Download or read book The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party written by Michael F. Holt and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003-05-01 with total page 1298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here, Michael F. Holt gives us the only comprehensive history of the Whigs ever written. He offers a panoramic account of the tumultuous antebellum period, a time when a flurry of parties and larger-than-life politicians--Andrew Jackson, John C. Calhoun, Martin Van Buren, and Henry Clay--struggled for control as the U.S. inched towards secession. It was an era when Americans were passionately involved in politics, when local concerns drove national policy, and when momentous political events--like the Annexation of Texas and the Kansas-Nebraska Act--rocked the country. Amid this contentious political activity, the Whig Party continuously strove to unite North and South, emerging as the nation's last great hope to prevent secession.
Download or read book Party in the Street written by Michael T. Heaney and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-02-02 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Party in the Street explores the interaction between political parties and social movements in the United States. Examining the collapse of the post-9/11 antiwar movement against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this book focuses on activism and protest in the United States. It argues that the electoral success of the Democratic Party and President Barack Obama, as well as antipathy toward President George W. Bush, played a greater role in this collapse than did changes in foreign policy. It shows that how people identify with social movements and political parties matters a great deal, and it considers the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street as comparison cases.
Download or read book Beyond Party written by Mark Voss-Hubbard and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2003-05-22 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Captivating disgruntled voters, third parties have often complicated the American political scene. In the years before the Civil War, third-party politics took the form of the Know Nothings, who mistrusted established parties and gave voice to anti-government sentiment. Originating about 1850 as a nativist fraternal order, the Know Nothing movement soon spread throughout the industrial North. In Beyond Party, Mark Voss-Hubbard draws on local sources in three different states where the movement was especially strong to uncover its social roots and establish its relationship to actual public policy issues. Focusing on the 1852 ten hour movement in Essex County, Massachusetts, the pro-temperance and anti-Catholic agitation in and around Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, and the movement to restrict immigrants' voting rights and overthrow "corrupt parties and politicians" in New London County, Connecticut, he shows that these places shared many of the social problems that occurred throughout the North—the consolidation of capitalist agriculture and industry, the arrival of Irish and German Catholic immigrants, and the changing fortunes of many established political leaders. Voss-Hubbard applies the insights of social history and social movement theory to politics in arguing that we need to understand Know Nothing rhetoric and activism as part of a wider tradition of American suspicion of "politics as usual"—even though, of course, this antipartyism served agendas that included those of self-interested figures seeking to accumulate power.
Download or read book The Cacophony of Politics written by J. Matthew Gallman and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2021-11-09 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cacophony of Politics charts the trajectory of the Democratic Party as the party of opposition in the North during the Civil War. A comprehensive overview, this book reveals the myriad complications and contingencies of political life in the Northern states and explains the objectives of the nearly half of eligible Northern voters who cast a ballot against Abraham Lincoln in 1864. The party’s famous slogan "The Union as it was, the Constitution as it is" was meant to have broad appeal and promote solidarity among Northern Democrats by invoking their core ideological commitments to nationalism, law and order, tradition, and strict construction. But, as J. Matthew Gallman shows, the slogan was a poor reflection of the volatile, fluid, messy, and improvisational reality of political life for men and women, across the public and private spheres. Democrats experienced the war as a cascading series of dilemmas, for which their slogan did not always offer guidance or resolution. Offering a definitive account of the Democratic Party in the North, The Cacophony of Politics shows the limits of ideology and the ways the Civil War—and the nature of nineteenth-century political culture—confounded the Democrats’ self-image and exacerbated their divisions, especially over the central issue of slavery. A Nation Divided: Studies in the Civil War Era
Download or read book Angels in the Machinery written by Rebecca Edwards and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1997 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering an analysis of the centrality of gender to politics in the United States from the days of the Whigs to the early 20th century, the author argues that women in the US participated actively and transformed forever the ideology of American party politics before they got the right to vote.
Download or read book Why Parties written by John H. Aldrich and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2012-07-24 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its first appearance fifteen years ago, Why Parties? has become essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the nature of American political parties. In the interim, the party system has undergone some radical changes. In this landmark book, now rewritten for the new millennium, John H. Aldrich goes beyond the clamor of arguments over whether American political parties are in resurgence or decline and undertakes a wholesale reexamination of the foundations of the American party system. Surveying critical episodes in the development of American political parties—from their formation in the 1790s to the Civil War—Aldrich shows how they serve to combat three fundamental problems of democracy: how to regulate the number of people seeking public office, how to mobilize voters, and how to achieve and maintain the majorities needed to accomplish goals once in office. Aldrich brings this innovative account up to the present by looking at the profound changes in the character of political parties since World War II, especially in light of ongoing contemporary transformations, including the rise of the Republican Party in the South, and what those changes accomplish, such as the Obama Health Care plan. Finally, Why Parties? A Second Look offers a fuller consideration of party systems in general, especially the two-party system in the United States, and explains why this system is necessary for effective democracy.
Download or read book Hard Line written by Colin Dueck and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-05 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conservatives and liberals alike are currently debating the probable future of the Republican Party. What direction will conservatives and republicans take on foreign policy in the age of Obama? This book tackles this question.
Download or read book The Life of the Parties written by James Reichley and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2000 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Election year 2000 is an appropriate season to reprise the first major history of American political parties in nearly forty years. In this classic work, James Reichley traces the decline of political parties resulting in divided government and an ineffectual political process but he also shows us what it will take to restore the party system and how it could work to revitalize our democracy. For the first time in paperback, The Life of the Parties includes updates on third party movements, political cycles and realignments, campaign finance reform, and other recent electoral trends. Citizens disillusioned by years of political disarray will find much to reflect upon in Reichley's monumental analysis of the lessons of party history and our contemporary political predicament."
