The Democratic Collapse: How Gender Politics Broke a Party and a Nation, 1856-1861

Author/Contributor(s):	Haumesser, Lauren N
Publisher:	University of North Carolina Press
Date:	11/08/2022
Binding:	Paperback
Condition:	NEW

"This fresh examination of antebellum politics comprehensively examines the ways that gender issues and gendered discourse exacerbated fissures within the Democratic Party in the critical years between 1856 and 1861. Lauren Haumesser here traces how northern and southern Democrats and their partisan media organs used gender to make powerful arguments about slavery as the sectional crisis grew, from the emergence of the Republican Party to secession. Gendered charges and countercharges turned slavery into an intractable cultural debate, raising the stakes of every dispute and making compromise ever more elusive"--