Download or read book Prelude to Civil War written by William W. Freehling and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1992 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fresh analysis revises many previous theories on origins & significance of the nullification controversy.

Download or read book American Political History A Very Short Introduction written by Donald T. Critchlow and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-14 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Founding Fathers who drafted the United States Constitution in 1787 distrusted political parties, popular democracy, centralized government, and a strong executive office. Yet the country's national politics have historically included all those features. In American Political History: A Very Short Introduction, Donald Critchlow takes on this contradiction between original theory and actual practice. This brief, accessible book explores the nature of the two-party system, key turning points in American political history, representative presidential and congressional elections, struggles to expand the electorate, and critical social protest and third-party movements. The volume emphasizes the continuity of a liberal tradition challenged by partisan divide, war, and periodic economic turmoil. American Political History: A Very Short Introduction explores the emergence of a democratic political culture within a republican form of government, showing the mobilization and extension of the mass electorate over the lifespan of the country. In a nation characterized by great racial, ethnic, and religious diversity, American democracy has proven extraordinarily durable. Individual parties have risen and fallen, but the dominance of the two-party system persists. Fierce debates over the meaning of the U.S. Constitution have created profound divisions within the parties and among voters, but a belief in the importance of constitutional order persists among political leaders and voters. Americans have been deeply divided about the extent of federal power, slavery, the meaning of citizenship, immigration policy, civil rights, and a range of economic, financial, and social policies. New immigrants, racial minorities, and women have joined the electorate and the debates. But American political history, with its deep social divisions, bellicose rhetoric, and antagonistic partisanship provides valuable lessons about the meaning and viability of democracy in the early 21st century. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Download or read book Union and Liberty written by John Caldwell Calhoun and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 664 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A Liberty Classics edition"--T.p. verso.Selected speeches: p. [401]-601. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Download or read book American Nationalisms written by Benjamin E. Park and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-11 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book traces how early Americans imagined what a 'nation' meant during the first fifty years of the country's existence.

Download or read book Olive Branch and Sword written by Merrill D. Peterson and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 1999-03-01 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dominated by the personalities of three towering figures of the nation's middle period -- Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and President Andrew Jackson -- Olive Branch and Sword: The Compromise of 1833 tells of the political and rhetorical dueling that brought about the Compromise of 1833, resolving the crisis of the Union caused by South Carolina's nullification of the protective tariff.In 1832 South Carolina's John C. Calhoun denounced the entire protectionist system as unconstitutional, unequal, and founded on selfish sectional interests. Opposing him was Henry Clay, the Kentucky senator and champion of the protectionists. Both Calhoun and Clay had presidential ambitions, and neither could agree on any issue save their common opposition to President Jackson, who seemed to favor a military solution to the South Carolina problem. It was only when Clay, after the most complicated maneuverings, produced the Compromise of 1833 that he, Calhoun, and Jackson could agree to coexist peaceably within the Union.The compromise consisted of two key parts. The Compromise Tariff, written by Clay and approved by Calhoun, provided for the gradual reduction of duties to the revenue level of 20 percent. The Force Bill, enacted at the request of President Jackson, authorized the use of military force, if necessary, to put down nullification in South Carolina. The two acts became, respectively, the olive branch and the sword of the compromise that preserved the peace, the Union, and the Constitution in 1833.A careful study of what has become a neglected event in American political history, Merrill D. Peterson's work spans a period of over thirty years -- sketching the background of national policy out of which nullification arose, detailing the explosive events of 1832 and 1833, and then tracing the consequences of the compromise through the dozen or so years that it remained in public controversy. Considering as well the larger question of decision making and policy making in the Jacksonian republic, Peterson nonetheless never loses sight of the crucial role played by the ambitions, whims, and passions of such men as Calhoun, Clay, and Jackson in determining the course of history.

Download or read book John C Calhoun written by Irving H. Bartlett and published by W. W. Norton. This book was released on 1994-03-01 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John C. Calhoun was a rare figure in American history: a lifelong politician who was also a profound political philosopher. Vice president under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, he was a dominant presence in the U.S. Senate. Now comes a major new biography from the author of Daniel Webster.

Download or read book The Constitutional Origins of the American Civil War written by Michael F. Conlin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-18 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Demonstrates the crucial role that the Constitution played in the coming of the Civil War.

Download or read book Clashing Over Commerce written by Douglas A. Irwin and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-11-29 with total page 873 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year: “Tells the history of American trade policy . . . [A] grand narrative [that] also debunks trade-policy myths.” —Economist Should the United States be open to commerce with other countries, or should it protect domestic industries from foreign competition? This question has been the source of bitter political conflict throughout American history. Such conflict was inevitable, James Madison argued in the Federalist Papers, because trade policy involves clashing economic interests. The struggle between the winners and losers from trade has always been fierce because dollars and jobs are at stake: depending on what policy is chosen, some industries, farmers, and workers will prosper, while others will suffer. Douglas A. Irwin’s Clashing over Commerce is the most authoritative and comprehensive history of US trade policy to date, offering a clear picture of the various economic and political forces that have shaped it. From the start, trade policy divided the nation—first when Thomas Jefferson declared an embargo on all foreign trade and then when South Carolina threatened to secede from the Union over excessive taxes on imports. The Civil War saw a shift toward protectionism, which then came under constant political attack. Then, controversy over the Smoot-Hawley tariff during the Great Depression led to a policy shift toward freer trade, involving trade agreements that eventually produced the World Trade Organization. Irwin makes sense of this turbulent history by showing how different economic interests tend to be grouped geographically, meaning that every proposed policy change found ready champions and opponents in Congress. Deeply researched and rich with insight and detail, Clashing over Commerce provides valuable and enduring insights into US trade policy past and present. “Combines scholarly analysis with a historian’s eye for trends and colorful details . . . readable and illuminating, for the trade expert and for all Americans wanting a deeper understanding of America’s evolving role in the global economy.” —National Review “Magisterial.” —Foreign Affairs

