The Moral Axis: Organized Religion and the Second Party System

• In Event: Groups and Parties in American Political Development

Abstract

The early 1830s were years of intense religious fervor, when well-organized moral reform movements seemed destined to remake the political landscape. Curiously, however, the two-party system that emerged from this period was premised on excluding moral issues, such as slavery and temperance, from party politics. How did the early Jacksonian Democrats and Whigs manage to construct an amoral party system during a decade marked by large-scale moral reform movements? And why did the resulting system unravel in the mid-1850s? Answering these questions requires shifting the focus from party activists and elected officials to organized religion. Specifically, I show that the nation’s largest Protestant denominations used internal disciplinary procedures to effectively suppress anti-slavery activism at the precise moment that the contours of the Second Party System were taking shape. Then, in the early 1850s, the same denominations reversed course and began to promote both anti-slavery and temperance activism – a shift that profoundly destabilized the Second Party System. This finding has important implications for group-centered theories of party formation. Specifically, it demonstrates that avowedly apolitical civil society groups, such as religious denominations, may deter (or incentivize) the party-building activities of policy demanders.

Author

• John W. Compton, Chapman University