Bøger i American Presidential Elections serien

Choice Outstanding TitleThe presidential campaign of 1848 saw the first strong electoral challenge to the expansion of slavery in the United States; most historians consider the appearance of the Free Soil Party in that election a major turning point of the nineteenth century. The three-way race capped a decade of political turmoil that had raised the issue of slavery to unprecedented prominence on the national stage and brought about critical splits in the two major parties.In the first book in four decades devoted to the 1848 election, Joel Silbey clarifies our understanding of a pivotal moment in American history. The election of Whig Zachary Taylor, hero of the Mexican War, over Democrat Lewis Cass and Free Soiler Martin Van Buren followed a particularly bitter contest, a fierce political storm in an already tumultuous year marked by the first significant attempt by antislavery advocates to win the presidency.Silbey describes what occurred during that election and why it turned out as it did, offering a nuanced look at the interaction of the forces shaping the direction of politics in mid-nineteenth century America. He explains how the Free Soilers went about their reform movement and why they failed as they ran up against the tenacious grip that the existing two-party structure had on the political system and the behavior of the nation's voters.For Whigs and Democrats it was politics as usual as they stressed economic, cultural, and ideological issues that had divided the country for the previous twenty years. Silbey describes the new confrontation between the force of tradition and a new and different way of thinking about the political world. He shows that ultimately, when America went to the polls, northerners and southerners alike had more on their minds than slavery. Nevertheless, while Van Buren managed to attract only 10 percent of the vote, his party's presence foreshadowed a more successful challenge in the future.Emphasizing both persistent party commitments and the reformers' lack of political muscle, Silbey expertly delineates the central issues of an election framed by intense partisanship and increasing sectional anger. If 1848 did not yet mark the death rattle of traditional politics, this insightful book shows us its importance as a harbinger of change.

The election of 1824 is commonly viewed as a mildly interesting contest involving several colorful personalitiesJohn Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and William H. Crawfordthat established Old Hickory as the people's choice and yet, through "e;bargain and corruption,"e; deprived him of the presidency. In The One-Party Presidential Contest, Donald Ratcliffe reveals that Jackson was not the most popular candidate and the corrupt bargaining was a myth. The election saw the final disruption of both the dominant Democratic Republican Party and the dying Federalist Party, and the creation of new political formations that would slowly evolve into the Democratic and National Republicans (later Whig) Partiesthus bringing about arguably the greatest voter realignment in US history.Bringing to bear over 35 years of research, Ratcliffe describes how loyal Democratic Republicans tried to control the election but failed, as five of their party colleagues persisted in competing, in novel ways, until the contest had to be decided in the House of Representatives. Initially a struggle between personalities, the election evolved into a fight to control future policy, with large consequences for future presidential politics. The One-Party Presidential Contest offers a nuanced account of the proceedings, one that balances the undisciplined conflict of personal ambitions with the issues, principles, and prejudices that swirled around the election. In this book we clearly see, perhaps for the first time, how the election of 1824 revealed fracture lines within the young republicand created others that would forever change the course of American politics.

The presidential election of 1828 is one of the most compelling stories in American history: Andrew Jackson, hero of the Battle of New Orleans and man of the people, bounced back from his controversial loss four years earlier to unseat John Quincy Adams. This study of Jackson's election separates myth from reality.

Offers a study of the 1980 American election and shows why it was a landmark election. Beginning with Carter's speech on July 15, 1979, the book introduces the field of candidates, follows their campaigns, identifies the turning points and winning strategies, and assesses the results, including the GOP's first Senate majority in 26 years.

The first study in half a century to focus on the election of 1796. Colorfully portrays the young nation's politics, focusing especially on images of Adams and Jefferson created by supporters and detractors through the press, capturing the way that ordinary citizens in 1796 would have experienced candidates they never heard speak.

When John Kennedy won the presidency in 1960, he also won the right to put his own spin on the victory - whether as an underdog's heroic triumph or a liberal crusader's overcoming special interests. The author cuts through the mythology of this famous election to explain the nuts-and-bolts operations of the campaign.

To look at the partisan polarization that paralyzes Washington today is to see what first took shape with the presidential election of 1968. This book explains why. Urban riots and the Tet Offensive, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, the politics of outrage and raceall pointed to a reordering of party coalitions, of groups and regions, a hardening and widening of an ideological divideand to the historical importance of the 1968 election as a watershed event. Resilient America captures this extraordinary time in all its dramathe personalities, the politics, the parties, the events and the circumstances, from the shadow of 1964 through the primaries to the general election that pitted Richard Nixon against Hubert Humphrey, with George Wallace and Eugene McCarthy as the interlopers. Where most accounts of this pivotal yearand the decade that followedemphasize the coming apart of the nation, this book focuses on the fact that because of measures taken after the election the country actually held together. An esteemed scholar of the American presidency, Michael Nelson turns our attention to how, in spite of increasing (and increasingly vehement) differences, the parties of the time managed to make divided government work. Conventional political processespeaceful demonstrations, congressional legislation, executive initiatives, Supreme Court decisions, party reforms, and presidential politicswere flexible enough to absorb most of the dissent that tore America deeply in 1968 and might otherwise have torn it apart. This fraught time, as Nelson's work clearly demonstrates, produced unity as well as results well worth noting in our current predicament.