The 1850s offered the last remotely feasible chance for the United States to steer clear of Civil War. Yet fundamental differences between North and South about slavery and the meaning of freedom caused political conflicts to erupt again and again throughout the decade as the country lurched toward secession and war. With their grudging acceptance of the Compromise of 1850 and the election of Franklin Pierce as president in 1852, most Americans hoped that sectional strife and political upheaval had come to an end. Extremists in both North and South, abolitionists and secessionists, testified to the prevailing air of complacency by their shared frustration over having failed to bring on some sort of conflict. Both sets of zealots wondered what it would take to convince the masses that the other side still menaced their respective visions of liberty. And, as new divisive issues emerged in national politics-with slavery still standing as the major obstacle-compromise seemed more elusive than ever. As the decade progressed, battle lines hardened. The North grew more hostile to slavery while the South seized every opportunity to spread it. "Immigrant Aid Societies" flourished in the North, raising money, men, and military supplies to secure a free soil majority in Kansas. Southerners flocked to the territory in an effort to fight off antislavery. After his stirring vilification of the institution of slavery, Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner was brutally attacked on the floor of the United States Senate. Congress, whose function was to peacefully resolve disputes, became an armed camp, with men in both houses and from both sections arming themselves within the capitol building. In October 1858, Senator William Henry Seward said that the nation was headed for an "irrepressible conflict." In spite of the progress ushered in by the decade's enormous economic growth, the country was self destructing. The Shattering of the Union: America in the 1850s is a concise, readable analysis and survey of t
He was also invited to speak to the Metheun branch of the Colonization Society in 1834. ... CC , A Reply to the Letter of J. Fenimore Cooper , by One of His Countrymen ( Boston : J. T. Buckingham , 1834 ) ; Edward Everett , Charlestown ...
In a rare departure from the narrow periodization that marks past studies of Texas politics during the Civil War era, this sweeping work tracks the leadership and electoral basis of politics in the Lone Star State from secession all the way ...
In this new book, President Klaus examines the uneasy Europe of today, without illusions or personal attacks, but with a mercilessly realistic view of the system that Europe has created in the last half century.
Burdett, Anita L. P., ed. Armenia: Political and Ethnic Boundaries. Slough, UK: Archive Editions, 1998. Butaev, M. D., ed. ... M ̈unir S ̈ureyya Bey. Ermeni Meselesinin Siyasˆı Tarihc ̧esi (1877–1914). Ed. U ̆gurhan Demirbas ̧, et al.
By midafternoon we had passed Flagstaff and were pressing on toward Lake Powell. The sun was still high above the horizon when we pulled into the parking lot for the bend. We lathered on sunscreen and ran the short trail through the dry ...
22. since the work of S. L. A. Marshall on nonfirers in World War II. See Grossman's response to these debates on p. 333. See also S. L. A. Marshall, Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command in Future War (New York: Morrow, ...
A correspondent for the Montgomery Advertiser claimed that in the current crisis ''the opinion of Wm. L. Yancey is entitled to more weight than that of any other politician in the South.''70 Even allowing for boosterism, ...
Then, at the same moment that political peace returned to South Carolina, the American Anti-Slavery Society launched its direct mail and petition campaigns. Suddenly, abolitionists seemed to reach into South Carolinians' homes and ...
Now Guy R. Hasegawa presents the first volume to explore the wartime provisions made for amputees in need of artificial limbs—programs that, while they revealed stark differences between the resources and capabilities of the North and the ...
Why the Confederacy Lost provides a parallel volume, written by today's leading authorities. Provocatively argued and engagingly written, this work reminds us that the hard-won triumph of the North was far from inevitable.