Search

The article looks at political parties and electoral politics in the U.S. during the 19th century. The authors introduce the idea of party fluidity, saying that the first century of U.S. politics is best understood by recognizing that the party structures were constantly in flux, rather than conforming to the typical model of a stable two-party system with occasional realignments, what they call the party system model. Topics include the historiography of U.S. political parties, the change of the Republican Party into the Union Party in the mid-1860s, and the nature of political party activities in the 19th century.

The article discusses the political aspects of the U.S. government's legal recognition of refugees from the period following American Revolutionary War through the end of the 19th century. An overview of Canadian refugees in the U.S., refugees from Nova Scotia, Creek refugees and African American freed slaves as refugees is provided.

The article discusses the historiography of the U.S. state and political history during antebellum period. Topics, including the historian William Novak's perspective on U.S. state power, U.S. public administration, the state's role in public health, commerce and security and U.S. state formation, are discussed.

The widespread availability of political pamphlets in the early United States reveals that many Americans were more politically astute and literate than previously assumed. During the 1790s, when the national parties emerged, American politicians considered pamphlets to be a better way of reaching a large readership than newspapers. This article uses as a case study John Taylor of Caroline, a Virginia political philosopher of states’ rights and US senator from 1792 to 1794, who wrote several pamphlets attacking Federalist Party fiscal policies. Taylor preferred the pamphlet form over newspapers for his essay An Enquiry into the Principles and Tendency of Certain Public Measures (1794). Seeking widespread influence and appeal, Taylor was aware that a cheaply priced pamphlet would be within easier reach of the average literate citizen than a more expensive yearlong newspaper subscription. In addition, unlike a newspaper, with its distracting array of articles, essays, news reports, and advertisements, a pamphlet would better command a reader’s complete attention while being read. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the issue of political sectionalism surrounding cod fisheries and cod fishermen on the U.S. Atlantic Ocean coast during the antebellum period. The impact that the political issues of fisheries had on relations between U.S. Southern and Northern (and Northeastern) states is discussed.

The article discusses political questions surrounding the U.S. Declaration of Independence in U.S. politics prior to the U.S. Civil War. It examines the concept of the people of the U.S. as united or consisting of the people of the individual U.S. states, the signers of the Declaration of Independence as a group apart from the states they represented, and the ideas of construction and strict construction mentioned by U.S. Supreme Court chief justice John Marshall in the case Gibbons v. Ogden, the squabble concerning the Bank of the United States, and the case Dred Scott v. Sandford.

Through the 1700s and early 1800s, Creek nationalism had the potential to both assert political autonomy and devolve into catastrophe. Projected externally, Creek nationalism engaged Euro- Americans and afforded room for local negotiation among towns and clans. However, the nationalist dynamic shifted with increased external pressure and the centralization of domestic political authority. Embodied in the suppression of retaliatory killings, the nationalist assertion of control fundamentally changed Creek country and had broad cultural ramifications. The push for exclusive authority over domestic justice forced each Creek to evaluate clan, town, and national loyalties, contributing to the many divisions leading up to the 1813 Creek War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the use of music and the invocation of the concept of harmony in politics and political campaigns in order to promote national unity during the early U.S. republic. It examines harmony as a theme of public festivals and holidays, the significance that early U.S. political leaders attached to music in national unity, and the concept of what was known as the music of the spheres. It also discusses rhetoric concerning harmony from U.S. political figures such as U.S. presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adams.

The article discusses the role of patriotism in marketing campaigns for historical and nationalistic memorabilia during the late 18th century. Particular focus is given to newspaper advertisements for patriotic portraits and other prints related to U.S. history. It is suggested that while they were originally meant to unify Americans as consumers, these campaigns became involved in partisan politics as competition grew between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans.

