Year of Award

2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Degree Name

History

Department or School/College

Department of History

Committee Chair

Kyle G. Volk

Commitee Members

Anya Jabour, Claire Rydell Arcenas, Tobin Miller Shearer, Thomas J. Brown

Keywords

Commemoration, Daniel Webster, Massachusetts, Memory, Monument, U.S. Civil War

Abstract

This dissertation explores the political afterlife of American statesman Daniel Webster (1782- 1852) from 1852 to 1865. It explores two distinct yet interconnected theaters of politics in antebellum America: the politics of memory and the politics of commemoration. Webster’s followers engaged in the politics of memory by resurrecting their statesman in the national arena. Defenders, detractors, and partisans contested Webster’s memory to claim power and legitimacy during the sectional crisis in the 1850s and during the Civil War in the 1860s.

The physical monument in Boston was the epicenter for a second political theater, the politics of commemoration. Following the statesman’s death in 1852, one hundred of the most powerful men in Massachusetts formed the Webster Memorial Committee to erect a bronze statue. The monument-building process¾organization, funding, and placement¾invited political contestation. Unionists, abolitionists, Black petitioners, German immigrants, female activists, and party politicians all contested the monument. They debated whether Daniel Webster, a northern doughface, was worthy of a public monument in Boston, Massachusetts, the epicenter of abolitionism in the Civil War North.

This dissertation argues that Webster’s contested memory and monument constituted a distinct sphere of politics in the Age of Disunion. Here, antebellum Americans contested core components of early American democracy. They debated whether the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Law were necessary to preserving the Union. They debated the nature of the Union and how to best preserve liberty. They clashed over whether to obey the U.S. Constitution or disregard the law for the sake of freedom. Competing visions of democracy clashed around Webster’s memory generally, and his monument specifically. Pundits mustered Webster’s memory to exert political power during a of prolonged national crisis.

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© Copyright 2024 Michael James Larmann