation fostered economic prosperity, which in turn attracted more settlers from the North. More settlers meant more numbers for anti-slavery advocates in Kansas. Superiority in numbers translated into a dominance of the polls. This overwhelming Northern emigrant population secured Kansas despite active interference from pro-slavery agitators to mitigate their majority. The activities of Thayer’s company were in no small part responsible for Kansas’s admittance as a free state in 1861.
Thayer believed that only the settlers of the territories had constitutional authority to organize their territory for entrance into the Union. His actions in Kansas proved that Southern pro-slavery forces could not match an organized Northern anti-slavery response in the territories. Republicans on the other hand believed that Congress held this authority. As a newly emerging national party, the Republicans were committed to the containment and eventual dissolution of slavery within the Union. Now that they had a plurality in the House, Republicans in the 36th Congress sought to ban permanently the extension of slavery into the territories. The days of compromise were over.
What made Thayer’s support of popular sovereignty so repulsive to Republicans was that it represented an olive branch to the Democratic Party. After all, Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas formulated the doctrine. Thayer sought to establish permanently popular sovereignty as the organizing principle of the territories. This would satisfy Democrats, as it was their principle. Practically, Thayer believed that popular sovereignty favoured the Republicans. After all, had it not guaranteed Kansas for freedom? Furthermore, slavery did not establish itself in the other territories (New Mexico and Utah) even with explicit legislation that protected its existence. Thayer proposed that organized Northern efforts of emigration would flood these territories with Northern settlers similar to the Kansas experience. Thayer effectively presented a practical solution to an ideological conflict. Both sides would have benefitted over this compromise. Republicans would rescind an ideological tenet to gain tangible victories. Democrats, on the other hand, would be satisfied that Congress could not forcibly legislate against the slaver in the territories. Unfortunately, party conformity triumphed over this potential compromise.
Thayer wished to contain slavery as much as his Republican brethren did, but they fundamentally disagreed over how to contain slavery. Even though Thayer was popular amongst the Northern populace, had many influential Republicans who supported his beliefs and had an amiable solution to a sectional and ideological conflict, he was removed from the Republican Party. Five hundred national Republicans signed a petition urging his immediate ejection. The Republican Party effectively silenced Thayer. His views hurt the party, never mind that they might have calmed sectional hostilities by blunting an ideological feud between the North and the South. In the 36th Congress, Party conformity mattered more than the welfare of the Union.
In 1860, the nation was tearing at the seams. The men who tried to mend it had to do so within rigid party environments. Nobody was willing to compromise. Those who attempted to were pushed to the margins. Eli Thayer was one of these men. No one can say with any certainty how successful his policies may have been in deterring the outbreak of Civil War. However, it is clear that without a healthy dialog between and within political parties, men of talent with compromising ideas are not allowed a seat at the table. You must be on one side or the other. Those who straddle in between are muffled, silenced or worse yet, ignored.
Fast-forward to 2010 and the current state of affairs in Washington. We are recreating the 36th Congress in the 111th. Partisan conformity reigns supreme in the hall of Congress today. Look back to March 23, 2010 when President Obama passed the largest health care reform into law. Zero Republicans voted for this bill! Am I to believe that not one Republican endorses some measure within the bill? It is laughable to suppose that such a diverse constituency would unanimously support the mantra set by the leader of the party. Dissent fosters conversation, negotiation and compromise. When dissent is suppressed, the result is an inflexible environment where compromise is unwelcome. Republicans in the 111th Congress remind me of their brothers from the 36th.
Who will be 2010’s version of Eli Thayer? Is there a man or woman with the courage to place the nation before the party? Politicians used to believe in something larger than the party. Eli Thayer demonstrated this in the 36th Congress. American’s thirst for another politician who will echo Thayer’s proclamation: “With me, neither party ties nor party discipline have any authority, or respectability, when they come in contact with truth and justice.” Hopefully, we will not be left in the dry for too much longer.