Books > History > American history
|
Buy Now
Secession and the Union in Texas (Paperback)
Loot Price: R676
Discovery Miles 6 760
|
|
Secession and the Union in Texas (Paperback)
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
|
In 1845 Texans voted overwhelmingly to join the Union. They voted
just as overwhelmingly to secede in 1861. The story of why and how
that happened is filled with colorful characters, such as the aged
Sam Houston, and with the southwestern flavor of raiding Comanches,
German opponents of slavery, and a border with Mexico. Texas was
unique among the seceding states because of its ambivalence toward
secession. Yet for all its uniqueness the story of the secession of
Texas has broad implications for the secession movement in general.
Despite the local color and the southwestern nature of the state,
Texas was more southern than western in 1860. Texans supported the
Union or insisted upon secession for reasons common to the South
and to the whole nation. Most Texans in 1860 were recent immigrants
from southern and border states. They still thought and acted like
citizens of their former states. The newness of Texas then makes it
a particularly appropriate place from which to draw conclusions
about the entire secession movement. Secession and the Union in
Texas is both a narrative of secession in Texas and a case study of
the causes of secession in a southern state. Politics play a key
role in this history, but politics broadly defined to include the
influence of culture, partisanship, ideology, and self-interest. As
any study of a mass movement carried out in tense circumstances
must be, this is social history as well as political history. It is
a study of public hysteria, the pressure for consensus, and the
vanishing of a political process in which rational debate about
secession and the Union could take place. Although relying
primarily on traditional sources such as manuscript collections and
newspapers, a particularly rich source for this study, the author
also uses election returns, population shifts over the course of
the 1850s, and the breakdown of population within Texas counties to
provide a balanced approach. These sources indicate that Texans
were not simply secessionists or unionists. At the end of 1860
Texans ranged from ardent secessionists to equally passionate
supporters of the Union. But the majority fell in between these two
extremes, creating an atmosphere of ambivalence toward secession
which was not erased even by the war.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
|
You might also like..
|
Email address subscribed successfully.
A activation email has been sent to you.
Please click the link in that email to activate your subscription.