Book Review of Nation Builder: John Quincy Adams and the Grand Strategy of the Republic by Charles N. Edel

Review of Nation Builder: John Quincy Adams and the Grand Strategy of the Republic by Charles N. Edel

Book Review of Martha Jefferson Randolph, Daughter of Monticello: Her Life and Times by Cynthia A. Kierner

Martha Jefferson Randolph, Daughter of Monticello: Her Life and Times. By Cynthia A. Kierner. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012. Pp. ix, 281.

Book Review of A Companion to James Madison and James Monroe

Review of A Companion to James Madison and James Monroe edited by Stuart Leibige

Understanding the Essex Junto: Fear, Dissent, and Propaganda in the Early Republic

Historians have never formed a consensus over the Essex Junto. In fact, though often associated with New England Federalists, propagandists evoked the Junto long after the Federalist Party’s demise in 1824. This article chronicles uses of the term Essex Junto and its significance as it evolved from the early republic through the 1840s

Lincoln

Dinah Mayo-Bobee will lead discussions on issues raised by the movie Lincoln in connection with the traveling exhibition Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War, which will be at the Johnson City Public Library through Oct. 16

“Something energetic and spirited”: Massachusetts Federalists, rational politics, and political economy in the age of Jefferson, 1805–1815

This dissertation examines the resurgence of Massachusetts Federalists in national politics from 1805 through 1815. During this ten-year period, Federalists were relegated to the periphery of national politics as the Democratic-Republican majority in Congress passed a string of controversial commercial policies directed at French and British violations of America’s neutral trade. However, the rejection of bipartisan solutions, along with the anti-commercialism and sectional bias in Jeffersonian political economy, precipitated a resurgence of the Federalist Party after 1805. In Congress, Federalists, led by Massachusetts’ representatives, compensated for their dwindling numbers and influence in the national arena by adopting a populist stance and opposition platform that attracted New England voters. In fact, this study suggests that national expansion, the spread of slavery, and Jefferson’s agrarian ethos, played a more significant role in the Democratic-Republican Party’s rise to national prominence after 1800, than a widespread rejection of Federalist elitism. By testing the validity of Federalist claims that New England’s ability to safeguard its interests in national government diminished in direct proportion to the nation’s growth, we gain a better understanding of the emergence of New England nationalism and the deepening sectional hostilities that threatened the survival of the Union. Finally, through its reassessment of the Federalists’ opposition to commercial restrictions and their calls for constitutional reform to abolish slave quotas, this dissertation departs from the focus of previous studies, expands the discourse surrounding early national politics, and places Federalists in their appropriate historical context

Book Review of “Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence”

Gilbert,Alan Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence Chicago:University of Chicago Press 392 pp.,$30.00, ISBN 978-0226293073 Publication Date: April 201