Democratizing the Old Dominion: Virginia and the Second Party System, 1824-1861The Emergence of the two-party system in the 1830s led to the democratization of the nation and to decades of heated dispute about democracy. In Democratizing the Old Dominion, the first comprehensive study of antebellum Virginia politics, William G. Shade demonstrates that Virginia typified the nation more closely than did any other state both in the emergence and development of the two-party system and in economic development. Shade places the antebellum debate over slavery and states' rights in the context of early discussion on these subjects by Jefferson and Madison. He shows how the diversity of opinion on these issues was shaped by politics. Discussing the many conflicts within Virginia and the South, he debunks the myth of the unique South and argues that the similarities between North and South were more numerous than the differences. The author also provides a thorough analysis of Virginia's many regional cultures, looking at them comparatively as well as in the context of national party conflicts. |
Contents
The Partisan Leader | 1 |
Notes on the State of Virginia | 17 |
Life in eastern Virginia and western Virginia | 21 |
2 | 50 |
The Virginia constitutional convention 182930 | 51 |
A Candid State of Parties | 78 |
John Tyler | 79 |
Out of the Nature of Things | 114 |
5 | 158 |
Common terms and phrases
abolitionists agricultural Alexander H. H. Stuart Ambler American antebellum antislavery assembly Bank Baptists Blue Ridge Buren candidates Census churches Clay commonwealth Congress congressional conservative counties debate Democracy District Doctrines of 98 dominated eastern economic electorate elite emancipation favored federal Federalists German Harrison Henry House of Delegates internal improvements issue Jackson Jacksonian James Jefferson Jeffersonian John John Tyler Kanawha legislative legislature Littleton Waller Tazewell Lynchburg Lynchburg Virginian Madison majority Martin Van Buren Methodists nonslaveholders northern Old Dominion opposed partisan peculiar institution percent piedmont planters political polls population Presbyterians presidential election proslavery Randolph reform Republican Revolution Richmond Enquirer Richmond Whig Ritchie Rives roll calls Scotch-Irish secession second party system Senate slaveholders slavery slaves society South Southern Southside Spencer Roane suffrage supported Tazewell Thomas Thomas Ritchie tidewater tion turnout Tyler Upshur Valley Virginia vote voters Washington western Whigs and Democrats William William Branch Giles York