Originally published: London : Pearson Education, 2003.
Includes bibliographical references (p. [327]-360) and index.
Contents
1. Inner power : Lincoln's ambition and political vision, 1809-54 -- Ambition -- Political vision -- Moral crisis : 1854 -- The religious roots of moral power -- 2. The power of opinion : Lincoln : the Illinois public and the new political order, 1854-58 -- Lincoln, democratic politics and public opinion -- Illinois public opinion and the anti-Nebraska fusion movement -- The senatorial campaign of 1858 -- 3. The power of party : winning the presidency, 1858-60 -- Presidential ambition : Lincoln, his party and the road to the Decatur convention -- The Republican presidential nomination -- The 1860 presidential campaign : the power of a righteous party -- 4. Confronting the limits of power : from president-elect to war president, 1860-61 -- In the antechamber to power : holding the party line -- From Springfield to Sumter : building a united front -- Strategies for 'a people's war' -- 'What shall I do? The people are impatient ... ' -- 5. The purposes of power : evolving objectives, 1861-65 -- Reading the public -- 'Every indispensable means' : toward the Emancipation Proclamation -- Faith and purposes -- Faithfulness of purpose : emancipation, reconstruction and black citizenship -- 6. The instruments of power : coercion and voluntary mobilization, 1861-65 -- Coercion, repression and executive power -- Popular mobilization : the 'power of the right word' and the agency of party -- Popular mobilization : churches and philanthropic organizations -- The Union army as a moral force -- The election of 1864 : 'the second birth of our nation' -- 7. Conclusion : power in death -- Chronology of Lincoln's life.
Summary
A portrait of America's sixteenth president follows Lincoln's life and career during his rise to political power and his years in the White House, arguing that he looked beyond the political system to find support in his struggle to end slavery.
Reason to celebrate -- Young man of Pennsylvania -- A life in politics -- Honors at home and abroad -- A run for the White House -- Conflicts and controversies -- Bleeding Kansas and John Brown -- A nation divided -- Taking the blame -- Glossary -- James Buchanan's life at a glance -- James Buchanan's life and times -- World events -- Understanding James Buchanan and his presidency better.
Summary
A biography of the fifteenth president of the United States, discussing his personal life, education, and political career.
Immigrant's son -- Love and politics -- To Washington : congressman Buchanan -- Senator Buchanan -- Diplomacy -- The most suitable man for the times -- President Buchanan -- March toward war -- Back to wheatland.
From schoolboy to politician -- The road to the Senate -- Approaching storm -- Moving toward war -- Time line -- Glossary -- The United States government -- Choosing the president -- The White House -- Presidential perks -- Facts.
An ironic examination of the founding years of our country. Historian Ellis guides us through the decisive issues of the nation's founding, and illuminates the emerging philosophies, shifting alliances, and personal and political foibles of our now iconic leaders. He explains how the idea of a strong federal government, championed by Washington, was eventually embraced by the American people, the majority of whom had to be won over. And he details the emergence of the two-party system--then a political novelty--which today stands as the founders' most enduring legacy. But Ellis is equally incisive about their failures, making clear how their inability to abolish slavery and to reach a just settlement with the Native Americans has played an equally important role in shaping our national character. Ellis strips the mythic veneer of the revolutionary generation to reveal men possessed of both brilliance and blindness.--From publisher description.
Young Center books in Anabaptist and Pietist studies
Notes
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents
Introduction : religion, religious minorities, and the American Civil War -- Politics and peoplehood in a restless republic -- Our country is at war -- Conscription, combat, and Virginia's "war of self-defense," 1861-1862 -- Negotiation and notoriety in Pennsylvania, 1862 -- Patterns of peace and patriotism in the Midwest -- The fighting comes north, 1862-1863 -- Thaddeus Stevens and Pennsylvania Mennonite politics -- Did Jesus Christ teach men war? -- Resistance and revenge in Virginia, 1863-1864 -- Burning the Shenandoah Valley -- Reconstructed nation, reconstructed peoplehood.
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.
Part 1. A growing rivalry between the North and South, 1846-1854. The Mexican War, the Wilmot Proviso, and the election of 1848 ; The Compromise of 1850 ; The fugitive slave controversy, the election of 1852, and growing sectionalism -- Part 2. Southern successes, Northern anxieties, 1854-1857. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, bleeding Kansas, and the Republican Party ; The elction of 1856 and its aftermath -- Part 3. The Union comes apart, 1857-1861. Dred Scott, Kansas, and the events of 1858 ; John Brown's raid, party conventions, the election of 1860, and secession.
