University Press Copublishing Division / Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
Pages: 254
•
Trim: 6½ x 9⅜
978-1-61147-985-0 • Hardback • January 2017 • $123.00 • (£95.00)
978-1-61147-987-4 • Paperback • September 2018 • $50.99 • (£39.00)
978-1-61147-986-7 • eBook • January 2017 • $48.00 • (£37.00)
Dinah Mayo-Bobee is assistant professor in the Department of History at East Tennessee State University.
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: The “Gloomy Night of Democracy:” Federalist Opposition to the Three-Fifths Clause
1“Have these Haytians no rights:” Restricting Trade to Safeguard Slavery (1805–1806)
2“Indissolubly Connected with Commerce:” Nonimportation, Southern Sectionalism, and the Defense of New England
3“Squabbles in Madam Liberty’s Family:” Jefferson’s Embargo and the Causes of Federalist Extremism (1807–1808)
4“O Grab Me!” The Justification for Disunion (1808–1809)
5“Sincere Neutrality:” War, Moderates, and the Federalists Party’s Decline (1810–1820)
Epilogue: Old Romans—Federalist Activism and the Antislavery Legacy (1820–1865)
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Historian Mayo-Bobee (East Tennessee State Univ.) has written a thorough study of the New England Federalists in the early 19th century. Closely examining both the ideologies and tactics of congressional Federalists, the author makes several significant contributions to understanding Jeffersonianism and its discontents. With the election of Thomas Jefferson to the presidency in 1801, the Federalists became an opposition party for the first time (confined largely to New England) and developed a strongly sectional ideology excoriating Jeffersonian stances on slavery and commerce. Mayo-Bobee adds to the conventional story of this opposition by explaining how the Federalists’ commercialist creed took shape in their opposition to the Jeffersonian embargo on the newly independent Haiti. Tying the defense of commerce to their critique of what they would later call “the Slave Power,” New England Federalists’ opposition to the Jeffersonian Republicans became stronger and more coherent than scholars have traditionally allowed. The concluding chapter makes a strong connection between New England Federalists and the subsequent abolitionist critique of the slave South. Throughout, Mayo-Bobee’s analysis is grounded in solid archival research. Students of the early American republic will read it with interest and profit. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.
— Choice Reviews