In Columbia Rising, Bancroft Prize-winning historian John L. Brooke explores the struggle within the young American nation over the extension of social and political rights after the Revolution. By closely examining the formation and interplay of political structures and civil institutions in the upper Hudson Valley, Brooke traces the debates over who should fall within and outside of the legally protected category of citizen. The story of Martin Van Buren threads the narrative, since his views profoundly influenced American understandings of consent and civil society and led to the birth of the American party system. Brooke's analysis of the revolutionary settlement as a dynamic and unstable compromise over the balance of power offers a window onto a local struggle that mirrored the nationwide effort to define American citizenship.
Every four years, and on the death of presidents, individuals take the oath of office prescribed in the US Constitution. Formal inaugurations are accompanied by pomp that originated in ancient coronation ceremonies in a celebration that thousands of people attend in person and millions follow through electronic media. After describing what such occasions from the inauguration of President George Washington through to that of Joe Biden have in common and how they have changed, this book provides a chronologically arranged summary of each such inaugural ceremony and accompanying events, as well as an analysis of each speech. Although many are largely forgotten, several such orations, including those by Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan, are rhetorical masterpieces. All addresses provide snapshots of American ideals that will interest citizens, historians, and political scientists, and be of service to reference librarians.
An irresistible chronological overview of daily life in the presidential residence. Divided into 42 chapters representing each succeeding administration, this survey is brimming with fun facts, tantalizing tidbits, and memorable anecdotes detailing two centuries of domestic bliss and strife in the White House. From George Washington, who chose the sight and initiated work on the presidential mansion, to Bill Clinton, whose well-documented White House escapades titillated and scandalized the nation, each individual president has contributed to the mystique of the most readily recognized home in the U.S. Together with scores of drawings, portraits, and photographs, the breezy text chronicles the significant physical, social, and emotional changes wrought by each First Family as they sought to personalize daily life in the White House.
Had People magazine been around during the Civil War and after, Kate Chase would have made its “Most Beautiful” and “Most Intriguing” lists every year. Kate Chase, the charismatic daughter of Abraham Lincoln's treasury secretary, enjoyed unprecedented political power for a woman. As her widowed father's hostess, she set up a rival “court” against Mary Lincoln in hopes of making her father president and herself his First Lady. To facilitate that goal, she married one of the richest men in the country, the handsome “boy governor” of Rhode Island, in the social event of the Civil War. But when William Sprague turned out to be less of a prince as a husband, she found comfort in the arms of a powerful married senator. The ensuing scandal ended her virtual royalty, leaving her a social outcast who died in poverty. Yet in her final years she would find both greater authenticity and the inner peace that had always eluded her. Set against the seductive allure of the Civil War and Gilded Age, Kate Chase Sprague's dramatic story is one of ambition and tragedy involving some of the most famous personalities in American history. In this beautifully written and meticulously researched biography, drawing on much unpublished material, John Oller captures the tumultuous and passionate life of a woman who was a century ahead of her time.
Historians generally consider James K. Polk one of the most effective presidents in United States history. Many of them doubt, however, that President Polk would have been successful without the counsel of his wife Sarah. The president dominated his cabinet and trusted no one--except for his wife. Sarah Childress Polk (1803-1891) was a highly educated woman who became President Polk's virtual secretary and more: She critiqued his speeches, evaluated his Cabinet decisions, and worked side by side with her husband. Mrs. Polk was praised for her astute views on matters of state by both Polk's supporters and his opponents. She outlived her husband by 42 years, and was often consulted by politicians who respected her opinions and trusted her instincts, including Confederate and Union officers in the Civil War. This is the story of a powerful and tireless first lady who became one of the most influential Americans of the middle and late nineteenth century.
The voters have spoken: these presidential word-search puzzles win by a landslide! From George Washington and Abraham Lincoln to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, these patriotic word searches introduce children to every president of the United States, plus their first ladies, and the White House. Each puzzle features words associated with that particular president, a biography, and facts about his birth place, education, family, occupation, political party, age at inauguration, campaign slogan, and more. So while kids work their eagle eyes trying to solve the puzzles, they’ll be learning about US history, too.
