In the United States, ethnocultural politics or ethnoreligious politics refers to the pattern of certain cultural groups or religious denominations to vote heavily for one party. Groups can be based on ethnicity (such as Hispanics, Irish, Germans, etc.), race (White people, Black people, Asian Americans, etc.) or religion (Protestant and later Evangelical or Catholic, etc.) or on overlapping categories (e.g. Irish Catholics). In the Southern United States, race was the determining factor. Each of the two major parties was a coalition of ethnoreligious groups in the Second Party System (1830s–1850s) and also in the Third Party System (1850s–1890s).
Second Great Awakening: 1800–1850
The Protestant religious revivals of the early 19th century had a profound impact on shaping the moral values of the affected voters, pushing them into moralistic political programs, such as opposition to slavery and calling for prohibition of alcoholic beverages. Revivals and perfectionist hopes of improving individuals and society continued to increase from 1840 to 1865 across all major denominations, especially in urban areas. Evangelists often directly addressed issues such as slavery, greed, and poverty, laying the groundwork for later reform movements.Timothy L. Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform: American Protestantism on the Eve of the Civil War (1957) Although the women could not vote or hold office, they could influence the political viewpoints of their menfolk. In the midst of shifts in theology and church polity, American Christians began progressive movements to reform society during this period. Known commonly as antebellum reform, the phenomenon included reforms in temperance, women's rights, abolitionism, and a multitude of other questions faced by society.Alice Felt Tyler, Freedom's Ferment: Phases of American Social History from the Colonial Period to the Outbreak of the Civil War (1944)
The religious enthusiasm of the Second Great Awakening was echoed by the new political enthusiasm of the Second Party System.Stephen Meardon, "From Religious Revivals to Tariff Rancor: Preaching Free Trade and Protection during the Second American Party System," History of Political Economy, Winter 2008 Supplement, Vol. 40, pp 265-298 More active participation in politics by more segments of the population brought religious and moral issues into the political sphere. The spirit of evangelical humanitarian reforms was carried on in the antebellum Whig party.Daniel Walker Howe, "The Evangelical Movement and Political Culture in the North During the Second Party System," Journal of American History (1991) 77#4 pp: 1216-1239.Daniel Walker Howe, What hath God wrought: the transformation of America, 1815-1848 (2007). Historians stress the understanding common among participants of reform as being a part of God's plan. As a result, local churches saw their roles in society in purifying the world through the individuals to whom they could bring salvation and through changes in the law and the creation of institutions. Interest in transforming the world was applied to mainstream political action, as temperance activists, antislavery advocates, and proponents of other variations of reform sought to implement their beliefs into national politics. While Protestant religion had previously played an important role on the American political scene, the Second Great Awakening strengthened the role that it would play.Richard Carwardine, Evangelicals and politics in antebellum America (1993).
Midwest Politics in the Midwest was deeply rooted in ethnocultural divisions from the 1830s to the 20th century.Jon Gjerde, The Minds of the West: Ethnocultural Evolution in the Rural Middle West, 1830-1917 (1999). Yankee settlers from New England started arriving in Ohio before 1800 and spread throughout the northern half of the Midwest. Most of them started as farmers, but the larger proportion later moved to towns and cities as entrepreneurs, businessmen, and urban professionals. Since its beginnings in the 1830s, Chicago business was under Yankee control from the 1830s, and the railroad and financial metropolis quickly came to dominate the Midwestern economy.William Cronon, Nature's metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (2009) However, city politics was under the control of complex ethnic coalitions in both parties. Finally, in the 1930s, the Irish took control of the Democratic Party and the city government.John M. Allswang, A House for All Peoples: Ethnic Politics in Chicago 1890--1936 (2015)
The historian John Buenker has examined the worldview of the Yankee settlers in the Midwest: Because they arrived first and had a strong sense of community and mission, Yankees were able to transplant New England institutions, values, and mores, altered only by the conditions of frontier life. They established a public culture that emphasized the work ethic, the sanctity of private property, individual responsibility, faith in residential and social mobility, practicality, piety, public order and decorum, reverence for public education, activists, honest, and frugal government, town meeting democracy, and he believed that there was a public interest that transcends particular and stick ambitions. Regarding themselves as the elect and just in a world rife with sin, air, and corruption, they felt a strong moral obligation to define and enforce standards of community and personal behavior.... This pietistic worldview was substantially shared by British, Scandinavian, Swiss, English-Canadian and Dutch Reformed immigrants, as well as by German Protestants and many of the Forty-Eighters.
