The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party

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Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199830894
Total Pages : 1298 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (998 download)

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Book Synopsis The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party by : Michael F. Holt

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.

The Whigs' America

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Author :
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813179750
Total Pages : 294 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (131 download)

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Book Synopsis The Whigs' America by : Joseph W. Pearson

Download or read book The Whigs' America written by Joseph W. Pearson and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Passionate political disagreement is as old as the American Republic, and the antebellum era—the thirty years before the Civil War—was as rife with partisan discord as any in our history. From 1834 to 1856, the Whigs battled their opponents, the Jacksonian Democrats, for offices, prestige, and power. The partisan expression of America's rising middle class, the Whigs boasted such famous members as Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and William Henry Seward, and the party supported tariffs, banks, internal improvements, moral reform, and public education. In The Whigs' America, Joseph W. Pearson explores a variety of topics, including the Whigs' understanding of the role of the individual in American politics, their perceptions of political power and the rule of law, and their impressions of the past and what should be learned from history. Long dismissed as a party bereft of ideas, Pearson provides a counterbalance to this trend through an attentive examination of writings from party leaders, contemporaneous newspapers, and other sources. Throughout, he shows that the party attracted optimistic Americans seeking achievement, community, and meaning through collaborative effort and self-control in a world growing more and more impersonal. Pearson effectively demonstrates that, while the Whigs never achieved the electoral success of their opponents, they were rich with ideas. His detailed study adds complexity and nuance to the history of the antebellum era by illuminating significant aspects of a deeply felt, shared culture that informed and shaped a changing nation.

The Whig Party

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 48 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (94 download)

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Book Synopsis The Whig Party by : Charles River

Download or read book The Whig Party written by Charles River and published by . This book was released on 2020-09-25 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes excerpts of contemporary accounts *Includes a bibliography for further reading When President Thomas Jefferson went ahead with the Louisiana Purchase, he wasn't entirely sure what was on the land he was buying, or whether the purchase was even constitutional. Ultimately, the Louisiana Purchase encompassed all or part of 15 current U.S. states and two Canadian provinces, including Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, parts of Minnesota that were west of the Mississippi River, most of North Dakota, nearly all of South Dakota, northeastern New Mexico, northern Texas, the portions of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Continental Divide, and Louisiana west of the Mississippi River, including the city of New Orleans. In addition, the Purchase contained small portions of land that would eventually become part of the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. The purchase, which immediately doubled the size of the United States at the time, still comprises around 23% of current American territory. With so much new territory to carve into states, the balance of Congressional power became a hot topic in the decade after the purchase, especially when the people of Missouri sought to be admitted to the Union in 1819 with slavery being legal in the new state. While Congress was dealing with that, Alabama was admitted in December 1819, creating an equal number of free states and slave states. Thus, allowing Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state would disrupt the balance. It was against that backdrop and the election of Andrew Jackson that the Whigs emerged as opponents to the Jacksonian Democrats during a period of American history known as the Second Party System (1828-1854). Initially, the conflict was rooted not only in different visions for the United States - the Whigs believed in a strong central bank and federally funded infrastructure projects (known as "internal improvements") - but also in opposition to one man: Andrew Jackson. When it first formed, the Democratic Party coalesced around Jackson, and his beliefs and actions became Democratic Party dogma, which left the diverse group of people who opposed Jackson to become the Whigs. The problem with this arrangement is that while the Whigs scored some notable successes as an opposition party, they found governing more difficult. The two Whigs elected president, William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor, died in office, raising to the presidency their respective vice-presidents, John Tyler and Millard Fillmore. Neither man succeeded in uniting the Whig Party behind him (a gargantuan task, to be sure), and neither was ever elected president in his own right. The increasing rancor over slavery is what finally killed the Whig Party. A truly national party, there were both Southern and Northern Whigs. When the Mexican-American War resulted in the country gaining millions of acres of land for potential new states, it galvanized both pro- and anti-slavery forces, and the Whig Party found itself incapable of navigating this fraught political issue before it eventually collapsed in the mid-1850s. However, many of its policy objectives, including a strong protective tariff, were picked up by the newly formed Republican Party, which more or less dominated national politics from the Civil War through the early 20th century. The Whig Party: The History and Legacy of the Influential Political Party in 19th Century America looks at how the party came into being, its most important leaders and ideas, and why the party disappeared shortly before the Civil War. Along with pictures depicting important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Whig Party like never before.

