The rise of American democracy : Jefferson to Lincoln
Sean Wilentz (Author)
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
Print Book, English, ©2005
First edition View all formats and editions
W.W. Norton and Company, New York, ©2005
History
xxiii, 1044 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps, portraits (some color) ; 25 cm
9780393058208, 9780393329216, 0393058204, 0393329216
57414581
Pt. 1 : 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
Pt. 2 : 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
Pt. 3 : 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