The Partisan Imperative: The Dynamics of American Politics Before the Civil War - Hardcover

Silbey, Joel H.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195035518 ISBN 13: 9780195035513

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1985

Synopsis

Was slavery really the most significant issue in American politics just before the Civil War? No, says Joel Silbey in this provocative revisionist work. Using the insights of the new political history (to which he has been a major contributor), Silbey shows how local issues, ethnic and religious attitudes, and, most important, the power and persistence of national political parties were actually the key elements animating the political life of the era.
Silbey argues that ethnocultural factors and partisanship not only gave shape and substance to the period's political conflicts but also affected the coming of the Civil War in direct and crucial ways. Pointing to the fervor and seriousness with which the people of the period embraced the parties, he contends that parties both delayed and worked against the flowering and growth of sectional influences and for a long time frustrated the demands of sectional spokesmen, both North and South. These same elements, he says, also affected the way Northerners and Southerners understood each other and contributed to the growth of the Republican party as well as to the South's decision to secede from the Union.
The book thus provides a very different framework for understanding one of the most critical periods in our nation's political development, a time when many long-standing customs and political institutions first took shape. Offering fresh insights into a dramatic and fascinating era, Silbey's iconoclastic perspective will both affect the way historians view the period hereafter and suggest an agenda for future research.
About the Author:
Joel H. Silbey is Professor of American History at Cornell University. His previous books include The Shrine of Party, The Transformation of American Politics, and A Respectable Majority.

About this title

About the Author

Joel H. Silbey, Professor of History, Cornell University.

Review

"In this endeavor [Silbey] has succeeded admirably....The presentation of the articles and essays is well designed....Well suited for use in courses on the development of American political parties and American history before the Civil War."--Teaching History

"A masterly accomplishment that future historians of the era will have to rely on in building their own interpretations."--Lee Benson, University of Pennsylvania

"Broadly informed, powerfully argued, and filled with keen insights about the history and historiography of antebellum politics."--Michael F. Holt, University of Virginia

"Impressive...sophisticated and subtle."--Daniel W. Howe, University of California, Los Angeles

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1985
• ISBN 10: 0195035518
• ISBN 13: 9780195035513
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 234