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.
v. 1. Annual message of the President ; Report of the Secretary of the Interior ; Report of the Secretary of War ; Report of the Secretary of the Navy ; Report of the Postmaster-General -- v. 2. Report of the Secretary of War --
edited by Michael J. Birkner, Randall M. Miller, and John W. Quist.
ISBN
9780807170816 (cloth : alk. paper)
Place of Publication
Baton Rouge
Publisher
Louisiana State University Press,
Date of Publication
[2019]
Physical Description
xiv, 279 pages : illustrations, map ; 24 cm.
Series
Conflicting worlds : new dimensions of the American Civil War
Notes
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents
Introduction : possessing the power : the role of force in James Buchanan's Caribbean policy / Amy S. Greenberg -- The bachelor's mess : James Buchanan and the domestic politics of doughfacery in Jacksonian America / Thomas J. Balcerski -- Stephen A. Douglas, free-soiler : a counterfactual analysis of party reformation in the 1850s / Douglas R. Egerton -- "General Jackson is dead" : dissecting a popular anecdote of nineteenth-century party leadership / Matthew Pinsker -- "Buck all over" : James Buchanan and a trail of broken relationships / William P. MacKinnon -- Slavery and the breakup of the Democratic Party in the North : a battle of ideas and organization / Frank Towers -- Friends and outliers : Varina Davis, James Buchanan, and gender relations in Antebellum Washington / Joan E. Cashin -- "Like the baseless fabric of a vision" : Thaddeus Stevens and confiscation reconsidered / John David Smith -- "Eastern and Western empire" : Thaddeus Stevens and the greater Reconstruction / Michael Green -- A conversation with Bruce Levine and James Oakes : moderated by Randall M. Miller.
Summary
"The Worlds of James Buchanan and Thaddeus Stevens examines the political interests, relationships, and practices of two of the era's most prominent politicians as well as the political landscapes they inhabited and informed. Both men called Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, their home, and both were bachelors. During the 1850s, James Buchanan tried to keep the Democratic Party alive as the slavery debate divided his peers and the political system. Thaddeus Stevens, meanwhile, as Whig turned Republican, invested in the federal government to encourage economic development and social reform, especially antislavery and Republican Reconstruction"--
The American statesman: a political history, exhibiting the origin, nature and practical operation of constitutional government in the United States; the rise and progress of parties, the legislation relating to all matters of national importance, with views of distinguished statesmen on questions of foreign and domestic policy
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.
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
Prologue: America's Crisis -- 1. Slavery and States' Rights in the Early Republic -- 2. The Political Economy of Slavery and Secession -- 3. The Slave Power Seeks Foreign Conquest -- 4. Emergence of the Republican Party -- 5. The Confederate States of America -- 6. Mobilizing for Conflict -- 7. The Military Struggle -- 8. The War to Abolish Slavery? -- 9. Republican Neo-Mercantilism Versus Confederate War Socialism -- 10. Dissent and Disaffection - North and South -- 11. The Ravages of Total War -- 12. The Politics of Reconstruction -- 13. American Society Transformed -- Epilogue: America's Turning Point.
Summary
This book combines a sweeping narrative history of the Civil War with a bold new look at the war's significance for American society. Professor Hummel sees the Civil War as America's turning point: simultaneously the culmination and repudiation of the American revolution. A unique feature of the book is the bibliographical essays which follow every chapter. Here the author surveys the literature and points out where his own interpretation fits into the continuing clash of viewpoints which informs historical debate on the Civil War.
