David Waldstreicher - Böcker

In the final years of his political career, President John Quincy Adams was well known for his objections to slavery, with rival Henry Wise going so far as to label him "the acutest, the astutest, the archest enemy of southern slavery that ever existed." As a young statesman, however, he supported slavery. How did the man who in 1795 told a British cabinet officer not to speak to him of "the Virginians, the Southern people, the democrats," whom he considered "in no other light than as Americans," come to foretell "a grand struggle between slavery and freedom"? How could a committed expansionist, who would rather abandon his party and lose his U.S. Senate seat than attack Jeffersonian slave power, later come to declare the Mexican War the "apoplexy of the Constitution," a hijacking of the republic by slaveholders? What changed? Entries from Adams's personal diary, more extensive than that of any American statesman, reveal a highly dynamic and accomplished politician in engagement with one of his generation's most challenging national dilemmas.Expertly edited by David Waldstreicher and Matthew Mason, John Quincy Adams and the Politics of Slavery offers an unusual perspective on the dramatic and shifting politics of slavery in the early republic, as it moved from the margins to the center of public life and from the shadows to the substance of Adams's politics. The editors provide a lucid introduction to the collection as a whole and frame the individual documents with brief and engaging insights, rendering both Adams's life and the controversies over slavery into a mutually illuminating narrative. By juxtaposing Adams's personal reflections on slavery with what he said-and did not say-publicly on the issue, the editors offer a nuanced portrait of how he interacted with prevailing ideologies during his consequential career and life. John Quincy Adams and the Politics of Slavery is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the complicated politics of slavery that set the groundwork for the Civil War.

From slave ships to plantations to freedom, The Struggle Against Slavery traces the remarkable history of the heroic fight to end slavery, from its North American beginnings in the early 1600s to its violent demise in the mid-1800s with the Civil War. Captured in their own words from transcripts, diaries, memoirs, newspaper clippings, drawings, and other documents are the stories of how slaves and free blacks fought against the dehumanization of slavery by developing anti-racist arguments, creating their own institutions, physically escaping, and fighting with weapons. An exceptional social, political, and cultural history of the period, The Struggle Against Slavery is filled with stirring tales of survival and strength, bringing to life the African-American experience in early America.

John Quincy Adams's remarkable diary is an unusually accessible window into the thinking of a president long before, during, and well after his own administration. It is enormous in scope--examining all subjects that came to Adams's interest and stretching from the late 1780s to his death in 1848. David Waldstreicher and Matthew Mason produce an edition of the diary that is not only of accessible length but also focused on one issue: the politics of slavery. Adams's long journey from nationalist diplomacy to culture war with the southern plantocracy is not well understood. How did the man who in 1795 told a British cabinet officer not to speak to him of the Virginians, the Southern people, the democrats, whom he considered in no other light than as Americans, come to predict a grand struggle between slavery and freedom? How could an expansionist who had left his party and lost his U.S. Senate seat rather than attack the Jeffersonian slave power, later come to declare the Mexican War the apoplexy of the Constitution, a hijacking of the republic by slaveholders? What changed? Entries in the diary touching on the politics of slavery increased over time and reflect national events as well as Adams' changes in attitude. The diary enables the reader to perceive and weigh the relative importance and interaction of ideology, politics, and personal ambition in one highly consequential life. The editors provide a lucid introduction to the collection as a whole and illuminate the individual documents with brief and engaging comments, deftly placing Adams's public statements alongside his private reflections. By juxtaposing Adams's personal reflections on slavery with what he said--and did not say--publicly on the issue, the editors offer a unique perspective on a topic historians of the early republic, and especially of Jacksonian democracy, have trouble integrating into their stories: the complicated politics of slavery.

