Congress and the crisis of the 1850s / edited by Paul Finkelman and Donald R. Kennon.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction : a disastrous decade / Paul Finkelman -- Politics, patronage, and public policy : the Compromise of 1850 / Michael F. Holt -- The appeasement of 1850 / Paul Finkleman -- Beyond the balance rule : Congress, statehood, and slavery, 1850-1859 / Matthew Glassman -- Manifest destiny's hangover : Congress confronts territorial expansion and martial masculinity in the 1850s / Amy S. Greenberg -- "When the victims of oppression stand up manfully for themselves" : the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and the role of African Americans in obstructing its enforcement / Spencer R. Crew -- "Agitation is as necessary as tranquility is dangerous" : Kinsley S. Bingham becomes a Republican / Martin J. Hershock -- Dred, panic, war : how a slave case triggered financial crisis and civil disunion / Jenny Wahl -- "Hit him again" : the caning of Charles Sumner / Brooks D. Simpson.

During the long decade from 1848 to 1861 America was like a train speeding down the track, without an engineer or brakes. The new territories acquired from Mexico had vastly increased the size of the nation, but debate over their status-and more importantly the status of slavery within them-paralyzed the nation. Southerners gained access to the territories and a draconian fugitive slave law in the Compromise of 1850, but this only exacerbated sectional tensions. Virtually all northerners, even those who supported the law because they believed that it would preserve the union, despised being t.

English.

eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - Worldwide