Download or read book Henry Clay the Lawyer written by Maurice Glen Baxter and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though he was best known as a politician, Henry Clay (1777-1852) maintained an active legal practice for more than fifty years. He was a leading contributor both to the early development of the U.S. legal system and to the interaction between law and politics in pre-Civil War America. During the years of Clay's practice, modern American law was taking shape, building on the English experience but working out the new rules and precedents that a changing and growing society required. Clay specialized in property law, a natural choice at a time of entangled land claims, ill-defined boundaries, and inadequate state and federal procedures. He argued many precedent-setting cases, some of them before the U.S. Supreme Court. Maurice Baxter contends that Clay's extensive legal work in this area greatly influenced his political stances on various land policy issues. During Clay's lifetime, property law also included questions pertaining to slavery. With Daniel Webster, he handled a very significant constitutional case concerning the interstate slave trade. Baxter provides an overview of the federal and state court systems of Clay's time. After addressing Clay's early legal career, he focuses on Clay's interest in banking issues, land-related economic matters, and the slave trade. The portrait of Clay that emerges from this inquiry shows a skilled lawyer who was deeply involved with the central legal and economic issues of his day.

Download or read book Heirs of the Founders written by H. W. Brands and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2018-11-13 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From New York Times bestselling historian H. W. Brands comes the riveting story of how, in nineteenth-century America, a new set of political giants battled to complete the unfinished work of the Founding Fathers and decide the future of our democracy In the early 1800s, three young men strode onto the national stage, elected to Congress at a moment when the Founding Fathers were beginning to retire to their farms. Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, a champion orator known for his eloquence, spoke for the North and its business class. Henry Clay of Kentucky, as dashing as he was ambitious, embodied the hopes of the rising West. South Carolina's John Calhoun, with piercing eyes and an even more piercing intellect, defended the South and slavery. Together these heirs of Washington, Jefferson and Adams took the country to war, battled one another for the presidency and set themselves the task of finishing the work the Founders had left undone. Their rise was marked by dramatic duels, fierce debates, scandal and political betrayal. Yet each in his own way sought to remedy the two glaring flaws in the Constitution: its refusal to specify where authority ultimately rested, with the states or the nation, and its unwillingness to address the essential incompatibility of republicanism and slavery. They wrestled with these issues for four decades, arguing bitterly and hammering out political compromises that held the Union together, but only just. Then, in 1850, when California moved to join the Union as a free state, "the immortal trio" had one last chance to save the country from the real risk of civil war. But, by that point, they had never been further apart. Thrillingly and authoritatively, H. W. Brands narrates an epic American rivalry and the little-known drama of the dangerous early years of our democracy.

Download or read book Against the Force Bill written by John C. Calhoun and published by Good Press. This book was released on 2020-12-08 with total page 63 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Against the Force Bill" is a speech by John C. Calhoun, an American politician and political theorist, in which he strongly endorsed nullification of the Force Bill which empowered the President of the United States to use military force to ensure state compliance with federal law. Passed by Congress during the Nullification Crisis, at the urging of President Andrew Jackson, the Force Bill was designed to compel the state of South Carolina's compliance with a series of federal tariffs. The bill was opposed by John C. Calhoun and he managed to cancel it.

Download or read book The Tariff History of the United States written by Frank William Taussig and published by Ludwig von Mises Institute. This book was released on 1931 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney written by James F. Simon and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-11-20 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The clashes between President Abraham Lincoln and Chief Justice Roger B. Taney over slavery, secession, and the president's constitutional war powers are vividly brought to life in this compelling story of the momentous tug-of-war between these two men during the worst crisis in American history.

Download or read book Calhoun written by Robert Elder and published by . This book was released on 2021-02-16 with total page 656 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John C. Calhoun's ghost still haunts America today. First elected to congress in 1810, Calhoun served as secretary of war during the war of 1812, and then as vice-president under two very different presidents, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. It was during his time as Jackson's vice president that he crafted his famous doctrine of "state interposition," which laid the groundwork for the south to secede from the union -- and arguably set the nation on course for civil war. Other accounts of Calhoun have portrayed him as a backward-looking traditionalist -- he was, after all, an outspoken apologist for slavery, which he defended as a "positive good." But he was also an extremely complex thinker, and thoroughly engaged in the modern world. He espoused many ideas that resonate strongly with popular currents today: an impatience for the spectacle and shallowness of politics, a concern about the alliance between wealth and power in government, and a skepticism about the United States' ability to spread its style of democracy throughout the world. Calhoun has catapulted back into the public eye in recent years, as the tensions he navigated and inflamed in his own time have surfaced once again. In 2015, a monument to him in Charleston, South Carolina became a flashpoint after a white supremacist murdered nine African-Americans in a nearby church. And numerous commentators have since argued that Calhoun's retrograde ideas are at the root of the modern GOP's problems with race. Bringing together Calhoun's life, his intellectual contributions -- both good and bad -- and his legacy, Robert Elder's book is a revelatory reconsideration of the antebellum South we thought we knew.

Download or read book Prominent Families of New York written by Lyman Horace Weeks and published by . This book was released on 1898 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The American Pageant written by Thomas Andrew Bailey and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 1114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the history of the United States from the arrival of the first Indian people to the present day.

Download or read book A Disquisition on Government and a Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States written by John Caldwell Calhoun and published by . This book was released on 1851 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: