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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
Sectionalism is a fundamental and persistent factor in American politics. In the shaping of congressional legislation and even in the formation of the platforms of our national parties, the influence of conflicting sectional interests is of prime importance. The precise nature of such sectional conflicts and the alignment of the various sections upon the leading policies of the time are clearly revealed by an analysis of the votes and debates in Congress on outstanding issues of national importance. Such votes, mapped by congressional districts, show that again and again party lines are broken by the force of sectional interest and that both Republicans and Democrats divide into sectional wings.
A study of the period from the early 1870's to 1890 shows that sectionalism at that time was in large measure the product of the interaction of two movements in our national development,—the rapid expansion of Western settlement, particularly in the trans-Mississippi Middle West (the West North Central states) and the Mountain region, and the marked intensification of industrialism in the older sections of the country, especially in the North Atlantic states. Sectional alliances are flexible and shift with changing economic conditions. The East North Central states, for example, which at the beginning of the period usually vote in alliance with the West North Central and South, by the later eighties are found often on the side of the North Atlantic, a change which may be due to the fact that in the interval they had undergone a marked industrial development which gave them economic interests in common with the older sections. The areas of strongest radical voting move farther West with the shift in the centres of production of grain and livestock; that is, the nucleus of revolt in the Western wing of the Republican party especially is in the newer agricultural regions.
1 Lowell, “Influence of Party upon Legislation” Amer. Hist. Assoc. Report, 1901, vol. 1, p. 323.Google Scholar
2 E. g., conservative Democratic votes in the Middle Atlantic states, and radical Republican votes in the West North Central states.
3 Map IV, if mapped by congressional districts, would show this clearly.
4 These sixty-four votes include fifty-three House votes and eleven Senate votes. Of the House votes, twenty-two are on currency and banking, six each on tariff, lands, and regulation of trusts or railroads, four on improvements, two on immigration, and seven on miscellaneous measures, including internal revenue, reapportionment of seats in Congress, fisheries, agriculture, admission of territories, the Panama canal, and the bureau of animal industry. Of the Senate votes, five are on currency, two on lands, and one each on tariff, improvements, interstate commerce, and immigration.
5 Proceedings of the Democratic National Convention, 1876. In the Democratic Convention of 1884, there was a split on the tariff plank and 21½ votes from New England, 22 from the Middle states, 31 from the East North Central, 7 from the West North Central, 3 from the Mountain, and 12 from the Pacific were cast for Butler's plank for free raw materials and necessaries and for taxation of luxuries up to the point of collection. Proceedings of Democratic National Convention, 1884, p. 218.
6 See map I.
7 See map V.
8 See map IV.
9 Map IV, if given by congressional districts, would show this.
10 E.g., in debates on tariffs of 1883 and 1890 by representatives of Maryland, West Virginia, Louisiana, and Florida.
11 See maps I and V.
12 See maps II and IV.
13 In the vote shown in map IV, an interesting and typical example of city voting appears. 27 votes were cast by city representatives. 23 were anti-silver votes (7 Republican and 16 Democratic), cast regardless of party by representatives from the Eastern cities; 4 were silver votes (3 Democratic and 1 Republican) from the Western cities, the one Republican silver vote from San Francisco. In the Republican anti-silver votes, sectional and party influence reinforce each other; in the Democratic anti-silver votes, sectional influence is paramount, as it is in the silver votes of both parties.
14 In the House passage of the Bland Allison bill over the President's veto the North Atlantic is opposed by over two-thirds, and the rest of the country in favor by over two-thirds of the votes cast. Compare map III.
15 The clear sectional division on map I is due to the fact that the bill involved a specific improvement of one river, the Mississippi, and is thus not characteristic of the annual river and harbor bills.
16 See map VI.
17 In 1883, Democrats from West Virginia asked for a duty on coal, from Mississippi on jute, from New Jersey on pottery, from Maryland on coal and potash, from Louisiana and Florida on sugar; in 1890 Democrats from Louisiana asked for a duty on sugar, from California and Florida on oranges and lemons.
18 This vote, if mapped, would be identical with map VI.
