The Crisis of Household Government and the Rise of Democratic Conservatism before the American Civil War

This article explores the relationship between the idea of household government and the nature of American conservatism before the Civil War. It examines two high-profile legal cases from the 1850s. Each case involved a prominent Democratic man—Edwin Forrest and then Daniel Sickles—who exacted physical revenge on his wife’s lover. The article argues that Northern Democratic editors strategically used their coverage of the cases to elaborate their view that the patriarchal household required defending against the excesses of radicalism in the Atlantic world. Northern Democrats urged Americans to remain vigilant against “fashionable” radical movements from abroad while they celebrated Forrest and Sickles for meting out justice on their own terms. The cases gave Northern Democratic editors the opportunity to cement their party’s association with a particular vision of conservative values which centred around the patriarchal family.