This article surveys recent literature in both history and political science associated with an international and diplomatic approach to the American founding. It assesses Drew McCoy's claim that this approach, as represented by David Hendrickson's Peace Pact (2003), “may well mark an important paradigm shift in early American history.” An international approach to the Constitution may mean interpreting the document either as primarily a diplomatic treaty in its own right, or as primarily influenced in its design and adoption by diplomatic and international concerns. Several significant new studies have been published since McCoy's review, both building on and revising Hendrickson's work, but his “unionist paradigm” has had less impact on historians of the Constitution and of founding than on historians of the later early republic. David Golove and Daniel Hulsebosch in 2011 reprised an internationalist approach to the Constitution by arguing that fealty to international treaties and desire for recognition structured Federalists' approach to domestic politics. This article suggests a synthesis that would reintegrate the internationalist approach with recent domestically focussed historiography. Building on the insights of internationalist scholarship, it posits the Constitution as fundamentally oriented around sanctity of contract as a scalable principle, spanning individual, state, and international spheres. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The geopolitical instability of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries prompted increased interest in political economy. But early republic leaders who sought to explain national wealth and power faced daunting challenges, as much of the economic data at their disposal was both inchoate and unreliable. This article considers how people like Mathew Carey worked to improve and spread knowledge of the republic's economic geography and its place in the international trading system. It also examines how a growing emphasis on numbers reshaped economic debate in the early American republic. Although Carey was convinced that enhanced knowledge of market relations would help public officials write more informed policies, which in turn would strengthen the republic in relation to foreign powers and help resolve conflicts within the union, a more scientific approach to economic questions failed to produce consensus and even exacerbated sectional tensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early in 1782, republican rebels in Geneva removed the city's magistrates and instituted a popular government, portraying themselves as defenders of liberty and Calvinism against the French threats of Catholicism and luxury. But on 1 July 1782, the republicans fled because of the arrival at the city gates of invading troops led by France. The failure of the Genevan revolution indicated that while new republics could be established beyond Europe, republics within Europe, and more especially Protestant republics in proximity to larger Catholic monarchies, were no longer independent states. Many Genevans sought asylum across Europe and in North America in consequence. Some of them looked to Britain and Ireland, attempting to move the industrious part of Geneva to Waterford. During the French Revolution, they sought to establish a republican community in the United States. In each case, a major goal was to transfer the Genevan Academy established in the aftermath of Calvin's Reformation. The anti-religious nature of the French Revolution made the attempt to move the Academy to North America distinctive. By contrast with the Irish case, where religious elements were played down, moving the Academy to North America was supported by religious rhetoric coupled with justifications of republican liberty. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay reinterprets the evolution of the United States between 1783 and 1861 from the perspective of imperial history. The established literature on this period focuses on the national story, and particularly on the struggle to achieve liberty and democracy. Historians of empire, however, routinely distinguish between formal and effective independence and evaluate the often halting progress of ex-colonial states in achieving a substantive transfer of power. Considered from this angle, the dominant themes of the period were the search for viability and development rather than for liberty and democracy. The article illustrates this proposition by re-evaluating the political, economic, and cultural themes that are central to the history of the period. The argument in each case is that the United States remained dependent on Great Britain to an extent that greatly limited her effective independence. The standard controversies of domestic political history, notably the battle between Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian visions of the state, are recast as differing strategies for achieving real and permanent independence. Strategies for achieving economic development made practical politics of competing arguments for protection and free trade, but failed to release the economy from its dependence on the British market and British capital. Attempts to create an independent national identity were compromised by the continuing influence of British culture and by the related notion of Anglo-Saxonism, on which prevailing policies of assimilation relied. In all these respects, the United States was an unexceptional ex-colonial state, and indeed closely followed the trajectory of other colonies of white settlement that were classified as dominions within the British Empire. The United States, however, was a dependent state that failed in 1861, and its struggle for independence had to be renewed after the Civil War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses his theories regarding the American Revolution and the early U.S. republic periods, considering whether the American national identity best reflected notions of empire, colonialism, or imperialism. Some of the subjects explored include the intellectual and political philosophies governing the operations of the U.S. federal government, taking into account both the Articles of Confederation and the U.S. Constitution; the writings of politicians James Madison and Alexander Hamilton for the periodical "The Federalist;" Anglicanization; exclusionism; regionalism; and cultural identity.

