'Watkins persuasively demonstrates how in shoring up the Bible and the Constitution for the debates over slavery, nineteenth-century Americans evoked an awareness of temporal distance, a new historical consciousness. Antebellum-era struggles with time and history come to life in this insightful and compelling study, which substantially propels our understanding of historicism.' Eran Shalev, University of Haifa
Acknowledgements; Prologue; Introduction; 1. 'Recourse must be had to the history of those times'; 2. 'The ground will shake'; 3. 'Texts … designed for local and temporary use'; 4. 'The further we recede from the birth of the constitution'; 5. 'The culture of cotton has healed its deadly wound'; 6. 'Times now are not as they were'; 7. 'We have to do not … with the past, but the living present'; 8. A 'Modern crispus attucks'; Conclusion; Epilogue; Index.