Midwestern politics pitted Yankees against the German Catholics and Lutherans, who were often led by the Irish Catholics. Such large groups, Buenker argues: Generally subscribed to the work ethic, a strong sense of community, and activist government but were less committed to economic individualism and privatism and ferociously opposed to government supervision of the personal habits. Southern and eastern European immigrants generally leaned more toward the Germanic view of things, while modernization, industrialization, and urbanization modified nearly everyone's sense of individual economic responsibility and put a premium on organization, political involvement, and education.
Third Party System: 1850s–1890s
Religious lines were sharply drawn.Kleppner (1979) Methodists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Scandinavian Lutherans and other pietists in the North were tightly linked to the Republican Party. In sharp contrast, liturgical groups, especially the Catholics, Episcopalians, and German Lutherans, looked to the Democratic Party for protection from pietistic moralism, especially Prohibition. While both parties cut across economic class structures, the Democrats were supported more heavily by its lower tiers.
Cultural issues, especially Prohibition and foreign language schools, became important because of the sharp religious divisions in the electorate. In the North, about 50% of the voters were pietistic Protestants who believed the government should be used to reduce social sins, such as drinking. Liturgical churches comprised over a quarter of the vote and wanted the government to stay out of personal morality issues. Prohibition debates and referendums heated up politics in most states over a period of decades, as national Prohibition was finally passed in 1919 and repealed in 1933. It served as a major issue between the wet Democrats and the dry Republicans.
Germans German Americans comprised the largest ethnic group in the North, but they were sharply divided along religious lines. Catholics, several groups of Lutherans, Methodists, and other Protestants each formed tight-knit communities. The Catholics and Lutherans operated separate parochial schools. In addition there were secular groups, ranging from the Forty-Eighters (liberal refugees from the failed 1848 revolution) to socialists. Relatively few German Americans held office, but the men voted once they became citizens. In general, during the Third Party System (1850s–1890s), the Protestants and Jews leaned toward the Republican Party, and the Catholics were strongly Democratic. When Prohibition was on the ballot, the Germans voted solidly against it since they strongly distrusted moralistic crusaders, whom they called "Puritans," including the temperance reformers and many Populists. The German community strongly opposed Free Silver and voted heavily against the crusader William Jennings Bryan in 1896. In 1900, however, many German Democrats returned to their party and voted for Bryan, perhaps because of President William McKinley's foreign policy. Many Germans in late-19th-century America were socialists, and they were usually affiliated with labor unions. Germans played a significant role in the American labor movement, especially in the brewing and the construction trades.Hartmut Keil, and John B. Jentz, eds., German Workers in Industrial Chicago, 1850-1910: A Comparative Perspective (1983).
Realignment in 1850s
The Republican Party emerged from the great political realignment of the mid-1850s. William Gienapp argues that the great realignment of the 1850s began before the Whig party collapse, and was caused not by politicians but by voters at the local level. The central forces were ethno-cultural, involving tensions between pietistic Protestants versus liturgical Catholics, Lutherans and Episcopalians regarding Catholicism, prohibition, and nativism. Anti-slavery did play a role but it was less important at first. The Know-Nothing party embodied the social forces at work, but its weak leadership was unable to solidify its organization, and the Republicans picked it apart. Nativism was so powerful that the Republicans could not avoid it, but they did minimize it and turn voter wrath against the threat that slave owners would buy up the good farm lands wherever slavery was allowed. The realignment was powerful because it forced voters to switch parties, as typified by the rise and fall of the Know-Nothings, the rise of the Republican Party, and the splits in the Democratic Party.William Gienapp, The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856 (Oxford UP, 1987)William Gienapp, "Nativism and the Creation of a Republican Majority in the North before the Civil War." Journal of American History 72.3 (1985): 529-559 online
Voting patterns by religion Voting behavior by religion, northern USA, late 19th century Religion % Dem % GOP Immigrants Irish Catholics 80 20 All Catholics 70 30 Confessional German Lutherans 65 35 German Reformed 60 40 French Canadian Catholics 50 50 Less Confessional German Lutherans 45 55 English Canadians 40 60 British stock 35 65 German Sectarians 30 70 Norwegian Lutherans 20 80 Swedish Lutherans 15 85 Haugean Norwegians 5 95 Natives Northern stock Quakers 5 95 Free Will Baptists 20 80 Congregational 25 75 Methodists 25 75 Regular Baptists 35 65 Blacks 40 60 Presbyterians 40 60 Episcopalians 45 55 Southern stock Disciples 50 50 Presbyterians 70 30 Baptists 75 25 Methodists 90 10 Source: Kleppner, Paul (1979). The Third Electoral System 1853–1892. p. 182.
Progressive era: 1890–1932
Prohibition