A Plague o' Both Your Houses

BRIAN: We’re back with BackStory. I’m Brian Balogh.

PETER: I’m Peter Onuf.

ED: And I’m Ed Ayers. Today on the show, we’re looking at the media’s favorite buzzword with an hour on populism in American history.

PETER: So Ed, that was a great discussion of populism in the late 19th century that you gave us before the break. I’d agree that there is a tradition in populism– popular discontent and anger– that goes back to the mob violence of the 18th century before the revolution and throughout American history, in fact. To help make that point, I’ve enlisted an old friend of mine, Paul Gilje, who is the world’s leading expert on rioting and mob action in American history. Paul, welcome to the show.

PAUL GILJE: Well, thank you, Peter. It’s fun to be here.

PETER: So Paul, my working premise is that there’s a connection between what you have studied at such great length and what’s happening today. What do you think?

PAUL GILJE: I think the key connection that you’re thinking about– the reason why thinking about populism today will set off a little light bulb off the top of your head– was that I think a lot of the populist upsurge that you see in politics today is a function of frustrations with the normal channels of government. That frustration in early America often took the form of mob action.

PETER: So, Paul, give us an example of rioting in the colonial period.

PAUL GILJE: Well, we can talk about the smallpox riots in Marblehead, Massachusetts in 1774. We all think of smallpox vaccination as being a major medical innovation. And this is occurring in the 18th century. The problem was that vaccination in these days was to get a small case of the smallpox. You essentially cut your skin, and you put a little pustule in it, and then you get a mild case. Well, then you become contagious.

And so what you have right on the eve of the Revolutionary War– you have people throwing rocks and demonstrating against the richer people who could afford inoculation for fear that people who get inoculated would carry the disease and spread the disease.

PETER: It’s a great point. So there is a class dimension to this, Paul.

PAUL GILJE: Yes. And they felt that the government should step in and prevent this sort of inoculation. And instead of the government, the crowd stepped in.

PETER: Where politics fails, according to the people, and they get angry and they demand action.

PAUL GILJE: Right. Essentially, the magistrates– who would be the local officials in a community like Marblehead– were not preventing these people from getting vaccinated. So the people got frustrated with the magistrates– who, by the way, were rich people who might be getting vaccinated themselves. So what do you do? You don’t want to catch smallpox. And so the people rushed in the street, demonstrated, teared down a couple outbuildings connected to these rich people. They also did things like burned clothes that were hung up on the line. They did things that they thought was going to protect them from infection.

PETER: Paul, this is a fascinating example, these smallpox riots. But mobs were rioting throughout this period, culminating in the Revolution. But rioting didn’t stop just because Americans won their independence, did it?

PAUL GILJE: No, rioting continues. And if you were to ask me– and I say this with a wince on my face– what is my favorite all time riot–

PETER: Yeah.

PAUL GILJE: And it’s a wince–

PETER: You don’t condone them. I understand that.

PAUL GILJE: Rioting is a violent– can often be a violent activity. And of course, the riot I’m thinking about, or the series of riots I’m thinking about, are the Baltimore Riots of 1812. And the Baltimore Riots of 1812 began where there was a newspaper which was publishing articles against the entry of the United States into the War of 1812.

And the people of Baltimore felt that this violated the community’s interest. And so they go to this office, and they tear the building down.

PETER: Hey, how about free speech, Paul, freedom of the press?

PAUL GILJE: Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? The community felt there shouldn’t be free speech if you’re opposing this war, which eventually, a small group of militia intrude themselves, and they take these people who had published this newspaper, and they put them in jail for safekeeping.

And then the next night, the mob attacks the jail. And the mayor, who supports the war, steps in front of the mob, and he says to the mob, guys, you can’t do this. You can’t break into the jail. And somebody turns to him and says, Mayor Johnson, I know you very well– identifying this personal connection– and he says, there are times when the laws of the land must sleep and the laws of nature and reason prevail.

And then the crowd bursts into the jail, and there is no reason. They tear these guys apart. They beat these people to a pulp. They take pen knives and stick it into their cheeks, and they take hot candle grease and drip it into their eyes. And one guy who was being held in the jail who had been a Revolutionary War general says, gentlemen, gentlemen, stop, stop! You can’t do this! And they just beat him to a pulp, and he’s killed. And I think that the Baltimore Riots represent a transition from an 18th century form of rioting to a 19th century form of rioting in which riots becomes increasingly violent.

PETER: Paul, Paul, this is very upsetting. Now, this is nothing like what’s happening now, but there is an anger with your political opponents or with the government, and also a sense among populists that they do represent the people in some kind of fundamental, essential way.

PAUL GILJE: Yes, I think you’re right. I think that a lot of the frustration today is this sense that the government is the enemy, at least that’s certainly the frustration that exists on the right. What I find ironic about this is that, in many ways, it’s the emergence of the federal government especially which helps guide the transition for more violent expressions in popular disorder to less violent expressions of popular disorder in the 20th century. And what I find ironic is that these people, who believe that they are speaking for the people, by attacking the government, they’re in a sense attacking the very safeguard which has created a much more peaceful and much more benign kind of community that allows for more open political expression of all kinds and of all stripes.

PETER: Paul Gilje is a historian at the University of Oklahoma. He’s the author of many books, including The Road to Mobocracy: Popular Disorder in New York City, 1763 to 1834.