Jacksonian Antislavery & The Politics Of Free Soil, 1824-1854 Jacksonian Antislavery And The Politics Of Free Soil, 1824-1854

Annotation Taking our understanding of political antislavery into largely unexplored terrain, Jonathan H. Earle counters conventional wisdom and standard historical interpretations that view the ascendance of free-soil ideas within the antislavery movement as an explicit retreat from the goals of emancipation or even as an essentially proslavery ideology. These claims, he notes, fail to explain free soil's real contributions to the antislavery cause: its incorporation of Jacksonian ideas about property and political equality and its transformation of a struggling crusade into a mass political movement. Democratic free soilers' views on race occupied a wide spectrum, but they were able to fashion new and vital arguments against slavery and its expansion based on the party's long-standing commitment to egalitarianism and hostility to centralized power. Linking their antislavery stance to a land-reform agenda that pressed for free land for poor settlers in addition to land free of slavery, Free Soil Democrats forced major political realignments in New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Ohio. Democratic politicians such as David Wilmot, Marcus Morton, John Parker Hale, and even former president Martin Van Buren were transformed into antislavery leaders. As Earle shows, these political changes at the local, state, and national levels greatly intensified the looming sectional crisis and paved the way for the Civil War Taking Our Understanding Of Political Antislavery Into Largely Unexplored Terrain, Jonathan E. Earle Counters Conventional Wisdom And Standard Historical Interpretations That View The Ascendance Of Free-soil Ideas Within The Antislavery Movement As An Explicit Retreat From The Goals Of Emancipation. Jacksonian Antislavery And The Roots Of Free Soil -- Dissident Democrats In The 1830s : William Leggett, George Henry Evans, And Thomas Morris -- Set Down Your Feet, Democrats : Politics And Free Soil In New York -- Making Hay From Democratic Clover : John P. Hale And The New Hampshire Independent Democracy -- Marcus Morton And The Dilemma Of Jacksonian Antislavery In Massachusetts -- David Wilmot, The Proviso, And The Congressional Movement To Abolish Slavery -- The Cincinnati Clique, True Democracy, And The Ohio Origins Of The Free Soil Party -- Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Speech, And Free Men : The Election Of 1848 -- Free Soilers, Republicans, And The Third Party System, 1848-1854. Jonathan H. Earle. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 247-268) And Index. The dinner table conversation at Masi's rooming house on Pennsylvania Avenue rarely, if ever, centered on the food.