Download or read book Must Politics be War written by Kevin Vallier and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American politics seems like a war between irreconcilable forces and so we may suspect that political life as such is war. This book confronts these suspicions by arguing that liberal political institutions have the unique capacity to sustain social trust in diverse, open societies, undermining aggressive political partisanship.
Download or read book The Art of Political Warfare written by John J. Pitney, Jr. and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2001-09-01 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing parallels between war and politics, the author explains why military principles can be applied to an understanding of the events, concepts, concerns, issues, and practices of political life.
Download or read book Affairs of Party written by Jean H. Baker and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Affairs of party, Jean Baker asserts, were a central feature of public life in nineteenth-century America. In this book she explores the way in which the Northern Democrats of the mid-eighteen hundreds lived their public lives. She begins with a psychobiographical explanation of how people became Democrats, weighing the importance of such influences as education and family life. She then discusses two major elements that set Democrats apart from members of other political organizations: a modified Republican ideology tailored to the circumstances of the Civil War, and a mordant racism conveyed most strikingly through minstrelsy. Finally, Baker studies the neglected subject of partisan behavior, concentrating on the significance of parades, voting, and other rituals. In Affairs of Party Jean Baker brings together the three basic components of a political culture--education, thought, and behavior--and provides an understanding of the collective values of Northern Democrats and an insight into the elusive meaning of party experience. In her new preface, Professor Baker places her book in the context of both recent scholarship and recent political and cultural developments.
Download or read book Freedom Union and Power written by Michael S. Green and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freedom, Union, and Power analyzes the beliefs of the Republican Party during the Civil War, how those beliefs changed, and what those changes foreshadowed for the future. The party's pre-war ideology of "free soil, free labor, free men" changed with the Republican ascent to power in the White House. With Lincoln's election, Republicans faced something new-responsibility for the government. With responsibility came the need to wage a war for the survival of that government, the country, and the party. And with victory in the war came responsibility responsibility for saving the Union-by ending slavery-and for pursuing policies that fit into their belief in a strong, free Union. Michael Green shows how Republicans had to wield federal power to stop a rebellion against freedom and union. Crucial to their use of federal power was their hope of keeping that power-the intersection of policy and politics.
Download or read book Washington Brotherhood written by Rachel A. Shelden and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2013-12-16 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traditional portrayals of politicians in antebellum Washington, D.C., describe a violent and divisive society, full of angry debates and violent duels, a microcosm of the building animosity throughout the country. Yet, in Washington Brotherhood, Rachel Shelden paints a more nuanced portrait of Washington as a less fractious city with a vibrant social and cultural life. Politicians from different parties and sections of the country interacted in a variety of day-to-day activities outside traditional political spaces and came to know one another on a personal level. Shelden shows that this engagement by figures such as Stephen Douglas, John Crittenden, Abraham Lincoln, and Alexander Stephens had important consequences for how lawmakers dealt with the sectional disputes that bedeviled the country during the 1840s and 1850s--particularly disputes involving slavery in the territories. Shelden uses primary documents--from housing records to personal diaries--to reveal the ways in which this political sociability influenced how laws were made in the antebellum era. Ultimately, this Washington "bubble" explains why so many of these men were unprepared for secession and war when the winter of 1860-61 arrived.
Download or read book At War with Government written by Amy Fried and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Polling shows that since the 1950s Americans’ trust in government has fallen dramatically to historically low levels. In At War with Government, the political scientists Amy Fried and Douglas B. Harris reveal that this trend is no accident. Although distrust of authority is deeply rooted in American culture, it is fueled by conservative elites who benefit from it. Since the postwar era conservative leaders have deliberately and strategically undermined faith in the political system for partisan aims. Fried and Harris detail how conservatives have sown distrust to build organizations, win elections, shift power toward institutions that they control, and secure policy victories. They trace this strategy from the Nixon and Reagan years through Gingrich’s Contract with America, the Tea Party, and Donald Trump’s rise and presidency. Conservatives have promoted a political identity opposed to domestic state action, used racial messages to undermine unity, and cultivated cynicism to build and bolster coalitions. Once in power, they have defunded public services unless they help their constituencies and rolled back regulations, perversely proving the failure of government. Fried and Harris draw on archival sources to document how conservative elites have strategized behind the scenes. With a powerful diagnosis of our polarized era, At War with Government also proposes how we might rebuild trust in government by countering the strategies conservatives have used to weaken it.
Download or read book The Great Divide written by Geoffrey Layman and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Employing a sizeable collection of data on party members, activists, and elites, Geoffrey Layman examines the role of religion in the Democratic and Republican parties, and the ways in which religion has influenced the political process from the early 1960s through the late 1990s.
Download or read book The Politics of War written by Walter Karp and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Politics of War describes the emergence of the United States as a world power between the years 1890 and 1920-our contrivance of the Spanish-American War and our gratuitous entrance into World War I-and by filling in the back story of an era in which mendacious oligarchy organized the country's politics in a manner convenient to its own indolence and greed, Karp offers a clearer understanding of our current political circumstance.
Download or read book Congress at War written by Fergus M. Bordewich and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2020 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of how Congress helped win the Civil War-placing a dynamic House and Senate, rather than Lincoln, at the center of the conflict.
