The American party battle [electronic resource] : election campaign pamphlets, 1828-1876. Volume 1, 1828-1854 / edited and with an introduction by Joel H. Silbey.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Silbey, Joel H.

Series:

John Harvard library.

The John Harvard library

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Political parties--United States--History--19th century.

Campaign literature--United States--History--19th century.

United States--Politics and government--19th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (320p.)

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 1999.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The 19th century was the heyday of furious contention between American political parties, and Joel Silbey attempts to capture the drama and substance of those battles in a representative sampling of party pamphlets.

The nineteenth century was the heyday of furious contention between American political parties, and Joel Silbey has recaptured the drama and substance of those battles in a representative sampling of party pamphlets. Political parties mapped the landscape of electoral and ideological warfare, constructing images of themselves and of their adversaries that resonate and echo the basic characteristics of America's then reigning sets of ideas. The nature of political controversy, as well as the substance of politics, is embedded in these party documents which both united and divided Americans. Unlike today's party platforms, these pamphlets explicated real issues and gave insight into the society at large. Andrew Jackson's Democrats, Millard Fillmore's Whigs, Abraham Lincoln's Republicans, and other, lesser-known parties are represented here. The pamphlets demonstrate how, for this fifty-year period, political parties were surrogates for American demands and values. Broad in scope, widely circulated, catalysts for heated debate over the decades, these pamphlets are important documents in the history of American politics. In an excellent introduction, Silbey teases out and elucidates the themes each party stressed and took as its own in its fight for the soul of the nation.

Contents:

Preface "Please Read and Circulate" "To Indulge in General Abusive Declamation" "Repellant and Mutually Abhorrent Parties" A Note on the Texts Acknowledgments Introduction: Defining the Soul of the Nation The Great Themes: Continuity and Change "To Save and Exalt the Union" "Consider Well...the Platforms...of the Parties Now Asking Your Suffrage" VOLUME 1 The Evolution of Party Warfare, 1828-1838 Proceedings and Address of the New Hampshire Republican State Convention...Friendly to the Election of Andrew Jackson...(Concord, 1828) The Virginia Address (Richmond, 1828) Proceedings of the Antimasonic Republican Convention of theState of Maine (Hallowell, Me., 1834) To the Electors of Massachusetts (Worcester? 1837) The Jacksonian-Whig Synthesis, 1838-1854 To the Democratic Republican Party of Alabama (n.p., 1840) Address of the Liberty Party of Pennsylvania to the People of the State (Philadelphia, 1844) The Twenty-Ninth Congress, Its Men and Measures; Its Professions and Its Principles...(Washington, 1846) What's the Difference? Cass and Taylor on the Slavery Question (Boston, 1848) Speech of Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, Delivered in Richmond, Virginia, July 9, 1852(Richmond, 1852)

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9780674043640

0674043642

OCLC:

923111959