
The F Street Mess
How Southern Senators Rewrote the Kansas-Nebraska Act
Alice Elizabeth Malavasic(Author)
The University of North Carolina Press
Published on 30. November 2017
Book
Paperback/Softback
272 pages
978-1-4696-3552-1 (ISBN)
Description
Pushing back against the idea that the Slave Power conspiracy was merely an ideological construction, Alice Elizabeth Malavasic argues that some southern politicians in the 1850s did indeed hold an inordinate amount of power in the antebellum Congress and used it to foster the interests of slavery. Malavasic focuses her argument on Senators David Rice Atchison of Missouri, Andrew Pickens Butler of South Carolina, and Robert M. T. Hunter and James Murray Mason of Virginia, known by their contemporaries as the ""F Street Mess"" for the location of the house they shared. Unlike the earlier and better-known triumvirate of John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster, the F Street Mess was a functioning oligarchy within the U.S. Senate whose power was based on shared ideology, institutional seniority, and personal friendship.
By centering on their most significant achievement - forcing a rewrite of the Nebraska bill that repealed the restriction against slavery above the 36 degrees 30' parallel - Malavasic demonstrates how the F Street Mess's mastery of the legislative process led to one of most destructive pieces of legislation in United States history and helped pave the way to secession.
By centering on their most significant achievement - forcing a rewrite of the Nebraska bill that repealed the restriction against slavery above the 36 degrees 30' parallel - Malavasic demonstrates how the F Street Mess's mastery of the legislative process led to one of most destructive pieces of legislation in United States history and helped pave the way to secession.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Chapel Hill
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
8 halftones
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
484 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4696-3552-1 (9781469635521)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
09/2017
The University of North Carolina Press
€19.49
Available for download
Person
Alice Elizabeth Malavasic is associate professor of history at Hudson Valley Community College.