America in 1857 : a nation on the brink

Resource Information

The work America in 1857 : a nation on the brink represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Missouri-St. Louis Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

America in 1857 : a nation on the brink

Title remainder

a nation on the brink

Statement of responsibility

Kenneth M. Stampp

Creator

• Stampp, Kenneth M., (Kenneth Milton)

Subject

• 1857-1861
• Electronic books
• HISTORY -- State & Local | General
• United States
• United States -- Politics and government -- 1857-1861
• Politics and government

Language

eng

Summary

It was a year packed with unsettling events. The Panic of 1857 closed every bank in New York City, ruined thousands of businesses, and caused widespread unemployment among industrial workers. The Mormons in Utah Territory threatened rebellion when federal troops approached with a non-Mormongovernor to replace Brigham Young. The Supreme Court outraged northern Republicans and abolitionists with the Dred Scott decision ("a breathtaking example of judicial activism"). And when a proslavery minority in Kansas Territory tried to foist a proslavery constitution on a large antislaverymajority, President Buchanan reneged on a crucial commitment and supported the minority, a disastrous miscalculation which ultimately split the Democratic party in two. In America in 1857, eminent American historian Kenneth Stampp offers a sweeping narrative of this eventful year, covering all the major crises while providing readers with a vivid portrait of America at mid-century. Stampp gives us a fascinating account of the attempt by William Walker andhis band of filibusters to conquer Nicaragua and make it a slave state, of crime and corruption, and of street riots by urban gangs such as New York's Dead Rabbits and Bowery Boys and Baltimore's Plug Uglies and Blood Tubs. But the focus continually returns to Kansas. He examines the outrageouspolitical frauds perpetrated by proslavery Kansans, Buchanan's calamitous response and Stephen Douglas's break with the President (a rare event in American politics, a major party leader repudiating the president he helped elect), and the whirl of congressional votes and dramatic debates that led toa settlement humiliating to Buchanan--and devastating to the Democrats. 1857 marked a turning point, at which sectional conflict spun out of control and the country moved rapidly toward the final violent resolution in the Civil War. Stampp's intensely focused look at this pivotal year illuminates the forces at work and the mood of the nation as it plummetedtoward disaster

Member of

• Ebook Central Academic Complete

Awards note

California Book Awards (nominated), 1992

Cataloging source

N$T

Dewey number

973.6/8

Illustrations

• maps
• portraits
• plates

Index

index present

LC call number

E436

LC item number

.S78 1990eb

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

• dictionaries
• bibliography