The second edition of History of the Development of Building Construction in Chicago is a tribute to Frank Randall's vision and resource to Chicago area architects, engineers, preservation specialists, and other members of the building industry."--BOOK JACKET.
John C. Calhoun (1782–1850) was one of the prominent figure of American politics in the first half of the nineteenth century. The son of a slaveholding South Carolina family, he served in the federal government in various capacities—as senator from his home state, as secretary of war and secretary of state, and as vice-president in the administrations of John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. Calhoun was a staunch supporter of the interests of his state and region. His battle from tariff reform, aimed at alleviating the economic problems of the southern states, eventually led him to formulate his famous nullification doctrine, which asserted the right of states to declare federal laws null and void within their own boundaries. In the first full-scale biography of Calhoun in almost half a century, John Niven skillfully presents a new interpretation of this preeminent spokesman of the Old South. Deftly blending Calhoun’s public career with important elements of his private life, Niven shows Calhoun to have been at once a more consistent politician and a far more complex human being than previous historians have thought. Rather than history’s image of an assured, self-confident Calhoun, Niven reveals a figure who was in many ways insecure and defensive. Niven maintains that the War of 1812, which Calhoun helped instigate and which nearly resulted in the nation’s ruin, made a lasting impression on Calhoun’s mind and personality. From that point until the end of his life, he sought security first from the western Indians and the British while he was secretary of war, then from northern exploitation of southern wealth through what he regarded as manipulation of public policy while he was vice-president and a senator. He worked tirelessly to further the South’s slave-plantation system of economic and social values. He sought protection for a region that he freely admitted was low in population and poor in material resources, and he defended a position that he knew was morally inferior. Niven portrays Calhoun as a driven, tragic figure whose ambitions and personal desires to achieve leadership and compensate for a lack of inner assurance were often thwarted. The life he made for himself, the peace he felt on his plantation with his dependent retainers, and the agricultural pursuits that represented to him and his neighbors stability in a rapidly changing environment were beyond price. Calhoun sought to resist any menace to this way of life with all the force of his character and intellect. Yet in the end Calhoun’s headstrong allegiance to his region helped to destroy the very culture he sought to preserve and disrupted the Union he had hoped to keep whole. Niven’s masterful retelling of Calhoun’s eventful life is a model biography.
First published in 2002. This work examines eight Virginia novels against the background of the political and social concerns of the Jacksonian years in which they were written, arguing that the authors used familial processes as a metaphor to discuss issues that they regarded as critical. Each chapter focuses on a single novel - Swallow Barn, Kentuckian in New York, Cavaliers of Virginia, Horse-Shoe Robinson, George Balcombe, The Partisan Leader, and Knights of the Horseshoe - and examines its connections to the social and political tensions of the time of its publication - generational progress, sectional unity, executive authority, class relations, the nature of the ideal leader, relations among sections and states, socialist and perfectionist communities, and westward expansion.