The Political Culture of the American Whigs

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Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226354792
Total Pages : 414 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (263 download)

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Book Synopsis The Political Culture of the American Whigs by : Daniel Walker Howe

Download or read book The Political Culture of the American Whigs written by Daniel Walker Howe and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1979 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Howe studies the American Whigs with the thoroughness so often devoted their party rivals, the Jacksonian Democrats. He shows that the Whigs were not just a temporary coalition of politicians but spokesmen for a heritage of political culture received from Anglo-American tradition and passed on, with adaptations, to the Whigs' Republican successors. He relates this culture to both the country's economic conditions and its ethnoreligious composition.

John Marshall Harlan

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Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813149851
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (131 download)

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Book Synopsis John Marshall Harlan by : Loren P. Beth

Download or read book John Marshall Harlan written by Loren P. Beth and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-07-11 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harlan. Known today to every student of constitutional law, principally for his dissenting opinions in early racial discrimination cases, Harlan was an important actor in every major public issue that came before the Supreme Court during his thirty-three-year tenure. Named by a hopeful father for Chief Justice John Marshall, Harlan began his career as a member of the Kentucky Whig slavocracy. Loren Beth traces the young lawyer's development from these early years through the secession crisis and Civil War, when Harlan remained loyal to the Union, both as a politician and as a soldier. As Beth demonstrates, Harlan gradually shifted during these years to an antislavery Republicanism that still emphasized his adherence to the Whig principles of Unionism and national power as against states' rights. Harlan's Supreme Court career (1877-1911) was characterized by his fundamental disagreement with nearly every judicial colleague of his day. His ultimate stance -- as the Great Dissenter, the champion of civil rights, the upholder of the powers of Congress -- emerges as the logical outgrowth of his pre-Court life. Harlan's significance for today's reader is underlined by the Supreme Court's adoption, beginning in the 1930s, of most of his positions on the Fourteenth Amendment and the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. This fine biography is also an important contribution to constitutional history. Historians, political scientists, and legal scholars will come from its pages with renewed appreciation for one of our judicial giants.

Political Parties and American Political Development from the Age of Jackson to the Age of Lincoln

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Author :
Publisher : LSU Press
ISBN 13 : 9780807126097
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (26 download)

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Book Synopsis Political Parties and American Political Development from the Age of Jackson to the Age of Lincoln by : Michael F. Holt

Download or read book Political Parties and American Political Development from the Age of Jackson to the Age of Lincoln written by Michael F. Holt and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 1992-06-01 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than twenty years Michael F. Holt has been considered one of the leading specialists in the political history of the United States. Political Parties and American Political Development from the Age of Jackson to the Age of Lincoln is a collection of some of his more important shorter studies on the politics of nineteenth-century America.The collection focuses on the mass political parties that emerged in the 1820s and their role in broader political developments from that decade to 1865. Holt includes essays on the Democratic, Antimasonic, Whig, and Know Nothing parties, as well as one on Abraham Lincoln's relationship with the congressional wing of the Republican party during the Civil War. Almost all essays touch on the broad question of the role of partisan politics in explaining the outbreak of the war. Individual essays address the following questions as well: What explains the birth and death of powerful third parties? What was the relationship among economic conditions, party performance in office (especially legislative performance), and the mobilization of an unprecedented number of voters between 1836 and 1840? Why did the Whigs find it necessary to nominate military hero Zachary Taylor as their presidential candidate in 1848? What explains the death of the Whig party? What role did ethnoreligious issues and the Know Nothing party play in the realignment of the 1850s and the ultimate triumph of the Republican party? In what ways did the continuation of two-party competition after 1860 help the North win the Civil War?Most of the essays have been published previously over a twenty-year span, but there are also two new pieces. "The Mysterious Disappearance of the American Whig party," originally delivered as the Commonwealth Fund Lecture at University College London in February, 1990, seeks to explain why the Whig party died in the 1850s. This essay contrasts the fate of the Whig party with the fates of the Republican party in the 1930s and 1970s and the British Conservative party in the 1840s and 1850s - parties that survived similar, indeed graver, challenges than those to which the Whigs succumbed. In addition, Holt has written and excellent introduction in which he explains how he came to write the essays and reflects upon them in light of the current state of political history as a discipline.Political Parties and American Political Development from the Age of Jackson to the Age of Lincoln offers provocative insights into both the history of nineteenth-century politics and the way it is studied.