Conservative vitriol against domestic ''Jacobinism'' suffused American political culture from the early 1790s to the Civil War. Yet this transnational counterrevolutionary discourse has received far less attention than transnational radicalism during the recent Atlantic turn in early American history. Seeking to correct that oversight, this article argues that American anti-Jacobinism developed simultaneously and in conversation with British anti-Jacobinism. American prints and events influenced British opposition to French Revolutionary violence, just as they were influenced by Britain. At the same time, British and American counterrevolutionaries frequently clashed over national interests. Recovering American contributions to trans-Atlantic anti-Jacobinism opens new questions about the sentiments underlying it. I argue that American anti-Jacobinism grew out of deeply rooted concerns about domestic civil violence. Ultimately, these fears of bloodshed transformed anti-Jacobinism into a powerful weapon against the violence of slavery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on "The Federalist," a set of essays written by U.S. founding fathers Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay under the pseudonym Publius, published serially between October 1787 and May 1788. The author analyzes the essays as campaign documents and considers them not in light of political theory or intellectual origins, but as works whose original purpose and principal objective was to help the Federalists achieve victory in the ratification contests of 1787-1788. He further discusses Publius' various appeals to his audience by expounding the voices and the strategies of rhetoric and persuasion put to use.

Through the nation's first century, states used their concurrent constitutional right to schedule presidential and House elections at widely varying times. Senators were also elected within the states at diverse times. This study examines the gradual establishment of uniform election dates and offers an explanation of why Congress felt it appropriate to override state autonomy to eventually establish uniformity of state practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the Nullification Crisis in the United States in the 1830s, wherein South Carolina decided to nullify the tariffs of 1828 and 1832. Discussion of the rise of Southern political opposition in the 1820s; Factors which contributed to the rise of the political opposition; Confirmation of the failure of the nullification as a constitutional formula.

Explains how the classical theory of civic eloquence entered the United States. Examination of John Quincy Adams' lecture, `Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory'; Discussion on the republican ideal of eloquence in the 1810's; Details on David Lundberg and Henry May's study of reading habits in the early republic.

Discusses arguments made by historians, including Michael Zuckerman, Aaron S. Fogleman and others, pertaining to antiauthoritarianism patterns and freedom in early American society after the Revolution in 1775. Examination of the behavior of early Americans; Views of Zuckerman on antiauthoritarian acts and attitudes in early America; How Fogleman identified immigration trends in early American history.

Focuses on society, politics and the narrative of democracy in the United States. Criticism of the authors' essay relating to political engagement in antebellum America; Dismissal of the authors' intention to conceptualize political engagement by Harry L. Watson.

Focuses on the question of political participation in the wake of white male suffrage raised by the article `Limits of Political Engagement in Antebellum America,' by Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin. Altschuler-Blumin challenge to the reigning paradigm of antebellum politics.

Discusses United States politics, public culture and paradigms. Reference to the article `Limits of Political Engagement in Antebellum America,' by Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin.

Focuses on the antebellum political behavior and culture in the antebellum United States which was criticized by Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin.

Focuses on the history of political engagement in the United States during the antebellum era. Investigation of political affairs in Greenfield, Massachusetts and Augusta; Reference to the presidential election between Franklin Pierce and Winfield Scott in 1852; Richard L. McCormick's characterization of the government's role during the antebellum era.

Questions the common view that John Marshall, United States chief justice, during his first years on the federal bench `firmly established the Court's authority to review and strike down government actions that were incompatible with the constitution, by examining the case of the United States versus Schooner Peggy. Circumstances surrounding the case; Decision in the case; Reference made to some chief justices of the American courts.

Discusses the so-called Virginia Dynasty of 1801 to 1825, the successive presidencies of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe. How Jefferson and Monroe became friends; Events that affected the Monroe and Madison's friendship; Discussion on the personal dimension of party politics.

Explains influence of American political scientist Alexander Hamilton on the spirit of nationalism in the United States. Ennoblement of the commercial enterprise to push the goals of the country's experiment in the republican system of government; Attacks on Hamilton's political approaches; Success by Hamilton in redirecting the country's political passions.

The article reviews the website entitled "A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns, 1787–1825," by the American Antiquarian Society and Tufts University's Digital Collections and Archives, located at http://elections.lib.tufts.edu/.

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses various reports published within the issue including one by Dallet Hemphill on the 19th century history of siblings, one by Amanda Herbert on colonial era women Quakers, and one by Ronald Johnson on U.S. commerce policy towards Saint Domingue during its revolutionary period.