Preserving the White man's republic : Jacksonian democracy, race, and the transformation of American conservatism / Joshua A. Lynn.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lynn, Joshua A., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Conservatism--United States--History--19th century.

Conservatism.

United States--Politics and government--1845-1861.

United States.

Democratic Party (U.S.)--History--19th century.

Democratic Party (U.S.).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (274 pages)

Place of Publication:

Charlottesville ; London : University of Virginia Press, 2019.

Summary:

In Preserving the White Man's Republic, Joshua Lynn reveals how the national Democratic Party rebranded majoritarian democracy and liberal individualism as conservative means for white men in the South and North to preserve their mastery on the eve of the Civil War. Responding to fears of African American and female political agency, Democrats in the late 1840s and 1850s reinvented themselves as "conservatives" and repurposed Jacksonian Democracy as a tool for local majorities of white men to police racial and gender boundaries by democratically withholding rights. With the policy of "popular sovereignty, " Democrats left slavery's expansion to white men's democratic decision-making. They also promised white men local democracy and individual autonomy regarding temperance, religion, and nativism. Translating white men's household mastery into political power over all women and Americans of color, Democrats united white men nationwide and made democracy a conservative assertion of white manhood. Democrats thereby turned traditional Jacksonian principles-grassroots democracy, liberal individualism, and anti-statism-into staples of conservatism. As Lynn's book shows, this movement sent conservatism on a new, populist trajectory, one in which democracy can be called upon to legitimize inequality and hierarchy, a uniquely American conservatism that endures in our republic today.

Contents:

Introduction : conserving the happy republic

The northern men and their national principle : Jacksonian ideology, popular sovereignty, and white men's democracy, 1847-1854

Conservatism and fanaticism : the political ideology of the democracy before the Civil War

Resisting realignment : Democrats respond to partisan and racial disorder, 1854-1855

Welcoming realignment : Democrats, old Whigs, and the conservative diaspora

Doughface triumphant : James Buchanan's manly conservatism and the election of 1856

The other Douglas debates : Democrats debate white supremacy and popular sovereignty

Conclusion : American democracy, American conservatism.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780813942513

0813942519

OCLC:

1065821195