Discussing Historical Violence in the Classroom

J. D. Dickey The Republic of Violence: The Tormented Rise of Abolition in Andrew Jackson’s America (Pegasus Books, 2022).

My students are profoundly aware of partisan violence punctuating today’s highly contentious political discourse. It’s on the news, it’s posted and re-posted on social media platforms…it’s so woefully commonplace and undertaken with such regularity that it might seem “normal” to anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention: attacks on groups, attacks on individuals, riots, hate crimes, destruction of property, even an attempted insurrection. There’s more than enough to go around for everyone.

While alarming, my students find out pretty quickly that partisan violence in the United States is nothing new. People have long reacted violently to threats - whether perceived or real - against their worldviews, positions in the social hierarchy, or their so-called “way of life” (whatever that might happen to be…). Now, I am not one to cast American history as a sequence of terrible events alone - as some sort of declension narrative - because I believe that there are moments of real beauty in United States history. But let’s be honest - we Americans have something of a penchant for violence.. And we need to discuss it. In fact, I think looking at past violence might help us understand the divisions that exist today - at least in part. I mean - I’m a Civil War scholar…so this is sort of par for my course, as it were.

But even outside of warfare, violence often dominates the American historical narrative. And with all the violence over the last couple of centuries, J. D. Dickey, author of The Republic of Violence, contends that the 1830s was the most violent period in American history outside of war. The target: abolitionists.

In a society made up of people who would fight each other over practically any provocation - whether it was framed in regional, racial, ethnic, or religious terms…hell, Andrew Jackson was not unfamiliar with the dueling pistols…I can’t say I was surprised to learn of the relentless attacks against those deemed by a large segment of society to be fringe radicals intent on undermining a deeply engrained institution.

Of course we discuss the trajectory of reform in class - and naturally abolitionists take center stage. But to insure that we cover the complete the story, we need to take seriously the response to abolition - to understand what reformers were up against and how many Americans saw them not as heroes but as dangerous radicals. This is where Dickey’s new book in invaluable. Attacks on such abolitionists as William Lloyd Garrison, who was nearly lynched in Boston, figure prominently in this story, as do many others. And Dickey highlights mob riots motivated by racism - such as that in Cincinnati in 1829. Importantly, Dickey wants to illustrate how anti-abolition violence permeated the cultures of states outside of the slavers’ South. It seems that white southerners hardly held the monopoly on their hatred of abolitionists - an important thing to consider when students pit section against section along the road to disunion.

While I found this book illuminating in many ways, if I had the chance to sit down with the author over coffee I would push him to further explain a couple of things. For one, I think he embraces an uncritical position on the relationship between slavery and the Constitution, for example, suggesting as fact that slavery was built into the founding document (xvi) without really elaborating on the assertion - I would love to know his thoughts on whether the Constitution recognizes property in man, a matter of debate among scholars (and one my own students love to discuss…). Also, he connects the “epidemic of violence” to Jackson’s empowerment of white working classes without elaborating beyond the assumption that a bump in electoral representation would give white workers license to attack the minorities they despised. (88) This may very well have been the case and the correlation is certainly clear - but it is much easier to assert than support a direct cause/effect relationship.

All in all, I think Dickey’s writing style is both brisk and engaging, and I thoroughly appreciated how he got me thinking on the subject beyond my usual take on the negative finger waving by an accusative southern antebellum press. What’s more, this book illustrates how fiercely committed Americans were to preserving the institution of slavery and acknowledges their trans-sectional allies. Wiling to inflict the most heinous of violent attacks on anti-slavery advocates, both black and white, Dickey shows the complicity of a much broader cross-section of Americans.

Check the book out for yourself and we can discuss.

With compliments,

Keith