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"Jacksonians" And Nationalism

Perhaps I was not clear in my earlier post, but I seem to have given the impression that I think that Southerners never supported foreign wars and were never involved in the development of American nationalism.  Very plainly, I don’t think that, and based on what I have written before about nationalism, expansionism and expansionist wars I […]

Perhaps I was not clear in my earlier post, but I seem to have given the impression that I think that Southerners never supported foreign wars and were never involved in the development of American nationalism.  Very plainly, I don’t think that, and based on what I have written before about nationalism, expansionism and expansionist wars I couldn’t possibly think that.  The Democratic-Republicans and the Southern Democracy were ardently expansionistic, as everyone knows, Calhoun was a War Hawk in 1812, support for the Mexican war was heavily concentrated in the South and the war was perceived as a war for the interests of the slave states.  Expansion was very much a Democratic and particularly a Southern Democratic project, it was a case of nationalist enthusiasm, and it paved the way for the consolidation that came later.  As for the nationalism of Southerners, Jackson opposed nullification and Taylor was a fierce opponent of any suggestion of disunion.  There was, however, still some significant difference between this kind of Unionism rightly called and the consolidated nationalism of the people who came later, but they are both examples of American nationalism coming at the expense of regional or sectional loyalties.  With respect to foreign policy, we also cannot ignore the cross-cutting effects of party and region.  The people in any given region may oppose a particular policy or entry into a particular war, but if their representatives belong to the party of the President they are likely to fall in line with the White House. 

The extent to which “Jacksonians” were and are nationalists is the extent to which they have also embraced basic democratic myths about the identity of the people with “their” government, and the extent to which they closely identify country and government, but typically it has not been Jacksonians who have embarked on foreign wars in the 20th and 21st centuries.  In large part, this is because Jacksonians were not the ones who dominated in the political or foreign policy establishments.  That does not mean that they are antiwar as such, but it does mean that they are not the driving force behind American involvement in war.  Further, I would say that the Jacksonians are the classic case of Americans who feel strong patriotic attachments to their country and their homes and then have these natural affinities turned towards abstract nationalist goals.

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