A Fire Bell in the Past
The Missouri Crisis at 200, Volume II: "The Missouri Question" and Its Answers
Will be published approx. on 15. December 2021
Book
Hardback
426 pages
978-0-8262-2249-7 (ISBN)
Description
Many new states entered the United States around 200 years ago, but only Missouri almost killed the nation it was trying to join. When the House of Representatives passed the Tallmadge Amendment banning slavery from the prospective new state in February 1819, it set off a two-year political crisis in which growing northern antislavery sentiment confronted the aggressive westward expansion of the peculiar institution by southerners. The Missouri Crisis divided the U.S. into slave and free states for the first time and crystallized many of the arguments and conflicts that would later be settled violently during the Civil War. The episode was, as Thomas Jefferson put it, "a fire bell in the night" that terrified him as the possible "knell of the Union."
Drawn from the of participants in two landmark conferences held at the University of Missouri and the City University of New York, those who contributed original essays to this second of two volumes-a group that includes young scholars and foremost authorities in the field-answer the Missouri "Question," in bold fashion, challenging assumptions both old and new in the long historiography by approaching the event on its own terms, rather than as the inevitable sequel of the flawed founding of the republic or a prequel to its near destruction.
This second volume of A Fire Bell in the Past features a foreword by Daive Dunkley. Contributors include Dianne Mutti Burke, Christopher Childers, Edward P. Green, Zachary Dowdle, David J. Gary, Peter Kastor, Miriam Liebman, Matthew Mason, Kate Masur, Mike McManus, Richard Newman, and Nicholas Wood.
Drawn from the of participants in two landmark conferences held at the University of Missouri and the City University of New York, those who contributed original essays to this second of two volumes-a group that includes young scholars and foremost authorities in the field-answer the Missouri "Question," in bold fashion, challenging assumptions both old and new in the long historiography by approaching the event on its own terms, rather than as the inevitable sequel of the flawed founding of the republic or a prequel to its near destruction.
This second volume of A Fire Bell in the Past features a foreword by Daive Dunkley. Contributors include Dianne Mutti Burke, Christopher Childers, Edward P. Green, Zachary Dowdle, David J. Gary, Peter Kastor, Miriam Liebman, Matthew Mason, Kate Masur, Mike McManus, Richard Newman, and Nicholas Wood.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Missouri
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Weight
796 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8262-2249-7 (9780826222497)
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
Content
CONTRIBUTORS xi
FOREWORD
A Reckoning with Slavery xv
D. A. Dunkley
INTRODUCTION
The 1821 Project 3
Jeffrey L. Pasley and John Craig Hammond
CHRONOLOGY
The Era of the Second Missouri Compromise 31
PART I: "THE MISSOURI QUESTION" IN NATIONAL POLITICS
1. "We have gained all that was possible, if not all that was desired":
Politics and the Passage of the Missouri Compromise 37
Michael J. McManus
2. The Missouri Crisis and the Uncontested
Reelection of James Monroe 71
Christopher Childers
3. Diplomat, Republican, Lady:
Louisa Catherine Adams and the Missouri Crisis 99
Miriam Liebman
PART II. ANSWERING THE QUESTION IN MISSOURI AND
ACROSS AMERICA
4. The Second Missouri Compromise, State Citizenship, and
African Americans' Rights in the Antebellum United States 129
Kate Masur
5. "Clothing and food are nothing compared with liberty":
Undoing the Myth of Mild Missouri Slavery 163
Diane Mutti Burke
6. The Other Fire Bell: African American Politics and the
Missouri Compromise before the Civil War 197
Richard Newman
7. A Geography of Free Soil: The Legacy of the 1820 Compromise,
Political Conflict, and the Decline of Slavery in Missouri 229
Zachary Dowdle
PART III. LEGACIES OF THE MISSOURI CRISIS IN AMERICAN
POLITICAL CULTURE
8. Doughface: The Origins and Legacy of an
Antebellum Political Insult 259
Nicholas P. Wood
9. "Contrary to the law of nature": The Reconstruction and
Memory of Rufus King's Missouri Crisis Speeches 275
David J. Gary
10. "General declarations are insufficient": The Pressure of
Debates and Extreme Rhetoric from the 1760s to the 1820s 301
Matthew Mason
PART IV. REFRAMING THE QUESTION CONTINENTALLY
11. The Local Politics of "Indian Affairs": Diplomacy, Ethnic
Cleansing, and Federal Power in the Age of Missouri Statehood 325
Edward P. Green
12. The Multinational History of Missouri Statehood and the
Reimagining of North American Polities 357
Peter Kastor
ACKNOWLEDGMENT 385
INDEX 389
FOREWORD
A Reckoning with Slavery xv
D. A. Dunkley
INTRODUCTION
The 1821 Project 3
Jeffrey L. Pasley and John Craig Hammond
CHRONOLOGY
The Era of the Second Missouri Compromise 31
PART I: "THE MISSOURI QUESTION" IN NATIONAL POLITICS
1. "We have gained all that was possible, if not all that was desired":
Politics and the Passage of the Missouri Compromise 37
Michael J. McManus
2. The Missouri Crisis and the Uncontested
Reelection of James Monroe 71
Christopher Childers
3. Diplomat, Republican, Lady:
Louisa Catherine Adams and the Missouri Crisis 99
Miriam Liebman
PART II. ANSWERING THE QUESTION IN MISSOURI AND
ACROSS AMERICA
4. The Second Missouri Compromise, State Citizenship, and
African Americans' Rights in the Antebellum United States 129
Kate Masur
5. "Clothing and food are nothing compared with liberty":
Undoing the Myth of Mild Missouri Slavery 163
Diane Mutti Burke
6. The Other Fire Bell: African American Politics and the
Missouri Compromise before the Civil War 197
Richard Newman
7. A Geography of Free Soil: The Legacy of the 1820 Compromise,
Political Conflict, and the Decline of Slavery in Missouri 229
Zachary Dowdle
PART III. LEGACIES OF THE MISSOURI CRISIS IN AMERICAN
POLITICAL CULTURE
8. Doughface: The Origins and Legacy of an
Antebellum Political Insult 259
Nicholas P. Wood
9. "Contrary to the law of nature": The Reconstruction and
Memory of Rufus King's Missouri Crisis Speeches 275
David J. Gary
10. "General declarations are insufficient": The Pressure of
Debates and Extreme Rhetoric from the 1760s to the 1820s 301
Matthew Mason
PART IV. REFRAMING THE QUESTION CONTINENTALLY
11. The Local Politics of "Indian Affairs": Diplomacy, Ethnic
Cleansing, and Federal Power in the Age of Missouri Statehood 325
Edward P. Green
12. The Multinational History of Missouri Statehood and the
Reimagining of North American Polities 357
Peter Kastor
ACKNOWLEDGMENT 385
INDEX 389