With a fresh take on social dynamics in the antebellum South, Jonathan Daniel Wells contests the popular idea that the Old South was a region of essentially two classes (planters and slaves) until after the Civil War. He argues that, in fact, the region had a burgeoning white middle class--including merchants, doctors, and teachers--that had a profound impact on southern culture, the debate over slavery, and the coming of the Civil War. Wells shows that the growth of the periodical press after 1820 helped build a cultural bridge between the North and the South, and the emerging southern middle class seized upon northern middle-class ideas about gender roles and reform, politics, and the virtues of modernization. Even as it sought to emulate northern progress, however, the southern middle class never abandoned its attachment to slavery. By the 1850s, Wells argues, the prospect of industrial slavery in the South threatened northern capital and labor, causing sectional relations to shift from cooperative to competitive. Rather than simply pitting a backward, slave-labor, agrarian South against a progressive, free-labor, industrial North, Wells argues that the Civil War reflected a more complex interplay of economic and cultural values.

Selecting journals that speak for a very large number of topics addressed by the conservative press, this volume profiles selected conservative journals published since 1787. The conservative press has scarcely spoken with a single voice, whether the topics treated or even the time inhabited are the same or different. Yet, these journals testify to the persistent vigor and importance of conservatism. Together they provide a focused survey of the history of American conservative thought from the late 18th Century to the late 19th Century. Along with the companion volume covering the 20th Century conservative press, the book provides an important resource on conservative thought in America. Despite the disparities in conservative intellectual thought, the journals covered, even the more idiosyncratic and extreme, are connected by their core values of conservatism. The book is organized into sections reflecting these connections. The first section covers journals associated with Federal, Whig, or, in the Civil War era, Northern Democratic political interests. A later section includes journals sharing an attachment to Southern conservative values during the antebellum and Reconstruction periods. Two sections deal, respectively, with 19th Century Orthodox Protestant periodicals and 19th Century Catholic and Episcopal journals, and yet another section discusses journals united by a major focus on literary topics and cultural connections.

Patrick Neison Lynch, born in a small town in Ireland, became the third Roman Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Charleston, South Carolina. Lynch is remembered today mostly for his support of the Confederacy, his unofficial diplomatic mission to the Vatican on behalf of the Confederate cause, and for his ownership and management of slaves owned by the Catholic diocese. In the first biography of Lynch, David C. R. Heisser and Stephen J. White, Sr. investigate those controversial issues in Lynch's life, but they also illuminate his intellectual character and his labors as bishop of Charleston in the critical era of the state and nation's religious history. For, during the nineteenth century, Catholics both assimilated into South Carolina's predominantly Protestant society and preserved their own faith and practices. A native of Ireland, Lynch immigrated with his family to the town of Cheraw when he was a boy. At the age of twelve, he became a protégé of John England, the founding bishop of the diocese of Charleston. After studying at the seminary England founded in Charleston, Bishop England sent Lynch to prepare for the priesthood in Rome. The young man returned an accomplished scholar and became an integral part of Charleston's intellectual environment. He served as parish priest, editor of a national religious newspaper, instructor in a seminary, and active member of nearly every literary, scientific, philosophical society in Charleston. Just three years before the outbreak of the Civil War Lynch rose to the position of Bishop of Charleston. During the war he distinguished himself in service to his city, state, and the Confederate cause, culminating in his "not-so-secret" mission to Rome on behalf of Jefferson Davis's government. Upon Lynch's return, which was accomplished only after a pardon from U. S. President Andrew Johnson, he dedicated himself to rebuilding his battered diocese and retiring an enormous debt that had resulted from the conflagration of 1861, which destroyed the Cathedral of St. John and St. Finbar, and wartime destruction in Charleston, Columbia, and throughout the state. Lynch executed plans to assimilate newly freed slaves into the Catholic Church and to welcome Catholic immigrants from Europe and the northern states. Traveling throughout the eastern United States he gave lectures to religious and secular organizations, presided over dedications of new churches, and gave sermons at consecrations of bishops and installations of cardinals, all the while begging for contributions to rebuild his diocese. Upon his death, Lynch was celebrated throughout his city, state and nation for his generosity of spirit, intellectual attainments, and dedication to his holy church.

Among the regional landed elites in the Western World of the mid-1800s, the two most formidable were the owners of slave plantations in the Southern states of the U.S. and the proprietors of manorial estates in the provinces of Prussian East Elbia. Masters and Lords surveys the economic, social, and political histories of the two classes from the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries respectively, and pays particular attention to planters during the secession crisis of 1860-61 and to Junkers during the revolutionary crisis of 1848-49. In the process, Bowman grapples with such ambiguous and contentious concepts as capitalism, conservatism, and paternalism. Despite very different labor systems, antebellum planters and contemporaneous Junkers alike presided over landed estates that functioned as both autocratic political communities and agricultural enterprises exporting valuable commodities to industrializing England. This book also highlights important geographic, demographic, and political contrasts between the South and East Elbia as regional societies. Bowman concludes that the crucial distinction between the two landed elites is to be found in the Junkers' militarist and estatist monarchism versus the planters' libertarian but racist republicanism.

Our nation has produced comparatively few statesmen since the eighteenth century--only Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt seem to clearly qualify--whereas the American Revolution elevated several of its key players to a status of the first political order. Even the shortest list must include Franklin, Hamilton, and the first four presidents. The opening essays in Don Higginbotham's new collection look at the epochal achievements of the Revolutionary era through the perspectives of war, leadership, and state formation. Higginbotham examines how the blend of key personages influenced the creation of a federal system and led to the establishment of a new kind of militia and of West Point, a military academy distinctly different from its counterparts in Europe. The collection also provides a fascinating view into the character of George Washington through an essay examining his relationships with women. The concluding essays turn to the post-Revolutionary era to examine how the North and South, despite profound and persistent bonds, began to grow apart. Higginbotham traces the deepening sectional crisis within the context of the election of Lincoln, and he ends his book with the approach of a second revolution--that of the Confederacy. All of the essays demonstrate Higginbotham's belief that history is not shaped simply by vast, impersonal forces but that, on the contrary, significant and lasting change is to a large extent brought about by the interaction and decisions of individuals. Our unique and remarkable history is a reflection of remarkable people.

From the accounts of 18th-century travelers to the interpretations of 21st-century historians, Jumonville lists more than 6,800 books, chapters, articles, theses, dissertations, and government documents that describe the rich history of America's 18th state. Here are references to sources on the Louisiana Purchase, the Battle of New Orleans, Carnival, and Cajuns. Less-explored topics such as the rebellion of 1768, the changing roles of women, and civic development are also covered. It is a sweeping guide to the publications that best illuminate the land, the people, and the multifaceted history of the Pelican State. Arranged according to discipline and time period, chapters cover such topics as the environment, the Civil War and Reconstruction, social and cultural history, the people of Louisiana, local, parish, and sectional histories, and New Orleans. It also lists major historical sites and repositories of primary materials. As the only comprehensive bibliography of the secondary sources about the state, ^ILouisiana History^R is an invaluable resource for scholars and researchers.