A central political figure in the first post-Revolutionary generation, Felix Grundy (1775--1840) epitomized the "American democrat" who so famously fascinated Alexis de Tocqueville. Born and reared on the isolated frontier, Grundy rose largely by his own ability to become the Old Southwest's greatest criminal lawyer and one of the first radical political reformers in the fledgling United States. In Democracy's Lawyer, the first comprehensive biography of Grundy since 1940, J. Roderick Heller reveals how Grundy's life typifies the archetypal, post--founding fathers generation that forged America's culture and institutions. After his birth in Virginia, Grundy moved west at age five to the region that would become Kentucky, where he lost three brothers in Indian wars. He earned a law degree, joined the legislature, and quickly became Henry Clay's main rival. At age thirty-one, after rising to become chief justice of Kentucky, Grundy moved to Tennessee, where voters soon elected him to Congress. In Washington, Grundy proved so voracious a proponent of the War of 1812 that a popular slogan of the day blamed the war on "Madison, Grundy, and the Devil." A pivotal U.S. senator during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, Grundy also served as Martin Van Buren's attorney general and developed a close association with his law student and political protégé James K. Polk. Grundy championed the ideals of the American West, and as Heller demonstrates, his dominating belief -- equality in access to power -- motivated many of his political battles. Aristocratic federalism threatened the principles of the Revolution, Grundy asserted, and he opposed fetters on freedom of opportunity, whether from government or entrenched economic elites. Although widely known as a politician, Grundy achieved even greater fame as a criminal lawyer. Of the purported 185 murder defendants that he represented, only one was hanged. At a time when criminal trials served as popular entertainment, Grundy's mere appearance in a courtroom drew spectators from miles around, and his legal reputation soon spread nationwide. One nineteenth-century Nashvillian declared that Grundy "could stand on a street corner and talk the cobblestones into life." Shifting seamlessly within the worlds of law, entrepreneurship, and politics, Felix Grundy exemplified the questing, mobile society of early nineteenth-century America. With Democracy's Lawyer, Heller firmly establishes Grundy as a powerful player and personality in early American law and politics.
The Oxford Guide to the United States Government is the ultimate resource for authoritative information on the U.S. Presidency, Congress, and Supreme Court. Compiled by three top scholars, its pages brim with the key figures, events, and structures that have animated U.S. government for more than 200 years. In addition to coverage of the 2000 Presidential race and election, this Guide features biographies of all the Presidents, Vice Presidents, and Supreme Court Justices, as well as notable members of Congress, including current leadership; historical commentary on past elections, major Presidential decisions, international and domestic programs, and the key advisors and agencies of the executive branch; in-depth analysis of Congressional leadership and committees, agencies and staff, and historic legislation; and detailed discussions of 100 landmark Supreme Court cases and the major issues facing the Court today. In addition to entries that define legal terms and phrases and others that elaborate on the wide array of government traditions, this invaluable book includes extensive back matter, including tables of Presidential election results; lists of Presidents, Vice Presidents, Congresses, and Supreme Court Justices with dates of service; lists of Presidential museums, libraries, and historic sites; relevant websites; and information on visiting the White House, the Capitol, and Supreme Court buildings. A one-stop, comprehensive guide that will assist students, educators, and anyone curious about the inner workings of government, The Oxford Guide to the United States Government will be a valued addition to any home library.
Though antebellum Louisiana shared the rest of the South's commitment to slavery and cotton, the presence of a substantial sugarcane industry, large Creole and Catholic populations, numerous foreign and northern immigrants, and the immense city of New Orleans made it perhaps the most unsouthern of southern states. John M. Sacher's A Perfect War of Politics explores why Louisiana joined its neighbors in seceding from the Union in early 1861 and offers the first comprehensive study of the state's antebellum political parties and their interaction with the electorate. Sacher shows that, although civic participation expanded beyond the elite from 1824 to 1861, Louisiana remained a "white men's democracy." Ultimately, he explains, an obsession with defending white men's liberty led Louisiana's politicians to support secession. Sacher's welcome study provides a fresh, grass-roots perspective on the political causes of the Civil War and confirms the dominant role regional politics played in antebellum Louisiana.
Robber Baron is the first biography of the streetcar magnate Charles Tyson Yerkes (1837-1905), who stands alongside J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie as one of the most colorful and controversial public figures in Gilded Age America. John Franch draws upon every available source to tell the story of the man who was the mastermind behind Chicago’s Loop Elevated and the London Underground, the namesake of the University of Chicago’s observatory, and the inspiration for Frank Cowperwood, the ruthless protagonist of Theodore Dreiser's Trilogy of Desire: The Financier, The Titan, and The Stoic. Despite various philanthropic efforts, Yerkes and his unscrupulous tactics were despised by the press and public, and he left Chicago a bitter man. While Yerkes’s enduring public works testify to his success and desire to leave a lasting impression on his world, Robber Baron also uncovers the cost of this boundless ambition.
