Britain & the USA – A Comparative History

By Steve Newman

Part 4 – More Politics

By the middle of the 19th century the shape and ‘colour’ of politics and political parties in Britain was becoming more and more evident, and more open to criticism and analysis than ever before by an ever increasing number of daily  newspapers and weekly publications such as Punch and The Spectator, whose growing readership had been brought about by increased literacy, that had itself been achieved by the need to formalize education, which was itself a necessary requirement of an every growing industrial society.

With Prince Albert’s intense interest in the political and industrial life of Britain, the diminution of royal influence in politics began to change as Queen Victoria’s handsome Consort took on a more central, pseudo-political role where he was quickly seen as someone who made things happen, and by so doing eclipsing the real politicians who, it has to be said, were no match in looks or ability.

Prince Albert’s best remembered achievement was undoubtedly the Great Exhibition of 1851, but perhaps his most important was his intervention in a diplomatic row that had broken out between the United States and Britain in the autumn of 1861, at the height of the American Civil War. The row had started when the captain of the USS San Jacinto, Charles Wilkes, had stopped and boarded the British Royal Mail steamer Trent , and effectively arrested two Confederate diplomats, James M. Mason, and John Slidell, who were making their way to Europe to drum up support for the Confederate cause. The British considered the act to be one of piracy upon the high seas. There is little doubt that without Albert’s considered arguments to Lord Palmerston, the British prime minister, to show restraint, Britain would have declared war on the Union. It is one of those great ‘what ifs’ of history.

But just two weeks after his intervention, on the 14th December 1861, Prince Albert died from typhoid fever.

This unexpected death sent Victoria into a prolonged period of mourning, during witch she virtually cut herself off from all public engagements and involvement in the social and political life of the country, which allowed such political leaders as Disraeli and Gladstone to create a public profile for themselves and their respective political parties.

When it came to political parties Andrew Jackson (president 1829-37) was no less idealistic than Fennimore Cooper, but a lot more pragmatic ( in that respect he comes closer to Prince Albert), especially when it came to holding office, considering himself, and the office of the president, to be above party, and that the executive should be close to the mass of the people.

And Jackson certainly put his money where his mouth by appealing on many occasions to the people over the heads of their elected representatives, whom he saw as little more than an elected rabble. Perhaps Cooper should have used Jackson as an example of where party, and the elected assembly, needed to check the executive?

But Jackson did strengthen the office of president during his two terms, giving it a prestige and power that other presidents, such as Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt, built upon and used mercilessly at times of danger.

Jackson’s ideal, and the role of the president as he saw it, was to hold onto democracy and widen the political ideological break with Britain, which could not have been achieved without the creation of political parties – and Jackson knew this well enough – otherwise the United States would have fallen very quickly into a dictatorial contradiction.

And political parties in the United States in the late 18th and 19th centuries were, as with Britain, a reality. In the 1790s the Federalists and Republicans (a different party to the later one that took its name) shared the stage, yet, due to a split in the party the Federalists did not contest an election after 1816.

After the 1828 presidential elections, where Jackson narrowly defeated Adams, a new political body emerged that, by 1836, called itself the Whigs (so much for breaking away from Britain). This party was – due to the slave question – short lived, as was the Native American Party. Only after 1850 did the anti-slavery Republican Party emerge, which, by the first rumblings of state dissention faced the pro-slavery, Southern based Democratic Party alone.

Due to the size of the United States, and its fundamental federalist make-up, the very structure of the party system – unlike Britain – had to be non-central. And,  as historian Bill Purdue points out…

“The pervasiveness of elected office and of elections in the American system and the amount of patronage at the disposal of politicians, stimulated the spirit of party…”

Which, because of state elections, federal elections, presidential elections, judicial elections, and so, the United States was an election conscious society, with a high participation of those eligible to vote given the opportunity, within a party, of political careers of one sort or another.

As this feature has shown Britain and the United States moved in very different directions with regard political parties in the 18th and 19th centuries, but to both the idea of the political party was important, although they have arisen from very different criteria – with one happening through lack of interest on the part of the monarch, and the other through sheer force of will, as President Obama has shown.

To Be Continued...