While many see America as a land of freedom, Sean Wilentz questions the passion for American equality. He thus takes a new look at the country’s political life and the deep opposition to parties that periodically replays itself.
The latest book by Sean Wilentz, a professor in the history department at Princeton University, defends a thesis that at first glance seems iconoclastic. At a time when traditional American parties are deeply distrusted, the author believes that partisan organizations have consistently been at the heart of social change in the United States. He argues that these changes have been fueled by the constant quest for equality, an essential dynamic of public action that politicians best serve when they master the art of compromise and partisan negotiation.
Partisan and egalitarian dynamics over the long term
The first part of the book studies over the long term the two fundamental axes of political life across the Atlantic: the search for equality and the essential role of parties. In the first chapter, Sean Wilentz shows that only the latter appear to be the drivers of change (p. 28). The partisan game allowed the adoption of fundamental reforms such as Theodore Roosevelt’s Square Deal, his cousin Franklin Delano’s New Deal and Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society. This demonstration allows the author to better highlight the limits of an anti-partisan current that dates back to Independence. This rejection of parties dates back to George Washington, who considered them artificial and illegitimate (p. 6). It has resurfaced several times over the last two centuries. It can be found among the Confederates as well as among the Mugwumps, these liberal Republicans disappointed with the way the country was rebuilt after the Civil War, but also in the adventure of the Bull Moose Campaign of the progressive dissident Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, by their desire to conduct a post-partisan policy, only reflect this latent distrust of parties. However, according to the author, the desire to overcome partisan divisions has always resulted in failure, both electorally and politically.
Sean Wilentz argues that all major parties, at one time or another in their history, have been driven by a strong egalitarian tradition, the history of which is traced in the second chapter. During the revolutionary period, an egalitarianism fueled by anti-monarchism and the rejection of privileges culminated. This multifaceted tradition combats two types of fundamental inequalities: racial (but also sexual) inequalities and economic inequalities. However, the responses to these inequalities vary depending on the periods and the political actors who carry them.
In the first half of the XIXe century, the Jacksonian Democrats denounced economic monopolies, while the Whigs saw the source of economic inequalities in individual moral differences. In other words, poverty was only the product of bad personal choices and the refusal to apply the virtues of work, economy and moderation (p. 45). Nevertheless, these different egalitarian traditions agree on a point inherited from the Revolution, which makes value the product of free labor. This theory argues for harmony between work and capital and considers that the capitalist is above all a worker (p. 44). It thus leads to valorizing capitalism or even to morally denouncing slavery.
From the 1860s-1870s, a new economic order emerged that called into question this theory of the value of labor. The thesis of a self-regulating economy fueled a conservative economic discourse, favorable to the business world, which attacked any regulatory approach. After the New Deal and the “great compression”, a period of reduction of economic inequalities (p. 59), this discourse regained strength in the context of the economic crisis of the 1970s. New wealth gaps widened within American society, marked by the “great divergence” between its wealthiest members and poor citizens.
Similar failures punctuate the fight against racial inequality, punctuated by the segregation laws known as “Jim Crow” at the end of the 19th century. XIXe century, or the conservative reaction to the civil rights struggle in the 1940s and 1950s. The strength of the American egalitarian tradition, however, lies in its constant capacity for reinvention, from Theodore Roosevelt’s Square Deal against the excesses of the capitalist order and the defense of the middle classes, to Barack Obama’s new egalitarian program, a reaction to the 2008 crisis, through the final victory of civil rights in the 1960s.
The articulation between the quest for equality and partisan dynamics allows the author to offer an analysis of recent American political life. He thus points out the limits of Barack Obama’s post-partisan policy (of which he was very critical) in a context of very strong polarization of political parties, where the partisan divide has never been so strongly superimposed on the ideological divide (p. 30). He also underlines that the fight for equality has made a strong comeback since the 2008 crisis. This theme, on the Democrat side in particular, fueled the debate of the 2016 US presidential election, on the eve of which Sean Wilentz published his book.
