Wahl on Howe, _What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848_

[Book Reviews in Economic and Business History]

Published by EH.NET (September 2008)

Daniel Walker Howe, _What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of 
America, 1815-1848_.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.  xviii + 
904 pp. $35 (cloth), ISBN: 978-0-19-507894-7.

Reviewed for EH.NET by Jenny Wahl, Department of Economics, Carleton 
College.


Innovations in transportation, improvements in communication, the fire 
of religion, and the rise of political parties: these are the themes of 
Daniel Walker Howe’s huge history of the period sandwiched by the War of 
1812 and the Mexican War.  The title’s initial clause replicates the 
earliest telegraphed message; like Samuel F.B. Morse, Howe deliberately 
eschews punctuation, leaving the reader to decide whether the phrase 
should end with a question mark or an exclamation point.  Howe offers 
little original scholarship, but he has done his homework -- his 
footnotes display familiarity with virtually all of the major and many 
of the minor works of economic, political, cultural, and just plain 
history regarding the early republic.  Part lively anecdote, part 
tedious generalization, this newest tome in the Oxford History of the 
United States provides a good overview for the general reader and a rich 
resource for scholars seeking citations to original research.

Howe casts the first half of the nineteenth century as a struggle 
between Democrats and Whigs over the future of America; he devotes more 
than half of the twenty chapters primarily to politics.  Howe clearly 
favors the Whig emphasis on “qualitative economic improvement” rather 
than the Democrats’ pursuit of “quantitative expansion of territory” (p. 
706), calling the Whigs the “party of America’s future” (p. 612).  His 
admiration for John Quincy Adams is apparent, his disdain for Andrew 
Jackson palpable.  He frequently laments what might have been had the 
Whigs prevailed politically.  (See for example pp. 283, 689-90.)  In a 
somewhat heavy-handed metaphor, Howe likens the Democrats to the 
mythical “frontier marksman” while noting that the Whig-like artillery 
actually won wars (pp. 17-18, 65).

Much of the story is linear, although some chapters tackle specific 
topics.  Chapters 5, 8, 12, and 16 largely concern religion, for 
example.  Aside from politics and religion, the book is a kaleidoscope 
of well-worn subjects -- the Erie Canal, the Monroe Doctrine, the case 
of McCulloch v. Maryland, the Missouri Compromise, utopian societies, 
Cherokee removal, the Charles River Bridge case, the Bank War, the 
Amistad, Transcendentalism, the California gold rush, the Irish potato 
blight.  Howe is at his best when depicting battles -- soldiers 
shivering in the chilly mist covering New Orleans (prologue), and 
Winfield Scott brilliantly advancing upon Veracruz, Chapultepec, and 
Cerro Gordo as Santa Anna hastily departs without his prosthetic leg 
(chapter 19).   Vignettes of individuals well-known (Sojourner Truth, 
Eli Whitney) and obscure (John Ball, Anthony Trollope’s mother) work 
well as windows on wider subjects.  His forays into demography and 
economics, in contrast, mostly generate yawns (chapter 14, for instance).

Still, the alert reader can enjoy numerous nuggets:  80 percent of New 
Englanders bathed at most once a year (p. 32), the anti-Masons held the 
first national political convention (p. 269), Methodists outnumbered 
Catholics in the U.S. before the Civil War (p. 201), more Americans read 
newspapers in 1822 than any other national group (p. 227), illegal 
immigration from the U.S. plagued Mexico in the nineteenth century (p. 
660), long-distance chess games revealed the interactive capability of 
the telegraph (p. 696), Secretary of State James Monroe led a scouting 
party for redcoats during the War of 1812 (p. 64), the Liberty Bell 
cracked while tolling for Chief Justice John Marshall’s funeral (p. 
439).  I enjoyed the reminder of Andrew Jackson arriving at the White 
House on horseback and departing by train, and of the redundant Battle 
of New Orleans -- what a pity the Treaty of Ghent preceded the invention 
of the telegraph and the laying of the trans-Atlantic cable.  Some 
statistics Howe tosses out deserve a little more commentary, however: is 
it really surprising that the desertion rate in the Mexican War doubled 
that for the Vietnam conflict, given geography (p. 751)?  And is it 
possible that annual per capita alcohol consumption totaled 7 gallons in 
the early part of the nineteenth century (p. 167) simply because 
widespread water purification did not exist?

Howe occasionally draws apt modern-day comparisons.  Andrew Jackson’s 
serial replacement of Treasury secretaries until Roger Taney did his 
bidding with banks indeed resembles Richard Nixon’s Saturday night 
massacre (pp. 387-88).  At times the comparisons seem forced, however. 
Is Thomas Jefferson’s dying in debt really comparable to our current 
account deficit (pp. 60-61)?  Can today’s developing countries truly 
count on democracy flourishing during transitions just because it did 
for America two centuries ago (pp. 849-50)?

Quirky statements and viewpoints appear periodically as well. “The 
Americans forgot about Canada (as they usually do) ... (p. 519).”  The 
acquisition of California “enabled a strong stand to be taken against 
the aggressions of Imperial Japan in the 1940s.  God moves in mysterious 
ways, and He is certainly capable of bringing good out of evil (p. 
811).”  How does Howe know that “[a] family farm worked best when 
husband and wife cooperated closely and accorded each other mutual 
respect (p. 36)”?  If he considers the term ‘Jacksonian democracy’ 
“inappropriate” (p. 4), why does he use it to title chapter 11?  And, 
although the telegraph certainly conveyed ideas quickly so as to help 
unify political parties and to spread the word of abolitionists (pp. 
242, 646), Howe misses the chance to point out that the lack of 
centralized, authoritarian control over the dissemination of information 
is what made this possible in America.  Perhaps the Democrats’ emphasis 
on individuality had its merits after all.

Ultimately, this sprawling book (winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for 
History) is a worthwhile read, despite its uneven nature.  Just don’t 
try it in one sitting.


Jenny Wahl, Professor of Economics at Carleton College 
(jwahl at carleton.edu) is the author of “He Broke the Bank, but Did Andrew 
Jackson also Father the Fed?” in _Congress and the Emergence of 
Sectionalism:  From the Missouri Compromise to the Age of Jackson_, eds. 
Paul Finkelman and Donald Kennon, Ohio University Press for the U.S. 
Capitol Historical Society (2008), pp. 188-220.

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