Reviewed by Liam Riordan | Book Review | The William and Mary Quarterly, 62.3

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Reviewed by Liam Riordan | Book Review | The William and Mary Quarterly, 62.3 | The History Cooperative

Reviews of Books

Liam Riordan, University of Maine

Crucible of American Democracy: The Struggle to Fuse Egalitarianism & Capitalism in Jeffersonian Pennsylvania. By Andrew Shankman. American Political Thought. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004. 310 pages. $34.95 (cloth).
Illuminating the internecine conflict among Pennsylvania Jeffersonians in the first two decades of the nineteenth century, Andrew Shankman's study offers an original and insightful examination of perennial themes in revolutionary-era scholarship, especially debates about the relationship between republicanism and liberalism, the transition to capitalism, and their intersection with ideas about the proper meaning and implementation of democracy. Pennsylvania is an ideal locale to reconsider such sweeping issues because of its dramatic experiments with democracy dating from its 1776 constitution, the complexity of its economic and social relations, and the diverse political views that roiled its contentious Jeffersonians. The heart of the book offers a close reading of the bitter differences and shifting alliances among factions of Pennsylvania Jeffersonians: radical Philadelphia Democrats, insurgent rural Snyderites who would assume power in 1808, and moderate (even conservative) Quids from mostly urban areas. Shankman argues that the struggles among these Pennsylvania Jeffersonians "eventually produced a body of thought that became the core of what later nineteenth-century Americans understood to be mainstream liberal and capitalist values and ideals" (12).	1
Shankman's "history of political ideas" (15) reaches beyond famous national leaders to emphasize how specific people and groups produced this rich debate. Among the key figures examined are Philadelphia Democrats Michael Leib and William Duane (editor of the [Philadelphia] Aurora); Snyderites such as Simon Snyder himself, Nathaniel B. Boileau, and John Binns (editor of the [Northumberland] Republican Argus and the [Philadelphia] Democratic Press); and Quids Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Alexander James Dallas, and Samuel D. Ingham. Though these three groups are the building blocks of the study, neither their ideas, nor their membership, were static. Dallas and Ingham, for example, would become Snyderites, whereas the key Quid newspaper editor, William McCorkle of the (Philadelphia) Freeman's Journal, backed the Federalist candidate for governor against the victorious Snyder in 1808.	2
The diverse Pennsylvania Jeffersonian coalition came together in the 1790s in opposition to the hierarchical order and top-down economic priorities of Federalists. From the outset those who became Philadelphia Democrats, Snyderites, and Quids shared a general commitment to dynamic economic growth through internal improvements and expanding access to credit, yet they differed sharply over the degree to which such developments should be overseen by the legislature and the legal system. Once in power these differences fueled enormous antagonism. Shankman concentrates on how each group "thought that political power should intersect with political economy" (108) and how their positions changed over time. Among the many virtues of this fine-grain analysis is its defense of the Quids as genuine Jeffersonians despite their opponents' characterizations of them as Federalists in sheep's clothing. Shankman is particularly interested in these moderates because their fear of political radicalism led them to become harbingers of "the dominant strand of modern American belief, the nineteenth-century's classical liberalism" (148).	. . .

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