Key moments revisited
The second part of the book illustrates the articulation between partisan dynamics and the egalitarian struggle by studying key figures and episodes in American political life. New light is shed on personalities who are victims of ignorance or of a historical judgment that is sometimes too harsh. Thomas Paine, the famous author of Common Sense, thus appears as a forgotten figure of egalitarianism, a follower of a more radical and democratic version of the American Revolution. John Quincy Adams, a depressed president overshadowed by Andrew Jackson, is remembered as one of the heralds of the anti-slavery struggle at the end of his life. John Brown, a bloody slayer of slavery, is seen as a “positive agent of change”, the failure of his disastrous raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry having paved the way for Abraham Lincoln to the White House. The great workers’ strikes of the end of the XIXe century, especially the Homestead Strike of 1892, are placed in the American egalitarian tradition, even if they often break on the dikes of the new capitalist order, product of the alliance between the triumphant industrial world and the national government.
The author’s audacity is also found in his way of taking a position on questions that continue to make American historiography tense. Based on a rigorous marking of literature, he offers a renewed reading of the political life of his country thanks to the crucial role played by the partisan approach or the egalitarian tradition. The slave owner Thomas Jefferson is presented as an heir to the Enlightenment of the XVIIIe century, playing a significant role in the development of republican democracy and popular participation in political life, while he gradually asserted an anti-slavery thought, especially towards the end of his days. Abraham Lincoln is described neither as a saintly emancipator nor as a sneaky racist, but above all as a politician, rigorously playing the partisan game while being able to evolve politically as he perceived the profound changes in American society. As for Lyndon B. Johnson, the “good” president of the Great Society and civil rights and the “bad” commander-in-chief responsible for the escalation of the disastrous Vietnam War, he stands out above all for his certain political skill and knowledge of the mysteries of Congress, which he uses to pass the most egalitarian political program that the United States has known in its recent history. In each case, it appears that major reforms emerge from the convergence of protest forces, such as antislavery groups or the civil rights movement, and political figures, particularly progressive reformers, rather than from the pressure of a handful of radicals or social movements acting autonomously.
Historiographical avenues to explore?
The strength of Sean Wilentz’s demonstration should not, however, prevent us from highlighting some of its limitations. One could criticize the author for having only an incomplete vision of American history and for leaving aside important parts of the country’s political life, such as Reconstruction, the New Deal or the fight for civil rights after the war, often mentioned without being treated for themselves, despite their importance in the fight for equality. The choice of certain characters to the detriment of others also raises some questions: why WEB Du Bois rather than Martin Luther King? Why John Quincy Adams rather than Andrew Jackson? Why Lyndon B. Johnson rather than Franklin Delano Roosevelt? Obviously aware of the difficulty of covering two centuries of national history in a few hundred pages, the author defuses this objection in the introduction by readily acknowledging that his work represents a sketch, which is content to launch “paths” for a new understanding of American political history (p. xvii).
The Politicians and the Egalitarians could also seem to write history from above, since he minimizes the impact of certain social movements in the political recomposition and the reformist process. When he mentions the relative failure of the agrarian and workers’ movements at the turn of the XXe century (p. 57), the author underestimates the role of this movement both in the emergence of a regulatory state, but also in the transformation of established political forces. The Democratic Party, first and foremost, gradually merged with the Populist Party and various agrarian currents, ensuring the domination of the figure of William J. Bryan for more than 15 years. It was also this same party that finally returned to power under the presidency of Wilson in 1912. The political or electoral failure of movements that emerged outside the traditional parties should not cast doubt on their ability to recompose the political field or to upset the established balance of power, like the anti-slavery parties antebellum or even segregationist Independents around George Wallace during the 1968 presidential election.
Finally, one could question the content of the different egalitarian traditions in the United States, what brings them closer to or distances them from other comparable traditions in European countries, for example, which have also experienced a process of political democratization and the economic and social transformations linked to industrialization. It is even surprising to note that the relationship between parties and ideology, although essential in partisan configurations and transformations, is never truly addressed. Of course, ideological issues were not the author’s aim, but addressing both the question of equality and partisan structuring should have inevitably led to a reflection on political ideas.
Through a flexible, pleasant style and well-placed touches of humor, Sean Wilentz offers us an unprecedented historical view of the political life of his country. Nevertheless, his book also provides food for thought in the face of current events in the United States that have been shaken by Donald Trump’s deeply unequal economic and social policies. The author’s central thesis could indeed seem out of step with the results of the 2016 presidential election. However, it should be kept in mind that the rise to power of the current occupant of the White House is primarily the result of the rejection of traditional partisan politics. This book should therefore be seen as an invitation to explore other aspects of American history with fresh eyes.