Summary
Voices from the Gathering Storm explains the dramatic change in thinking about the nature and value of the American Union from 1846 to1861 which impelled citizens from 11 southern states to declare independence and the remaining 22 states to fight the bloodiest war in the nation's history. This reader tells the story of seventeen Northerners and Southerners who lived through the critical fifteen years prior to the Civil War. In their letters and diaries, they describe in their own words what it was like to live during the sectional crisis and the coming of the war. [from the publisher]
"Forever Free project : Peter O. Almond & Stephen B. Brier, senior producers ; Christine Doudna, editor."
Originally published: Knopf, 2005.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 239-244) and index.
Contents
The peculiar institution -- True likenesses -- Forever free -- Re-visions of war -- The meanings of freedom -- Altered relations -- An American crisis -- The tocsin of freedom -- On the offensive -- The facts of reconstruction -- Countersigns -- The abandonment of reconstruction -- Jim Crow -- The unfinished revolution.
Summary
Draws on a wide range of documents to offer a new interpretation of the Emancipation and Reconstruction years and the lasting impact they had on the nation's history.
Includes bibliographical references (p. [263]-267) and index.
Summary
From the moment of Lincoln's death on April 15, 1865, until Andrew Johnson, his replacement, formally announced postwar plans on May 29, the fate of the country hung in the balance. War had left the Republic strained almost beyond endurance. Johnson's ascendancy to the presidency seemed the killing stroke, even to the victorious North. A former slave owner from the border state of Tennessee, Johnson had been drunk at his inauguration as vice president; he was hated equally by the South and the North. Some Northerners were even convinced he had been part of the conspiracy behind Lincoln's assassination. Later, he escaped impeachment by a single vote. As Howard Means reveals in this revisionist account of Johnson's first six weeks in office, the new president faced almost insurmountable odds. Yet Johnson not only met but overcame them, preserving the Union for which so many had sacrificed their lives.--From publisher description.
Located in Chelten Hills just outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Camp William Penn was the largest and first Civil War facility to exclusively train Northern-based federal black soldiers during the war. Boasting the biggest free-black population in the country and the 19th-century’s epicenter of the Underground Railroad, Philadelphia and Camp William Penn, hosted the greatest anti-slavery abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Robert Purvis, and William Still. Douglass and Tubman spoke to and rallied some of the almost 11,000 soldiers, many of them runaway or ex-slaves, who trained in eleven regiments that fought in a slew of major battles, helped to corner the Confederate General Robert E. Lee and his Rebel forces, as well as capture President Lincoln’s assassins. Several earned the Medal of Honor for their bravery, and many gave their lives. At a time when America’s very existence was threatened, the warriors and freedom fighters for human equality associated with Camp William Penn were a major part of the country’s salvation. The complete story is told here. [from the publisher]
Includes bibliographical references (p. 415-436) and index.
Contents
Young ambition -- The Great South Sea -- The deplorable expedition -- Most glorious hopes -- At sea -- The turning point -- Commodore of the Pacific -- Antarctica -- A new continent --- The cannibal isles -- Massacre at Mololo -- Mauna Loa -- The wreck of the Peacock -- Homeward bound -- Reckoning -- This thing called science -- Legacy.
Summary
In 1838, the U.S. government launched the largest discovery voyage the Western world had ever seen-6 sailing vessels and 346 men bound for the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Four years later, the U.S. Exploring Expedition returned with an astounding array of accomplishments and discoveries: 87,000 miles logged, 280 Pacific islands surveyed, 4,000 zoological specimens collected, including 2,000 new species, and the discovery of the continent of Antarctica. And yet at a human level, the project was a disaster-not only had 28 men died and 2 ships been lost, but a series of sensational courts-martial had also ensued that pitted the expedition's controversial leader, Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, against almost every officer under his command. Though comparable in importance and breadth of success to the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the Ex. Ex. has been largely forgotten. Now, Nathaniel Philbrick re-creates this chapter of American maritime history in all its triumph and scandal. Sea of glory combines meticulous history with spellbinding human drama as it circles the globe from the palm-fringed beaches of the South Pacific to the treacherous waters off Antarctica and to the stunning beauty of the Pacific Northwest, and, finally, to a court-martial aboard a ship of the line anchored off New York City.