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Politics and Power in a Slave Society - Alabama, 1800-1860 (Paperback, Updated ed.)
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Politics and Power in a Slave Society - Alabama, 1800-1860 (Paperback, Updated ed.)
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More than three decades after its initial publication, J. Mills
Thornton's Politics and Power in a Slave Society remains the
definitive study of political culture in antebellum Alabama.
Controversial when it first appeared, the book argues against a
view of prewar Alabama as an aristocratic society governed by a
planter elite. Instead, Thornton claims that Alabama was an
aggressively democratic state, and that this very egalitarianism
set the stage for secession. White Alabamians had first-hand
experiences with slavery, and these encounters warned them to guard
against the imposition of economic or social reforms that might
limit their equality. Playing upon their fears, the leaders of the
southern rights movement warned that national consolidation
presented the danger that fanatic northern reformers would force
alien values upon Alabama and its residents. These threats gained
traction when national reforms of the 1850s gave state government a
more active role in the everyday life of Alabama citizens; and
ambitious young politicians were able to carry the state into
secession in 1861. Politics and Power in a Slave Society continues
to inspire scholars by challenging one of the fundamental articles
of the American creed: that democracy intrinsically produces good.
Contrary to our conventional wisdom, slavery was not an un-American
institution, but rather coexisted with and supported the democratic
beliefs of white Alabama.
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