Lincoln and the Border States

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Publisher : University Press of Kansas
ISBN 13 : 070062015X
Total Pages : 433 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis Lincoln and the Border States by : William C. Harris

Download or read book Lincoln and the Border States written by William C. Harris and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adopting a new approach to an American icon, an award-winning scholar reexamines the life of Abraham Lincoln to demonstrate how his remarkable political acumen and leadership skills evolved during the intense partisan conflict in pre-Civil War Illinois. By describing Lincoln's rise from obscurity to the presidency, William Harris shows that Lincoln's road to political success was far from easy-and that his reaction to events wasn't always wise or his racial attitudes free of prejudice. Although most scholars have labeled Lincoln a moderate, Harris reveals that he was by his own admission a conservative who revered the Founders and advocated "adherence to the old and tried." By emphasizing the conservative bent that guided Lincoln's political evolution-his background as a Henry Clay Whig, his rural ties, his cautious nature, and the racial and political realities of central Illinois-Harris provides fresh insight into Lincoln's political ideas and activities and portrays him as morally opposed to slavery but fundamentally conservative in his political strategy against it. Interweaving aspects of Lincoln's life and character that were an integral part of his rise to prominence, Harris provides in-depth coverage of Lincoln's controversial term in Congress, his re-emergence as the leader of the antislavery coalition in Illinois, and his Senate campaign against Stephen A.Douglas. He particularly describes how Lincoln organized the antislavery coalition into the Republican Party while retaining the support of its diverse elements, and sheds new light on Lincoln's ongoing efforts to bring Know Nothing nativists into the coalition without alienating ethnic groups. He also provides new information and analysis regarding Lincoln's nomination and election to the presidency, the selection of his cabinet, and his important role as president-elect during the secession crisis of 1860-1861. Challenging prevailing views, Harris portrays Lincoln as increasingly driven not so much by his own ambitions as by his antislavery sentiments and his fear for the republic in the hands of Douglas Democrats, and he shows how the unique political skills Lincoln developed in Illinois shaped his wartime leadership abilities. By doing so, he opens a window on his political ideas and influences and offers a fresh understanding of this complex figure.

The Shattering of the Union

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Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 9780842027991
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (279 download)

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Book Synopsis The Shattering of the Union by : Eric H. Walther

Download or read book The Shattering of the Union written by Eric H. Walther and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2004 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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. The Shattering of the Union is a concise, readable analysis and survey of the major ideas and events that resulted in the Civil War. The first scholarly synthesis of America's final antebellum decade to be published in more than twenty years, this essential overview incorporates methods and findings by recognized historians on politics, society, race relations, ideology, and slavery. This book is a fascinating look at one of the pivotal decades in U.S. history.