A consolidated eBook of Volume one and Volume two of The Longest Boundary by John Dunbabin. These volumes are firmly based on primary sources but written in a way that should appeal to the general reader as much as to specialised historians. Its chief actors are politicians and administrators, but there is a range of others, extending from First Nations chiefs to goldminers, railway entrepreneurs, prophets, and policemen. In the concluding chapter the book's general historical approach is supplemented by assessment of the main perspectives of international relations theory. Finally, attention is drawn to small anomalies created by the boundary line.
The book provides a comprehensive discussion of the major issues and events surrounding all American presidential elections, from the earliest years of the Republic through the campaign of 2008. Presidential Campaigns, Slogans, Issues, and Platforms: The Complete Encyclopedia is an easy-to-use reference work designed to encourage students and anyone interested in democratic politics to undertake a greater understanding of this complex aspect of American political life. The three-volume work covers each presidential campaign in depth, examining a large number of related issues ranging from the use of social media in modern presidential campaigns to negative campaign ads and key slogans used in every presidential campaign. Volume One contains entries offering specific and focused information on issues, trends, factors, slogans, strategies, and other more detailed elements of presidential campaigning from the first stirrings of the American democratic process to the first decade of the 21st century. Volumes Two and Three provide chronological accounts of every presidential campaign since the ratification of the Constitution through the campaign of 2008, with Volume Two covering the campaign of 1788–89 to the campaign of 1908, and Volume Three covering the campaign of 1912 to the campaign of 2008.
The presidential election of 1844 was one of the two or three most momentous elections in American history. Had Henry Clay won instead of James K. Polk, we'd be living in a very different country today. It cemented the westward expansion that brought Texas, California, and Oregon into the union. It also took place amid religious turmoil that included anti-Mormon and anti-Catholic violence, and the "Great Disappointment" in which thousands of followers of an obscure preacher named William Miller believed Christ would return to earth in October 1844. Author and journalist John Bicknell details even more compelling, interwoven events that occurred during this momentous year-the murder of Joseph Smith, the religious fermentation of the Second Great Awakening, John C. Frémont's exploration of the West, Charles Goodyear's patenting of vulcanized rubber, the near-death of President John Tyler in a freak naval explosion, and much more. All of these elements illustrate the competing visions of the American future-Democrats v. Whigs, Mormons v. Millerites, nativists v. Catholics, those who risked the venture westward and those who stayed safely behind-and how Polk's victory cemented the vision of a continental nation. John Bicknell has written and edited for FCW, Congressional Quarterly, Roll Call, and was coeditor of the 2012 edition of Politics in America, CQ's 1200-page guide to the US Congress. He lives in Haymarket, Virginia.
What does it take to get elected president of the United States—"leader of the free world"? This book gives readers insight into the major issues and events surrounding American presidential elections across more than two centuries, from the earliest years of the Republic through the campaigns of the 21st century. The race for the presidency encapsulates the broader changes in American democratic culture. This book provides insight into the major issues and events surrounding American presidential elections across more than two centuries, from the earliest years of the Republic through the campaigns of the 21st century. Readers will be able to see and understand how presidential campaigns have evolved over time, and how and why the current state of campaigning for president came into being.
The story of a pivotal president who watched over our westward expansion and solidified the dream of Jacksonian democracy James K. Polk was a shrewd and decisive commander in chief, the youngest president elected to guide the still-young nation, who served as Speaker of the House and governor of Tennessee before taking office in 1845. Considered a natural successor to Andrew Jackson, "Young Hickory" miraculously revived his floundering political career by riding a wave of public sentiment in favor of annexing the Republic of Texas to the Union. Shortly after his inauguration, he settled the disputed Oregon boundary and by 1846 had declared war on Mexico in hopes of annexing California. The considerably smaller American army never lost a battle. At home, however, Polk suffered a political firestorm of antiwar attacks from many fronts. Despite his tremendous accomplishments, he left office an extremely unpopular man, on whom stress had taken such a physical toll that he died within three months of departing Washington. Fellow Tennessean John Seigenthaler traces the life of this president who, as Truman noted, "said what he intended to do and did it.
