The 1850s saw in America the breakdown of the Jacksonian party system in the North and the emergence of a new sectional party--the Republicans--that succeeded the Whigs in the nation's two-party system. This monumental work uses demographic, voting, and other statistical analysis as well as the more traditional methods and sources of political history to trace the realignment of American politics in the 1850s and the birth of the Republican party. Gienapp powerfully demonstrates that the organization of the Republican party was a difficult, complex, and lengthy process and explains why, even after an inauspicious beginning, it ultimately became a potent political force. The study also reveals the crucial role of ethnocultural factors in the collapse of the second party system and thoroughly analyzes the struggle between nativism and antislavery for political dominance in the North. The volume concludes with the decisive triumph of the Republican party over the rival American party in the 1856 presidential election. Far-reaching in scope yet detailed in analysis, this is the definitive work on the formation of the Republican party in antebellum America. ... Publisher descri[ption.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 287-310) and index.
Summary
Although the United States has always portrayed itself as a sanctuary for the world's victim's of poverty and oppression, anti-immigrant movements have enjoyed remarkable success throughout American history. None attained greater prominence than the Order of the Star Spangled Banner, a fraternal order referred to most commonly as the Know Nothing party. Vowing to reduce the political influence of immigrants and Catholics, the Know Nothings burst onto the American political scene in 1854, and by the end of the following year they had elected eight governors, more than one hundred congressmen, and thousands of other local officials including the mayors of Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Chicago. After their initial successes, the Know Nothings attempted to increase their appeal by converting their network of lodges into a conventional political organization, which they christened the "American Party." Recently, historians have pointed to the Know Nothings' success as evidence that ethnic and religious issues mattered more to nineteenth-century voters than better-known national issues such as slavery. In this important book, however, Anbinder argues that the Know Nothings' phenomenal success was inextricably linked to the firm stance their northern members took against the extension of slavery. Most Know Nothings, he asserts, saw slavery and Catholicism as interconnected evils that should be fought in tandem. Although the Know Nothings certainly were bigots, their party provided an early outlet for the anti-slavery sentiment that eventually led to the Civil War. Anbinder's study presents the first comprehensive history of America's most successful anti-immigrant movement, as well as a major reinterpretation of the political crisis that led to the Civil War.
Journal of the Senate of the United States of America; : being the second session of the Second Congress, begun and held at the city of Philadelphia, November 5th, 1792, and in the seventeenth year of the sovereignty of the said United States
Second Congress, 2nd Session: from 5 November 1792 to 2 March 1793.
Speech of President Washington to Congress, Nov. 6, 1792: p. 5-9.
Signed on p. 89: Samuel A. Otis, secretary [of the Senate].
Signatures: [A]² B-2B².
Appendix: Titles of the acts passed at the second session of the Second Congress of the United States, begun and held at Philadelphia, in the state of Pennsylvania, on Monday the 5th day of November 1792. -- Bills originated during the session, but were either rejected or postponed. -- The classes of the Senators of the United States, on the 4th day of March 1793.
I. The crisis of the new order. -- American democracy in a revolutionary age -- The Republican interest and the self-created democracy -- The making of Jeffersonian democracy -- Jefferson's two presidencies -- Nationalism and the War of 1812 -- II. Democracy ascendant. -- The era of bad feelings -- Slavery, compromise, and democratic politics -- The politics of moral improvement -- The aristocracy and democracy of America -- The Jackson era: uneasy beginnings -- Radical democracies -- 1832: Jackson's crucial year -- Banks, abolitionists, and the equal rights democracy -- "The republic has degenerated into a democracy" -- The politics of hard times -- Whigs, Democrats, and democracy -- III. Slavery and the crisis of American democracy. -- Whig debacle, Democratic confusion -- Antislavery, annexation, and the advent of young Hickory -- The bitter fruits of Manifest Destiny -- War, slavery, and the American 1848 -- Political truce, uneasy consequences -- The truce collapses -- A nightmare broods over society -- The faith that right makes might -- The Iliad of all our woes.
Summary
Political historian Wilentz traces an arc from the earliest days of the Republic to the opening shots of the Civil War, showing how the elitist young American republic became a rough-and-tumble democracy. He brings to life the era after the American Revolution, when the idea of democracy remained contentious, and Jeffersonians and Federalists clashed over the role of ordinary citizens in government of, by, and for the people. The triumph of Andrew Jackson soon defined this role on the national level, while city democrats, Anti-Masons, fugitive slaves, and a host of others hewed their own local definitions. In these definitions Wilentz recovers the beginnings of a discontent--two starkly opposed democracies, one in the North and another in the South--and the wary balance that lasted until the election of Abraham Lincoln sparked its bloody resolution.--From publisher description.
A constitutional view of the late war between the states : its causes, character, conduct and results ; presented in a series of colloquies at Liberty Hall
Includes bibliographical references (p. 467-498) and index.
Contents
The newspaper-based political system of the nineteenth-century United States -- The printing trade in early American politics -- The two national Gazettes and the beginnings of newspaper politics -- Benjamin Franklin Bache and the price of partisanship -- The background and failure of the sedition Act -- Charles Holt's generation: from commercial printers to political professionals -- The expansion of the Republican newspaper network, 1798-1800 -- A presence in the public sphere: William Duane and the triumph of newspaper politics -- The new conventional wisdom: consolidating and expanding a newspaper-based political system -- The federalists strike back -- Improving on the Sedition Act: press freedom and political culture after 1800 -- The "tyranny of printers" in Jeffersonian Philadelphia -- Ordinary editors and everyday politics: how the system worked -- Newspaper editors and the reconstruction of party politics.
Debates and other proceedings of the Convention of Virginia : convened at Richmond, on Monday the second day of June, 1788, for the purpose of deliberating on the Constitution recommended by the grand Federal convention ; to which is prefixed the Federal Constitution
The army and navy of America : containing a view of the heroic adventures, battles, naval engagements, remarkable incidents, and glorious achievements in the cause of freedom, from the period of the French and Indian Wars to the close of the Mexican War : independent of an account of warlike operations on land and sea : enlivened by a variety of the most interesting anecdotes and embellished with engravings
This essay provides contextual information concerning how the English actually hired the soldiers and why the German princes, and not other nations who were asked, were willing to sell their men to English. It also discusses how the English and German public reacted to the hiring of German soldiers.
