The first elections : the rise of electoral democracy in the early American republic / Jay K. Dow

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dow, Jay K. (Jay Kent), 1962- Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

Elections.

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

Democracy.

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

Political participation.

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

Political parties.

United States--Politics and government--1789-1809.

United States.

United States--Politics and government--1809-1817.

United States--Politics and government--1817-1825.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Lawrence, Kansas : University Press of Kansas, [2026]

Summary:

"In this groundbreaking and comprehensive look at Congressional elections in pre–Jacksonian America, Jay K. Dow examines the origins of our modern electoral politics.When did the United States become a recognizably modern republic? The traditional understanding is that elections in the Age of Jackson introduced institutionalized political parties, campaigning, partisanship, position-taking, stump speeches, high elector turnout, and other familiar features of electoral democracy. Before that, so the story goes, elections were less organized along party lines, often uncompetitive, and frequently dominated by elites rather than average citizens. The First Elections offers a compelling alternative to this interpretation of the early American republic.Through systematic analysis of an impressive new collection of early American election returns known as A New Nation Votes, Jay K. Dow has discovered what these results tell us about the development of Congressional elections between 1796 and 1825. The so-called first party era marks the transition from a “deferential” politics in which local elites exercised great influence over elections to a more recognizably democratic politics. But the extent of this transition has been largely opaque before these new data became available. Focusing on House of Representatives as the foundational institution in national republican government, Dow uses these election returns to provide a more fine-grained picture of US electoral development than ever seen before. In doing so, he reveals more party-centric, competitive, and developed elections than scholars have generally recognized.The First Elections begins with the election to the Fifth Congress in 1796, the year that elections first became truly contested following the Federalist and Anti-Federalist period. It concludes with the elections to the Nineteenth Congress, which marked the start of the Jacksonian Second American Party System. Because American politics is territorial politics—in general, but especially in this era—Dow’s work is organized geographically, giving due attention to how electoral democracy developed unevenly across each region of the early United States. Since the states used different methods to elect their representatives, The First Elections pays special attention to the variety of electoral systems that characterized the political mosaic of early America"-- JSTOR

Contents:

The development of congressional elections

Elections in the new republic

The middle Atlantic states

The border states

New England

The South

National electoral development and party systems

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Online resource; title from PDF title page (JSTOR, viewed June 22, 2206)

Other Format:

Print version: Dow, Jay K. (Jay Kent), 1962- First elections

ISBN:

9780700641512

0700641513

9780700641529

0700641521

OCLC:

1594050038

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license