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.
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.
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"--