In The Petticoat Affair, prize-winning historian John F. Marszalek offers the first in--depth investigation of the earliest -- and perhaps greatest -- political sex scandal in American history. During Andrew Jackson's first term in office, Margaret Eaton, the wife of Secretary of State John Henry Eaton, was branded a "loose woman" for her unconventional public life. The brash, outgoing, and beautiful daughter of a Washington innkeeper, Margaret had socialized with her father's guests and married Eaton very soon after the death of her first husband, shocking genteel society. Jackson saw attacks on Eaton as part of a conspiracy to topple his administration, and his strong defense of her character dominated the first two years of his term, and led to the resignation of his entire cabinet.
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice In 1858, challenger Abraham Lincoln debated incumbent Stephen Douglas seven times in the race for a U.S. Senate seat from Illinois. More was at stake than slavery in those debates. In Lincoln’s Tragic Pragmatism, John Burt contends that the very legitimacy of democratic governance was on the line. In a United States stubbornly divided over ethical issues, the overarching question posed by the Lincoln-Douglas debates has not lost its urgency: Can a liberal political system be used to mediate moral disputes? And if it cannot, is violence inevitable? “John Burt has written a work that every serious student of Lincoln will have to read...Burt refracts Lincoln through the philosophy of Kant, Rawls and contemporary liberal political theory. His is very much a Lincoln for our time.” —Steven B. Smith, New York Times Book Review “I'm making space on my overstuffed shelves for Lincoln’s Tragic Pragmatism. This is a book I expect to be picking up and thumbing through for years to come.” —Jim Cullen, History News Network “Burt treats the [Lincoln-Douglas] debates as being far more significant than an election contest between two candidates. The debates represent profound statements of political philosophy and speak to the continuing challenges the U.S. faces in resolving divisive moral conflicts.” —E. C. Sands, Choice
Surrounded by well-meaning aides, physicians sworn to confidentiality, and in some cases, sycophants, the president of the United States usually keeps the state of his health well-guarded from the American public. Though the intention of the 25th Amendment is to provide for the removal of an impaired president, the level of discretion involved in such a decision has caused many to question whether it serves the national interest. In large part, the men who have served as president have been past middle age and susceptible to the dame maladies as the rest of the aged population. The complete medical history of each of the first 41 U.S. presidents, emphasizing illnesses that affected them during their administrations, is here set out for the lay reader by a physician. The presidents' health care regimens (diet, exercise, home remedies, etc.) and physicians' treatments are also discussed.
Vols. 2-9: Edited by W. Edwin Hemphill; v. 10: Edited by Clyde N. Wilson and W. Edwin Hemphill; v. 11-18, 20-22: Edited by Clyde N. Wilson; v. 23-27 edited by Clyde N. Wilson and Shirley Bright CookVols. 10-15, 22: Published by the University of South Carolina Press for the South Carolina Dept. of Archives and History and the South Caroliniana Society; v. 23-28 published by the University of South Carolina Press Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
Throughout the contest for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, politicians and voters alike worried that the outcome might depend on the preferences of unelected superdelegates. This concern threw into relief the prevailing notion that—such unusually competitive cases notwithstanding—people, rather than parties, should and do control presidential nominations. But for the past several decades, The Party Decides shows, unelected insiders in both major parties have effectively selected candidates long before citizens reached the ballot box. Tracing the evolution of presidential nominations since the 1790s, this volume demonstrates how party insiders have sought since America’s founding to control nominations as a means of getting what they want from government. Contrary to the common view that the party reforms of the 1970s gave voters more power, the authors contend that the most consequential contests remain the candidates’ fights for prominent endorsements and the support of various interest groups and state party leaders. These invisible primaries produce frontrunners long before most voters start paying attention, profoundly influencing final election outcomes and investing parties with far more nominating power than is generally recognized.
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