The American Party Battle: 1854-76 v. 2: Election Campaign Pamphlets, 1828-76 (The John Harvard Library)
Harvard University Press, 1999-08-05
EAN 9780674026438, ISBN10: 0674026438
Paperback, 296 pages, 24.8 x 24.4 x 17 cm
The 19th century was the heyday of furious contention between American political parties, and Joel Silbey attempts to capture the drama and substance of those battles in a representative sampling of party pamphlets. The nature of political controversy, as well as the substance of politics, is embedded in these party documents which both united and divided Americans. Unlike the party platforms of the late-1990s, these pamplets explicated real issues and gave insight into the society at large. Andrew Jackson's Democrats, Millard Filmore's Whigs, Abraham Lincoln's Republicans, and other, lesser-known parties are represented here. The pamphlets demonstrate for 50 years political parties were surrogates for American demands and values.
fifty years of contention or, as he puts it in one of his topical heads, 'the culmination of the battle for the soul of America.'