The Oxford Handbook of American Political History

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190628693
Total Pages : 569 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (96 download)

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Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of American Political History by : Paula Baker

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of American Political History written by Paula Baker and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-06 with total page 569 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American political and policy history has revived since the turn of the twenty-first century. After social and cultural history emerged as dominant forces to reveal the importance of class, race, and gender within the United States, the application of this line of work to American politics and policy followed. In addition, social movements, particularly the civil rights and feminism, helped rekindle political and policy history. As a result, a new generation of historians turned their attention to American politics. Their new approach still covers traditional subjects, but more often it combines an interest in the state, politics, and policy with other specialties (urban, labor, social, and race, among others) within the history and social science disciplines. The Oxford Handbook of American Political History incorporates and reflects this renaissance of American political history. It not only provides a chronological framework but also illustrates fundamental political themes and debates about public policy, including party systems, women in politics, political advertising, religion, and more. Chapters on economy, defense, agriculture, immigration, transportation, communication, environment, social welfare, health care, drugs and alcohol, education, and civil rights trace the development and shifts in American policy history. This collection of essays by 29 distinguished scholars offers a comprehensive overview of American politics and policy.

Henry Clay

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Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 9780393310887
Total Pages : 884 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (18 download)

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Book Synopsis Henry Clay by : Robert Vincent Remini

Download or read book Henry Clay written by Robert Vincent Remini and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1991 with total page 884 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Great biography leaves an indelible view of the subject. After Remini's masterful portrait, Clay is unforgettable." --Donald B. Cole, Newsday

What Hath God Wrought

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199726574
Total Pages : 925 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (997 download)

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Book Synopsis What Hath God Wrought by : Daniel Walker Howe

Download or read book What Hath God Wrought written by Daniel Walker Howe and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-10-29 with total page 925 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford History of the United States is by far the most respected multi-volume history of our nation. In this Pulitzer prize-winning, critically acclaimed addition to the series, historian Daniel Walker Howe illuminates the period from the battle of New Orleans to the end of the Mexican-American War, an era when the United States expanded to the Pacific and won control over the richest part of the North American continent. A panoramic narrative, What Hath God Wrought portrays revolutionary improvements in transportation and communications that accelerated the extension of the American empire. Railroads, canals, newspapers, and the telegraph dramatically lowered travel times and spurred the spread of information. These innovations prompted the emergence of mass political parties and stimulated America's economic development from an overwhelmingly rural country to a diversified economy in which commerce and industry took their place alongside agriculture. In his story, the author weaves together political and military events with social, economic, and cultural history. Howe examines the rise of Andrew Jackson and his Democratic party, but contends that John Quincy Adams and other Whigs--advocates of public education and economic integration, defenders of the rights of Indians, women, and African-Americans--were the true prophets of America's future. In addition, Howe reveals the power of religion to shape many aspects of American life during this period, including slavery and antislavery, women's rights and other reform movements, politics, education, and literature. Howe's story of American expansion culminates in the bitterly controversial but brilliantly executed war waged against Mexico to gain California and Texas for the United States. Winner of the New-York Historical Society American History Book Prize Finalist, 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction The Oxford History of the United States The Oxford History of the United States is the most respected multi-volume history of our nation. The series includes three Pulitzer Prize winners, a New York Times bestseller, and winners of the Bancroft and Parkman Prizes. The Atlantic Monthly has praised it as "the most distinguished series in American historical scholarship," a series that "synthesizes a generation's worth of historical inquiry and knowledge into one literally state-of-the-art book." Conceived under the general editorship of C. Vann Woodward and Richard Hofstadter, and now under the editorship of David M. Kennedy, this renowned series blends social, political, economic, cultural, diplomatic, and military history into coherent and vividly written narrative.

Political Descent

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Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022610852X
Total Pages : 451 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (261 download)

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Book Synopsis Political Descent by : Piers J. Hale

