From 1815 to 1848, Richard M. Johnson was involved in some way in the great political and social issues addressed by the nineteenth century United States. A Representative and Senator from Kentucky, Johnson embodied the democratic spirit of the western frontier in his lifestyle, relationships, and most notably his politics. He remained an unrepentant slaveholder who nonetheless engaged in open relationships with enslaved women. He acknowledged his children from his relationship with his enslaved mistress Julia Chinn and sought to introduce his daughters into white society. Although elite southerners along the Atlantic Coast balked over his mixed-race relationships, Johnson was controversially elected to the Vice Presidency in 1836. Most historians attributed Johnson's electoral difficulties to his mixed-race relationships, Johnson in fact angered elite Tidewater southerners from the beginning of his political career. He championed a more authentic democracy than contemporary Jeffersonians or Jacksonians, often taking positions at odds with the planter elite that comprised the leadership of the Jefferson and Jackson influenced Democratic Party.
Johnson embraced the tenants of democratic nationalism--congressional compensation, abolishment of imprisonment for debt, worker's rights, the rights of immigrants, government sponsored exploration of the west, and large-scale electoral democratization--well before southern slaveholding Democrats and before many northern Democrats as well. He refused to be tied to ideology, occasionally affirming banks and internal improvements if he believed the cause democracy and the West might be furthered. He courted urban workers, a constituency largely ignored by southern party bosses. In the process he made enemies, angering at times Andrew Jackson, James Polk, and others committed to the wholesale maintenance of the plantation system. Although his legacy has been vastly underappreciated by historians, Johnson, not Jefferson or Jackson, laid the groundwork for the Democratic Party's transformation from a party committed to state rights agrarianism into one that embraced populist nationalism.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TCU/oai:etd.tcu.edu:etd-08082013-100951 |
| Date | 08 August 2013 |
| Creators | Smith, Miles James |
| Contributors | Kenneth R Stevens, Steven E Woodworth, Gene A Smith, Todd Kerstetter |
| Publisher | Texas Christian University |
| Source Sets | Texas Christian University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf, application/octet-stream |
| Source | http://etd.tcu.edu/etdfiles/available/etd-08082013-100951/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to TCU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
Page generated in 0.002 seconds