This exercise in old-fashioned political history will interest some u.s. specialists. Norman E. Tutorow takes his cue from Ulysses s. Grant, who observed that the Mexican War was a political conflict in that both Whigs and Democrats used it for partisan purposes. Tutorow argues that the impact of public debate over the annexation of Texas and the hostilities with Mexico foreshadowed a change in the structure of American politics. As the issue of slavery became central in the public discourse, the pursuit of party advantage became less important, and the defense of sectional interests became more so.
Tutorow examines political responses in the Old Northwest. He asks whether Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio were in any way unique, and concludes that political behavior in those states mirrored in microcosm the remainder of the nation. Although alignments were diverse and unstable, most Democrats favored annexation and the war, while most Whigs opposed such actions. Nevertheless, the solidarity of party regularity broke down. As concern for sectional interests became greater, the Northwest sided with the East against the South. Tutorow claims, with some exaggeration, that historians have not fully appreciated the impact of sectionalism in the 1840s.
Relying on newspapers and congressional documents to follow the course of debate, Tutorow shows a broad diversity of opinion. He also detects a large measure of ambivalence, as politicians grappled with perplexing matters and tried to calculate the probable consequences of their own acts. Somewhat diffuse in approach, this book seeks mainly to examine relationships between party and section. These are further illustrated by an elaborate display of graphics in the appendix. They show the complicated effects of the slavery issue in the Old Northwest.
