“The Dupes of Hope Forever:” The Loco-Foco or Equal Rights Movement, 1820s-1870s by Anthony ...

343 Pages·2016·1.64 MB·English

“The Dupes of Hope Forever:” The Loco-Foco or Equal Rights Movement, 1820s-1870s

by
Anthony Comegna
BA, Shippensburg University, 2010
MA, University of Pittsburgh, 2012

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of
The Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment
Of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

University of Pittsburgh
2016
University of Pittsburgh

Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences

This dissertation was presented

By

Anthony Comegna

It was defended on

February 19, 2016

And approved by

Seymour Drescher, Professor Emeritus, History Department

Marcus Rediker, Distinguished Professor, History Department

Werner Troesken, Professor, Economics Department

Co-Chair: Van Beck Hall, Associate Professor, History Department

Co-Chair: Gregor Thum, Associate Professor, History Department

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Co-Chairs: Van Beck Hall & Gregor Thum
“The Dupes of Hope Forever:” The Loco-Foco or Equal Rights Movement, 1820s-1870s
Anthony Comegna, PhD
University of Pittsburgh, 2016

This dissertation illustrates the impact of the Loco-Foco movement (1820s-1870s), most
notably its role in the development of “Manifest Destiny,” the Free Soil Party, and the
Republican Party. While historians have assumed that the Loco-Foco movement ended with the
existence of the original third party in New York (1836-7), I pursue their philosophy and
activism throughout the time and space of the late antebellum period. Loco-Focoism can be
characterized as radical classical liberalism, including commitments to natural and equal rights,
individualism, private property, laissez-faire, democratic republicanism, and, often, antislavery.
Self-avowed and influential Loco-Focos included Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt
Whitman, and countless other important figures in antebellum thought, culture, and politics
ranging across the continent from New England and the northern border to the Pacific frontier
zone and even the increasingly proslavery, anti-locofoco South. This study compiles the largest
collection of primary sources related to the movement of any treatment to date, including dozens
of newspapers, published books, poems, and pamphlets, public speeches, paintings, and private
correspondence collections. This is the first and only history of the Loco-Foco Movement as
such, and its conclusions offer sharp challenges to prevailing interpretations of the development
of democratic-republican government, liberalism, and corporate-capitalism in the United States.
While their ideology offered radical alternative models for American political and intellectual
life, their efforts at practical politicking created much of the modern democratic, corporate-
capitalist nation-state familiar to present-day readers.
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Table of Contents
Abstract...........................................................................................................................................iii
Introduction: Who They Were and What They Did......…………………………………....…….1
1. “A Glorious Illumination:” The Origins and Thought of the Early Loco-Focos .....………...12
2. ‘Loco-Romanticism’ & Young America: Locofocoism, the Equal Rights Party, and
Revolutionary Republicanism in the Canadian Rebellions……………………………...66
3. ‘Waking the World:’ The Rhode Island Rebellion and Loco-Young America……………..106
4. “No Monopoly of Mackerill:” Radical Locofocoism, the Dorrite Clam Bakes, & Young
America………………………............……………………………………....................147
5. Loco-Young America and Free Soil Republicanism………………………………………..208
6. A Proliferation of “Isms:” The Slow Death of the Loco-Foco Movement…………………260
Conclusions: Existential Crisis, Generational Change, & the Loco-Foco Movement………...303
Appendix………………………………………………………………………………………..315
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………326
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List of Tables
Table 1: US Population, 1770-1880............................................................................................306
Table 2: US GDP, 1700-1870.....................................................................................................306
Table 3: GDP (US, Western Europe, World), 1700-1870..........................................................307
Table 4: Share of Global Wealth, 1600-1870.............................................................................307
Table 5: New York City Local, State, and National Elections, 1835-1837................................322
Table 6: Rump Loco-Foco Ticket for Local Offices, November 1837......................................322
Table 7: Loco-Dorrite Clam Bakes, 1842-1844.........................................................................323
Table 8: Presidential Elections, 1844-1852................................................................................323
Table 9: Selected Gubernatorial Elections..................................................................................324

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List of Figures
Figure 1: Conservative Democrat Candidates, 1835..................................................................315
Figure 2: Equal Rights Democrat Candidates, 1835...................................................................315
Figure 3: “The Gilpinade Ballad”................................................................................................316
Figure 4: Thomas Cole, The Savage State...................................................................................319
Figure 5: Cole, The Arcadian or Pastoral State..........................................................................319
Figure 6: Cole, The Consummation of Empire...........................................................................320
Figure 7: Cole, Destruction.........................................................................................................320
Figure 8: Cole, Desolation..........................................................................................................321

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Introduction: Who They Were and What They Did

HOPE

When youthful hearts are light and true, Yet Hope hath still her pleasing power,
And all is fair around us, Although she's a deceiver!
The future breaks upon our view And e'en while storms above us lower,
In every bright and pleasing hue-- She paints so bright the future hour,
For Hope's sweet spell hath bound us, We cannot but believe her--
And all seems fair around us. Although she's a deceiver!

But ah! too soon we're doom'd to find Thus we stray on in quest of joy,
The scenes that look'd so charming, The dupes of Hope forever!
Beset with thorns, with snares intwined, Earth hath no good without alloy,
That Hope is false, and Fortune blind, And sweetest pleasures soonest cloy,
And dangers most alarming, We soonest from them sever--
Where all had seem'd so charming. The dupes of Hope forever!