A Companion to John Adams and John Quincy Adams presents a collection of original historiographic essays contributed by leading historians that cover diverse aspects of the lives and politics of John and John Quincy Adams and their spouses, Abigail and Louisa Catherine. Features contributions from top historians and Adams’ scholarsConsiders sub-topics of interest such as John Adams’ role in the late 18th-century demise of the Federalists, both Adams’ presidencies and efforts as diplomats, religion, and slaveryIncludes two chapters on Abigail Adams and one on Louisa Adams

In this innovative study, David Waldstreicher investigates the importance of political festivals in the early American republic. Drawing on newspapers, broadsides, diaries, and letters, he shows how patriotic celebrations and their reproduction in a rapidly expanding print culture helped connect local politics to national identity. Waldstreicher reveals how Americans worked out their political differences in creating a festive calendar. Using the Fourth of July as a model, members of different political parties and social movements invented new holidays celebrating such events as the ratification of the Constitution, Washington's birthday, Jefferson's inauguration, and the end of the slave trade. They used these politicized rituals, he argues, to build constituencies and to make political arguments on a national scale. While these celebrations enabled nonvoters to participate intimately in the political process and helped dissenters forge effective means of protest, they had their limits as vehicles of democratization or modes of citizenship, Waldstreicher says. Exploring the interplay of region, race, class, and gender in the development of a national identity, he demonstrates that an acknowledgment of the diversity and conflict inherent in the process is crucial to any understanding of American politics and culture. |Together, and separately, black and white Baptists created different but intertwined cultures that profoundly shaped the South. Adopting a biracial and bicultural focus, Paul Harvey works to redefine southern religious history, and by extension southern culture, as the product of such interaction--the result of whites and blacks having drawn from and influenced each other even while remaining separate and distinct. In tracing the growth of Baptist churches from small outposts of radically democratic plain-folk religion in the mid-18th century to conservative and culturally dominant institutions in the 20th century, Harvey explores one of the most impressive evolutions of American religious and cultural history.

In pursuit of a more sophisticated and inclusive American history, the contributors to Beyond the Founders propose new directions for the study of the political history of the republic before 1830. In ways formal and informal, symbolic and tactile, this political world encompassed blacks, women, entrepreneurs, and Native Americans, as well as the Adamses, Jeffersons, and Jacksons, all struggling in their own ways to shape the new nation and express their ideas of American democracy. Taking inspiration from the new cultural and social histories, these political historians show that the early history of the United States was not just the product of a few ""founding fathers,"" but was also marked by widespread and passionate popular involvement; print media more politically potent than that of later eras; and political conflicts and influences that crossed lines of race, gender, and class.

Revolutions and Reconstructions gathers historians of the early republic, the Civil War era, and African American and political history to consider not whether black people participated in the politics of the nineteenth century but how, when, and with what lasting effects. Collectively, its authors insist that historians go beyond questioning how revolutionary the American Revolution was, or whether Reconstruction failed, and focus, instead, on how political change initiated by African Americans and their allies constituted the rule in nineteenth-century American politics, not occasional and cataclysmic exceptions.The essays in this groundbreaking collection cover the full range of political activity by black northerners after the Revolution, from cultural politics to widespread voting, within a political system shaped by the rising power of slaveholders. Conceptualizing a new black politics, contributors observe, requires reorienting American politics away from black/white and North/South polarities and toward a new focus on migration and local or state structures. Other essays focus on the middle decades of the nineteenth century and demonstrate that free black politics, not merely the politics of slavery, was a disruptive and consequential force in American political development.From the perspective of the contributors to this volume, formal black politics did not begin in 1865, or with agitation by abolitionists like Frederick Douglass in the 1840s, but rather in the Revolutionary era's antislavery and citizenship activism. As these essays show, revolution, emancipation, and Reconstruction are not separate eras in U.S. history, but rather linked and ongoing processes that began in the 1770s and continued through the nineteenth century.Contributors: Christopher James Bonner, Kellie Carter Jackson, Andrew Diemer, Laura F. Edwards, Van Gosse, Sarah L. H. Gronningsater, M. Scott Heerman, Dale Kretz, Padraig Riley, Samantha Seeley, James M. Shinn Jr., David Waldstreicher.

This companion provides a comprehensive survey of the life, work and legacy of Benjamin Franklin - the oldest, most distinctive, and multifaceted of the founders. Includes contributions from across a range of academic disciplinesCombines traditional and cutting-edge scholarship, from accomplished and emerging experts in the fieldPays special attention to the American Revolution, the Enlightenment, journalism, colonial American society, and themes of race, class, and genderPlaces Franklin in the context of recent work in political theory, American Studies, American literature, material culture studies, popular culture, and international relations