The Democratic Collapse: How Gender Politics Broke a Party and a Nation 1856–1861 by Lauren M. Haumesser (review)

Reviewed by: The Democratic Collapse: How Gender Politics Broke a Party and a Nation 1856–1861 by Lauren M. Haumesser J. Matthew Gallman (bio) The Democratic Collapse: How Gender Politics Broke a Party and a Nation 1856–1861. Lauren M. Haumesser. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2022. ISBN: 978-1469671437, 299 pp. , paper, 27. 95. In April 1860, delegates from the Democratic Party met for their presidential convention in Charleston, South Carolina. Things did not go well. The Southern state representatives were unhappy with the rejection of Kansas's Lecompton Constitution and feared for their peculiar institution. When they failed to win concessions from their Northern brethren, the fire-eaters walked out. The delegates divided, nominating two Democrats at separate conventions. With admirable understatement, Lauren N. Haumesser explains that these events "contributed to the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln" (100). Shortly after Lincoln's election, the Deep South states seceded and there was every reason to suppose that more would follow. The secessionists worried about slavery and the prospect of a "Black Republican" in the White House. Presidentelect Lincoln wrote letters to Democratic friends and acquaintances, hoping to turn the tide. One can imagine the lanky Illinoisan tearing his hair as he sat at his desk in Springfield. Democrats, even the seemingly sane ones, refused to accept the evidence from his speeches or his party's platform. When it came to the future of slavery, they were bound to believe what they wished to believe. The political narrative leading up to secession and the coming of the American Civil War is well known. Historians have examined the key events and issues from a wide variety of angles, using a diversity of sources. But when it comes to partisan politics, Abraham Lincoln and the upstart Republicans have garnered more attention than those fractured Democrats. The Democratic Collapse is a valuable volume of modest pretensions. Rather than attempting a full account of the party's leadership and decisions over the antebellum years, Haumesser has prepared a brief volume of five topical chapters, organized roughly chronologically. The book focuses on the power of gender politics in shaping events and discourse. The term can call to mind multiple End Page 83 arguments, and Haumesser succeeds admirably in considering the many ways that gendered thinking found its way into political debate. The chapters are distinct in their approaches and evidence. The first sets out many of the book's key themes, considering the crucial election of 1856 in which Democrat James Buchanan defeated Republican John C. Frémont. The chapter rests on reports from Democratic newspapers, supported nicely by close readings of several partisan lithographs. The election's key figures invited highly gendered commentary, often sliding into ridicule. Buchanan was famously a committed bachelor, which attracted comments from partisan wags. Meanwhile, the adventurer Frémont was known for his impressive hair and his flashy style of dress. And he earned even more public attention for his vivacious and outspoken spouse, Jessie Benton Frémont. All three drew partisan newspaper chatter. The Democratic press drew out three big themes, each suggesting a gendered critique of the new Republican Party. First, the Democrats claimed that their adversaries were practically a subsidiary of the radical women's rights movement, challenging the sanctity of homes and families. Second, they tarred Republicans with the brush of abolitionism, more radicalism that upset Southern family values. Finally in this crucial radical troika, the press claimed that the Republicans were the party of "free love, " threatening bedrock family values. These three themes recur throughout the text, suggesting the core radicalism that the Democratic Party associated with Republicans. The newspapers provide a valuable snapshot of Democratic thought, but with a few key caveats. The newspapers cited are diverse, but probably not representative. It would be difficult for the historian to give a sense of the various papers and their perspectives and perhaps unfair to criticize Haumesser for making no such effort. She does, however, explain that most of these political charges had little basis in truth. Many Northerners were opposed to slavery, but few were actual abolitionists. Women's Rights had only won a small number of true adherents, and smaller still. . .