Places the antebellum debate over slavery and states' rights in the context of early discussions of the two-party system and economic development by founding fathers Jefferson and Madison, arguing that the similarities between North and South were more numerous than the differences, and analyzes the state's regional cultures, demonstrating that party politics as a system expanded democracy Virginia. Includes bandw maps and photos. For scholars of history. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
"On the morning of 26 April 1607, three small ships carrying 143 Englishmen arrived off the Virginia coast of North America, having spent four months at sea.... All hoped for financial success and perhaps a little adventure; as it turned out, their tiny settlement eventually would evolve from colony into a prominent state in an entirely new nation." So begins Old Dominion, New Commonwealth: A History of Virginia, 1607-2007 and the remarkable story behind the founding not only of the state of Virginia but of our nation. With this book, the historians Ronald L. Heinemann, John G. Kolp, Anthony S. Parent Jr., and William G. Shade collaborate to provide a comprehensive, accessible, one-volume history of Virginia, the first of its kind since the 1970s. In seventeen narrative chapters, the authors tackle the four centuries of Virginia’s history from Jamestown through the present, emphasizing the major themes that play throughout Virginia history—change and continuity, a conservative political order, race and slavery, economic development, and social divisions—and how they relate to national events. Including helpful bibliographical listings at the end of each chapter as well as a general listing of useful sources and Websites, the book is truly a treasure trove for any student, scholar, or general-interest reader looking to find out more about the history of Virginia and our nation. Timed to coincide with the 2007 quadricentennial, Old Dominion, New Commonwealth will stand as a classic for years to come.
Jefferson's Freeholders and the Politics of Ownership in the Old Dominion explores the historical processes by which Virginia was transformed from a British colony into a Southern slave state. It focuses on changing conceptualizations of ownership and emphasizes the persistent influence of the English common law on Virginia's postcolonial political culture. The book explains how the traditional characteristics of land tenure became subverted by the dynamic contractual relations of a commercial economy and assesses the political consequences of the law reforms that were necessitated by these developments. Nineteenth-century reforms seeking to reconcile the common law with modern commercial practices embraced new democratic expressions about the economic and political power of labor, and thereby encouraged the idea that slavery was an essential element in sustaining republican government in Virginia. By the 1850s, the ownership of human property had replaced the ownership of land as the distinguishing basis for political power, with tragic consequences for the Old Dominion.
In Brothers of a Vow, Ami Pflugrad-Jackisch examines secret fraternal organizations in antebellum Virginia to offer fresh insight into masculinity and the redefinition of social and political roles of white men in the South. Young Virginians who came of age during the antebellum era lived through a time of tremendous economic, cultural, and political upheaval. In a state increasingly pulled between the demands of the growing market and the long-established tradition of unfree labor, Pflugrad-Jackisch argues that groups like the Freemasons, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and the Sons of Temperance promoted market-oriented values and created bonds among white men that softened class distinctions. At the same time, these groups sought to stabilize social hierarchies that subordinated blacks and women. Pflugrad-Jackisch examines all aspects of the secret orders--including their bylaws and proceedings, their material culture and regalia, and their participation in a wide array of festivals, parades, and civic celebrations. Regarding gender, she shows how fraternal orders helped reinforce an alternative definition of southern white manhood that emphasized self-discipline, moral character, temperance, and success at work. These groups ultimately established a civic brotherhood among white men that marginalized the role of women in the public sphere and bolstered the respectability of white men regardless of class status. Brothers of a Vow is a nuanced look at how dominant groups craft collective identities, and it adds to our understanding of citizenship and political culture during a period of rapid change.
With a fresh take on social dynamics in the antebellum South, Jonathan Daniel Wells contests the popular idea that the Old South was a region of essentially two classes (planters and slaves) until after the Civil War. He argues that, in fact, the region had a burgeoning white middle class--including merchants, doctors, and teachers--that had a profound impact on southern culture, the debate over slavery, and the coming of the Civil War. Wells shows that the growth of the periodical press after 1820 helped build a cultural bridge between the North and the South, and the emerging southern middle class seized upon northern middle-class ideas about gender roles and reform, politics, and the virtues of modernization. Even as it sought to emulate northern progress, however, the southern middle class never abandoned its attachment to slavery. By the 1850s, Wells argues, the prospect of industrial slavery in the South threatened northern capital and labor, causing sectional relations to shift from cooperative to competitive. Rather than simply pitting a backward, slave-labor, agrarian South against a progressive, free-labor, industrial North, Wells argues that the Civil War reflected a more complex interplay of economic and cultural values.
The presidential election of 1828 is one of the most compelling stories in American history: Andrew Jackson, hero of the Battle of New Orleans and man of the people, bounced back from his controversial loss four years earlier to unseat John Quincy Adams in a campaign notorious for its mudslinging. With his victory, the torch was effectively passed from the founding fathers to the people. This study of Jackson's election separates myth from reality to explain why it had such an impact on present-day American politics. Featuring parades and public participation to a greater degree than had previously been seen, the campaign itself first centered on two key policy issues: tariffs and republicanism. But as Donald Cole shows, the major theme turned out to be what Adams scornfully called "electioneering": the rise of mass political parties and the origins of a two-party system, built from the top down, whose leaders were willing to spend unprecedented time and money to achieve victory. Cole's innovative study examines the election at the local and state, as well as the national, levels, focusing on New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, and Virginia to provide a social, economic, and political cross section of 1828 America. He describes how the Jacksonians were better organized, paid more attention to detail, and recruited a broader range of workers-especially state-level party leaders and newspaper editors who were invaluable for raising funds, publicizing party dogma, and smearing the opposition. The Jacksonians also outdid the Adams supporters in zealotry, violence of language, and the overwhelming force of their campaigning and succeeded in painting their opponents as aristocratic, class conscious, and undemocratic. Tracing interpretations of this election from James Parton's classic 1860 biography of Jackson to recent revisionist accounts attacking Old Hickory for his undemocratic treatment of blacks, Indians, and women, Cole argues that this famous election did not really bring democracy to America as touted-because it was democracy that enabled Jackson to win. By offering a more charismatic candidate, a more vigorous campaign, a more acceptable recipe for preserving the past, and a more forthright acceptance of a new political system, Jackson's Democrats dominated an election in which campaigning outweighed issues and presaged the presidential election of 2008.
