In the first half of the nineteenth century, Southerners eliminated the wealth and property requirements that had once restricted political participation. Most southern states also removed the property requirements for holding state offices. To be sure, undemocratic features lingered. Plantation districts still wielded disproportionate power in several state legislatures. Nevertheless, southern politics took place within an increasingly democratic political structure, as it did elsewhere in the nation.

White male suffrage ushered in an era of vigorous electoral competition in the South. Eager voters rushed to the polls to exercise their new rights. Candidates crisscrossed their electoral districts, treating citizens to barbecues and bands, rum and races, as well as stirring oratory. In the South, it seemed, “everybody talked politics everywhere,” even the “illiterate and shoeless.”

As politics became aggressively democratic, it also grew fiercely partisan. From the 1830s to the 1850s, Whigs and Democrats battled for the electorate’s favor. Both parties presented themselves as the plain white folk’s best friend. All candidates declared their allegiance to republican equality and pledged themselves to defend the people’s liberty. And each party sought to portray the other as a collection of rich, snobbish, selfish men who had antidemocratic designs up their silk sleeves.