Download or read book Political Descent written by Piers J. Hale and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-08-05 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historians of science have long noted the influence of the nineteenth-century political economist Thomas Robert Malthus on Charles Darwin. In a bold move, Piers J. Hale contends that this focus on Malthus and his effect on Darwin’s evolutionary thought neglects a strong anti-Malthusian tradition in English intellectual life, one that not only predated the 1859 publication of the Origin of Species but also persisted throughout the Victorian period until World War I. Political Descent reveals that two evolutionary and political traditions developed in England in the wake of the 1832 Reform Act: one Malthusian, the other decidedly anti-Malthusian and owing much to the ideas of the French naturalist Jean Baptiste Lamarck. These two traditions, Hale shows, developed in a context of mutual hostility, debate, and refutation. Participants disagreed not only about evolutionary processes but also on broader questions regarding the kind of creature our evolution had made us and in what kind of society we ought therefore to live. Significantly, and in spite of Darwin’s acknowledgement that natural selection was “the doctrine of Malthus, applied to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms,” both sides of the debate claimed to be the more correctly “Darwinian.” By exploring the full spectrum of scientific and political issues at stake, Political Descent offers a novel approach to the relationship between evolution and political thought in the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

The Whigs' America

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Author :
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813179742
Total Pages : 238 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (131 download)

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Book Synopsis The Whigs' America by : Joseph W. Pearson

Download or read book The Whigs' America written by Joseph W. Pearson and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Passionate political disagreement is as old as the American Republic, and the antebellum era—the thirty years before the Civil War—was as rife with partisan discord as any in our history. From 1834 to 1856, the Whigs battled their opponents, the Jacksonian Democrats, for offices, prestige, and power. The partisan expression of America's rising middle class, the Whigs boasted such famous members as Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and William Henry Seward, and the party supported tariffs, banks, internal improvements, moral reform, and public education. In The Whigs' America, Joseph W. Pearson explores a variety of topics, including the Whigs' understanding of the role of the individual in American politics, their perceptions of political power and the rule of law, and their impressions of the past and what should be learned from history. Long dismissed as a party bereft of ideas, Pearson provides a counterbalance to this trend through an attentive examination of writings from party leaders, contemporaneous newspapers, and other sources. Throughout, he shows that the party attracted optimistic Americans seeking achievement, community, and meaning through collaborative effort and self-control in a world growing more and more impersonal. Pearson effectively demonstrates that, while the Whigs never achieved the electoral success of their opponents, they were rich with ideas. His detailed study adds complexity and nuance to the history of the antebellum era by illuminating significant aspects of a deeply felt, shared culture that informed and shaped a changing nation.

Whig Interpretation of History

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Author :
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 9780393003185
Total Pages : 148 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (31 download)

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Book Synopsis Whig Interpretation of History by : Herbert Butterfield

Download or read book Whig Interpretation of History written by Herbert Butterfield and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1965 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Five essays on the tendency of modern historians to update other eras and on the need to recapture the concrete life of the past.

Washington's Farewell Address to the People of the United States, 1796

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 38 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Washington's Farewell Address to the People of the United States, 1796 by : George Washington

Download or read book Washington's Farewell Address to the People of the United States, 1796 written by George Washington and published by . This book was released on 1913 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Georgia Historical Quarterly

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 316 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (321 download)

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Book Synopsis The Georgia Historical Quarterly by :

Download or read book The Georgia Historical Quarterly written by and published by . This book was released on 1921 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Showdown in Virginia

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Publisher : University of Virginia Press
ISBN 13 : 0813929911
Total Pages : 242 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (139 download)

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Book Synopsis Showdown in Virginia by : William W. Freehling

Download or read book Showdown in Virginia written by William W. Freehling and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2010-03-29 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the spring of 1861, Virginians confronted destiny—their own and their nation’s. Pivotal decisions awaited about secession, the consequences of which would unfold for a hundred years and more. But few Virginians wanted to decide at all. Instead, they talked, almost interminably. The remarkable record of the Virginia State Convention, edited in a fine modern version in 1965, runs to almost 3,000 pages, some 1.3 million words. Through the diligent efforts of William W. Freehling and Craig M. Simpson, this daunting record has now been made accessible to teachers, students, and general readers. With important contextual contributions—an introduction and commentary, chronology, headnotes, and suggestions for further reading—the essential core of the speeches, and what they signified, is now within reach. This is a collection of speeches by men for whom everything was at risk. Some saw independence and even war as glory; others predicted ruin and devastation. They all offered commentary of lasting interest to anyone concerned about the fate of democracy in crisis.