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The question of how Whig policies affected the early development of common schools has received little examination in either political or educational histories. There is evidence, however, that Whig party politics did influence early educational reformers. This paper will consider the influence of Whig party politics on the emergence of state systems of common schools from the 1830s through the 1850s.
The history of American educational development and the rise of the public schools are intimately interwoven with the history of American politics. All political parties have taken positions on issues facing the public schools, and often those positions have generated intense controversy. The Whig Party supported the common schools in their formative years and nearly all of the prominent early educators identified politically with that party. This paper will examine the careers of three prominent creators or reformers of state public school systems. Horace Mann (Massachusetts), Henry Barnard (Connecticut and Rhode Island), and Calvin Henderson Wiley (South Carolina), all were elected to political office as Whigs, and their political careers are illustrative of the centrality of Whig politics to the rise of common schools. Many of the politicians who strongly supported free public education during Reconstruction, such as Senators Charles Sumner, and Henry Wilson as well as Congressman George Frisbie Hoar also started their political lives in the Whig party. During these early years the Whig Party advocated a wide array of public improvements and the Whig platform routinely included a plank on free common schools. Ironically, the twin issues of slavery and support for public funding of parochial schools were the two rocks upon which the Whig party shattered in the early 1850s.
Historians have generally concluded, correctly, that all of the political parties of the period endorsed education, and as Milton Gaither observed, "On the whole the ideology of common school reformers transcended party lines" (Gaither 2003, 39). While Gaither' s statement is true, the Jacksonian era was one of the most partisan periods in American history and it is worth noting that early supporters of state run free public school systems overwhelmingly identified with the Whig party, and the party openly and avidly supported free public schools.
During the mid-1960s, several scholars engaged in an intense debate over whether humanitarian...