Few issues defined the period between American independence and the Mexican War more sharply than westward settlement and the role of the federal government in that expansion. In Securing the West, John R. Van Atta examines the visions of the founding generation and the increasing influence of ideological differences in the years after the peace of 1815.
Americans expected the country to grow westward, but on the details of that growth they held strongly different opinions. What part should Congress play in this development? How much should public land cost? What of the...
Few issues defined the period between American independence and the Mexican War more sharply than westward settlement and the role of the federal g...
From the early days of the republic, American leaders knew that an unpredictable time bomb--the question of slavery--lay at the heart of national politics. An implicit understanding between North and South helped to keep the issue at bay: northern states, where slavery had been set on course for extinction via gradual emancipation, tacitly agreed to respect the property rights of southern slaveholders; in return, southerners essentially promised to view slaveholding as a practical evil and look for ways to get rid of it. By 1819-1820, however, westward expansion had brought the matter to a...
From the early days of the republic, American leaders knew that an unpredictable time bomb--the question of slavery--lay at the heart of national p...
