John L. O'Sullivan and His TimesThe life of nineteenth-century journalist, diplomat, adventurer, and enthusiast for lost causes John Louis O'Sullivan is usually glimpsed only in brief episodes, perhaps because the components of his life are sometimes contradictory. An exponent of romantic democracy, O'Sullivan became a defender of slavery. A champion of reforms for women, labor, criminals, and public schools, he ended his life promoting spiritualism. This first full-length biography reveals a man possessed of the idealism and promise, as well as the prejudices and follies, of his age, a man who sensed the revolutionary and liberating potential of radical democracy but was unable to acknowledge the racial barriers it had to cross to fulfill its promise. Sure to be welcomed by scholars of the Jacksonian era and others interested in nineteenth-century American history, John L. O'Sullivan and His Times presents an in-depth examination of O'Sullivan's ideas as they were expressed in the Democratic Review and other newspapers and literary magazines that he edited. O'Sullivan was a crusader whose efforts to end capital panishment came within a hair's breadth of ending hanging in New York; an editor who called down the w |
Contents
Inheriting a Romantic Legacy | xv |
Founding the Democratic Review | 13 |
Battling Banks and the Panic | 25 |
Friends and Offended Democrats | 46 |
Defining Democracy | 71 |
Pursuing Reform | 87 |
Defending Democracy | 110 |
The Democratic Review and the Politics of Rededication | 138 |
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abolition administration Age of Jackson American Aristocrats banking Barnburners Bigelow Brownson Bryant Buchanan Butler Calhoun Cambreleng campaign capital punishment Career of John cause Centenary Cilley cratic Review Cuba death defeat Demo Democracy Democracy's Democratic Review Democratic Review 12 Dorr Duyckinck editor efforts election equality favor George Bancroft Harris Hawthorne's Horatio Bridge Ibid Independent Treasury insisted Jacksonian Democrats James John L John Louis O'Sullivan Journal July June labor Langtree later Leggett letter literary Locofoco magazine magazine's Manifest Destiny Marcy Martin Van Buren ment Metropolitan moral Morning Nathaniel Hawthorne newspaper O'Sul O'Sullivan and Langtree O'Sullivan wrote political Polk Polk's president presidential Press principles Public Career question radicals reform romantic Samuel Schlesinger Sedgwick Senate Sept Seward Silas Wright slavery society spirit Texas annexation tion Tyler United Univ Washington Whig William York City young