Essays on American Antebellum Politics, 1840-1860

Writing on such subjects as voter partisanship, the road to recovery, and the surge of Republican power, these historians reach different conclusions but essentially agree on the centrality of the party system and the importance of ethnocultural issues in the sectional conflict. Besides using traditional historiographic techniques, some of the authors draw upon the findings and methods of the "New political history" to illuminate a variety of hitherto ignored or misunderstood aspects of antebellum American politics. In the process they offer a new look at some old problems and many new, provocative insights into these crucial two decades of American history.