--William Leggett, "Leisure Hours at Sea," 1825

The Locofocos were liberal-republican, anti-corporate ideologues and political activists
located throughout the United States from the 1820s to the 1870s and this is the history of their
movement. Locofoco ideology and politics varied and shifted according to a multiplicity of
contexts and individual idiosyncrasies, but those intellectuals and activists explored in this
dissertation in some manner claimed a heritage with the circle of individuals originally slurred by
their enemies as “Loco-Focos” in New York City, 1835. The Locofoco movement began with
the workingmen’s and Jacksonian movements in the late 1820s and by 1835, New York City
political conflict birthed the Loco-Foco Party. The Loco-Focos battled Tammany Hall and
fought for control over the Democratic Party, continuing the work of many from the days of the
Workingmen’s Party. Over the course of several decades following this formative period in New
York, individuals and movements either self- or peer-identified as ‘locofoco,’ deeply influenced
life in the United States and related corners of the world. Ultimately, however, the locofocos
most eager for reform and most convinced of the virtues of democracy and republicanism proved
in many ways to be the “Dupes of Hope Forever,” a very young William Leggett explored in
verse. As they fought a political and (often) military war on “monopoly” and legal privilege, the
locofocos transformed significant portions of the American institutional framework, allowing for
much of the rapid industrialization and proliferation of corporations that characterized the late
nineteenth-century economy. The radical liberal ideas for which locofocos fought over the
decades demanded the liberation of all individuals from legislation conferring artificial rights and
privileges on the essentially aristocratic few. This life-long “War on Monopoly,” resulted in a
long series of events which in many ways diffused and democratized power throughout the
populace. From general incorporation to antislavery, locofocos often claimed revolutionary
victories.
Yet, at every turn they were stymied, won only minor political victories, made mistakes,
changed their minds entirely, or allowed themselves to be coopted. Loco-Foco political activists
generally won few, relatively minor elections and leapt at offers of swift reconciliation with the
great political middle and conservative establishments like Tammany. The movement survived
reunion with Tammany only to lose military contests in Canada (1837-1839) and Rhode Island
(1842). Locofocoism persisted throughout the Old Northwest and New England, while the
culture of New York Locofocoism gave birth to the Young America movement, the Dorr War
clam bakes, and the loco press throughout the country. Political and ideological momentum built
during the period of Dorr War activism (1841-1844) and the militant, expansionist, hopeful
strand of locofocoism most moved by the Rhode Island affair surged to support Polk in the
election of 1844 and the policy of territorial expansionism. Polk, however, refused to provide
political support for the Van Burenites and locofocos in New York which could bolster their
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power against Tammany conservatives. The locofoco movement fractured during the Mexican
War (which many locos thought an immoral conflict manipulated to benefit a planter
aristocracy). Most Loco-Focos followed Van Buren, some inclined to the supposedly
ideologically purer South (and Calhoun), and others filtered into various party affiliations,
including sustained loyalty to the Democracy. Northern locofoco Democrats, antislavery Whigs,
and Birneyite abolitionists, all deeply disenchanted with the President, his party, and his war,
joined together in another attempt at a third party coalition for the election of 1848.
The Free Soil Party galvanized the greatest margins of any loco-inspired political venture
to that point, but Democrats perceived as sufficiently locofoco (like the old Dorrite, Franklin
Pierce) were enough to heal the partisan wounds once again dividing Jacksonian Democrats.
The slavery issue, however, ultimately defeated these forces for unity throughout the 1850s. The
loco wing of the Democracy helped found the Republican Party from 1854-1860 and many
supported Lincoln in 1860 and throughout the war. Meanwhile, old locos that stayed Democrats
maintained the radical ideology in the Democratic Party. By 1876, many ex-Democrat locofoco
Republicans like William Cullen Bryant prepared themselves to vote for Democrat Samuel
Tilden. Tilden was a regular Democrat (like Van Buren, Polk, or Pierce) with locofoco ideas
(like Van Buren, Polk, and Pierce), and many loco-Republicans abandoned the party of abolition
to rejoin the party of popular government. Despite their long history of victories, friendly
presidents and vice presidents, impact on the major parties, and their demonstrable ability to
affect change in American life, the radically anti-state locofocos gradually lost themselves in a
sea of government interventions, corporate-state corruption, state consolidation and imperialism,
and widespread intellectual and political support for the use of government power. Virtually
every victory achieved was forged through alliance with otherwise-regular Whigs and
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Democrats, resulting in a string of moderate reforms and tactical political adjustments to the
locofoco message and philosophy. They proved “The Dupes of Hope Forever,” and paved much
of the way for the corporate-imperial modern state in America; consequently, the Loco-Focos
deserve more of both the credit and blame for the modern American corporate-democratic
nation-state than historians have yet recognized.
The locofoco impulse to activism belied a willingness to use one’s power—whatever the
form it may take—to shape the lives of others, and a belief that doing so could be beneficial to
the cause of Liberty. The chosen tools of locofoco activists were most often democratic
elections and charter-granting, corporation-birthing governments, both of which proved as
uncontrollably expansionary and corrupting as Leggett’s political writings warned. Locofoco
political and social theory demanded an almost anarchic government entirely bound to and by the
rights of the people and that can be renegotiated at will according to those governed. As two
generations of locofocos compromised and adjusted their ideas to fit their practical demands,
however, this radical liberal interpretation of republicanism disappeared from the popular
locofoco debate. This conception of the state, how it arises in nature, and how states change
from free and republican to aristocratic and tyrannical, virtually disappeared from American life
after the Civil War and with it the locofoco movement was all but forgotten. While their
compromises in many ways generated the powerful, relatively consolidated nation-state familiar
to modern readers, their victories promoted egalitarianism and respect for the equal rights of
individuals within American institutions. Their greatest victory when using the political tools of
the state was in helping to universalize citizenship to all members of society, notably African-
Americans and (eventually) women. The locos’ most tragic mistake was believing that territorial
conquest and war could solve social problems better than purely private and peaceful action.
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