High Stakes, High Drama at the 1860 Democratic Convention
Continuing our biographical series on William Lowndes Yancey, this week's episode tracks his evolution from Unionist to full-blown
William Lowndes Yancey and the Southern Honor Code
This week's video kicks off a series on the life of William Lowndes Yancey, the Alabama fire-eater best
Lincoln's Rigidity and Partisanship in the Sectional Crisis
In this week's video we look at President-Elect Abraham Lincoln's eerie silence throughout most of the
Secession Precipitationists Force the Upper South's Hand
Southern fire-eaters who had long dreamed of secession knew that anxieties stirred by the election of Abraham Lincoln gave them
Sparks to the Tinder of Black Revolt and White Hysteria
The handful of readers who have followed these posts from the beginning will get a bit of deja vu from
Paranoia and Diversity of Thought in South Carolina
November 1860, as news of Abraham Lincoln's election was spreading and South Carolina was preparing to secede, was
Jackson Arrives to Defend a Divided Louisiana
The Louisiana in which a young Yankee transplant named John Windship found himself in 1813-14 had only recently been admitted
The Culture Shock of Presidential Backcountry Politics
This week's video looks at some early episodes of Andrew Jackson's life in the Carolina and
Webster, Calhoun, and the Nullification Crisis
This week's video covers Daniel Webster's apparent change of opinion on the compact theory of the
A Bostonian's Dystopian Vision of the Fate of American Republicanism
In 1808, a Boston Congregationalist minister named William Jenks wrote a pamphlet of speculative fiction, purportedly written in 1872 and
