This book examines the famous Jefferson document that foreshadowed the Constitution's guarantee of religious liberty, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Jefferson wrote the Virginia Statute and shepherded it through a decade-long struggle for adoption. The statute reflects two key Revolutionary principles: absolute freedom of religious conscience and the separation of church and state.

This book colourfully examines a famous Jeffersonian document which set the precedent for the US Constitution's guarantee of religious liberty. Jefferson wrote the Virginia Statute, shepherded it through a decade-long struggle to adoption, and included it in his epitaph (along with the Declaration of Independence and the founding of the University of Virginia). The Statute's history reflects two key revolutionary principles: absolute freedom of religious conscience; and the separation of church and state. Both principles remain lively topics of debate on the contemporary religious and political scene. Papers collected here were presented at a conference sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy. Among the contributors are several of America's most prominent religious and political historians and experts on jurisprudence.

In one volume, "Democracy, Liberty, and Property "provides an overview of the state constitutional conventions held in the 1820s. With topics as relevant today as they were then, this collection of essential primary sources sheds light on many of the enduring issues of liberty. Emphasizing the connection between federalism and liberty, the debates that took place at these conventions show how questions of liberty were central to the formation of state government, allowing students and scholars to discover important insights into liberty and to develop a better understanding of U.S. history.
The debates excerpted in "Democracy, Liberty, and Property "focus on the conventions of Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia, and they include contributions from the principal statesmen of the founding era, including John Adams, James Madison, James Monroe, and John Marshall.
Merrill D. Peterson (1921-2009) was Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Virginia and a noted Jeffersonian scholar.
G. Alan Tarr is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for State Constitutional Studies at Rutgers University-Camden.

The definitive life of Jefferson in one volume, this biography relates Jefferson's private life and thought to his prominent public position and reveals the rich complexity of his development. As Peterson explores the dominant themes guiding Jefferson's career--democracy, nationality, and enlightenment--and Jefferson's powerful role in shaping America, he simultaneously tells the story of nation coming into being.

In one volume, "Democracy, Liberty, and Property "provides an overview of the state constitutional conventions held in the 1820s. With topics as relevant today as they were then, this collection of essential primary sources sheds light on many of the enduring issues of liberty. Emphasizing the connection between federalism and liberty, the debates that took place at these conventions show how questions of liberty were central to the formation of state government, allowing students and scholars to discover important insights into liberty and to develop a better understanding of U.S. history.
The debates excerpted in "Democracy, Liberty, and Property "focus on the conventions of Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia, and they include contributions from the principal statesmen of the founding era, including John Adams, James Madison, James Monroe, and John Marshall.
Merrill D. Peterson (1921-2009) was Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Virginia and a noted Jeffersonian scholar.
G. Alan Tarr is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for State Constitutional Studies at Rutgers University-Camden.

Lincoln's death, like his life, was an event of epic proportions. When the president was struck down at his moment of triumph, writes Merrill Peterson, "sorrow--indescribable sorrow" swept the nation. After lying in state in Washington, Lincoln's body was carried by a special funeral train to Springfield, Illinois, stopping in major cities along the way; perhaps a million people viewed the remains as memorial orations rang out and the world chorused its sincere condolences. It was the apotheosis of the martyred President--the beginning of the transformation of a man into a mythic hero.
In Lincoln in American Memory, historian Merrill Peterson provides a fascinating history of Lincoln's place in the American imagination from the hour of his death to the present. In tracing the changing image of Lincoln through time, this wide-ranging account offers insight into the evolution and struggles of American politics and society--and into the character of Lincoln himself. Westerners, Easterners, even Southerners were caught up in the idealization of the late President, reshaping his memory and laying claim to his mantle, as his widow, son, memorial builders, and memorabilia collectors fought over his visible legacy. Peterson also looks at the complex responses of blacks to the memory of Lincoln, as they moved from exultation at the end of slavery to the harsh reality of free life amid deep poverty and segregation; at more than one memorial event for the great emancipator, the author notes, blacks were excluded. He makes an engaging examination of the flood of reminiscences and biographies, from Lincoln's old law partner William H. Herndon to Carl Sandburg and beyond. Serious historians were late in coming to the topic; for decades the myth-makers sought to shape the image of the hero President to suit their own agendas. He was made a voice of prohibition, a saloon-keeper, an infidel, a devout Christian, the first Bull Moose Progressive, a military blunderer and (after the First World War) a military genius, a white supremacist (according to D.W. Griffith and other Southern admirers), and a touchstone for the civil rights movement. Through it all, Peterson traces five principal images of Lincoln: the savior of the Union, the great emancipator, man of the people, first American, and self-made man. In identifying these archetypes, he tells us much not only of Lincoln but of our own identity as a people.

Enormously powerful, intensely ambitious, the very personifications of their respective regions--Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun represented the foremost statemen of their age. In the decades preceding the Civil War, they dominated American congressional politics as no other figures have. Now Merrill D. Peterson, one of our most gifted historians, brilliantly re-creates the lives and times of these great men in this monumental collective biography.
Arriving on the national scene at the onset of the War of 1812 and departing political life during the ordeal of the Union in 1850-52, Webster, Clay, and Calhoun opened--and closed--a new era in American politics. In outlook and style, they represented startling contrasts: Webster, the Federalist and staunch New England defender of the Union; Clay, the "war hawk" and National Rebublican leader from the West; Calhoun, the youthful nationalist who became the foremost spokesman of the South and slavery. They came together in the Senate for the first time in 1832, united in their opposition of Andrew Jackson, and thus gave birth to the idea of the "Great Triumvirate." Entering the history books, this idea survived the test of time because these men divided so much of American politics between them for so long.
Peterson brings to life the great events in which the Triumvirate figured so prominently, including the debates on Clay's American System, the Missouri Compromise, the Webster-Hayne debate, the Bank War, the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, the annexation of Texas, and the Compromise of 1850. At once a sweeping narrative and a penetrating study of non-presidential leadership, this book offers an indelible picture of this conservative era in which statesmen viewed the preservation of the legacy of free government inherited from the Founding Fathers as their principal mission. In fascinating detail, Peterson demonstrates how precisely Webster, Clay, and Calhoun exemplify three facets of this national mind.

Includes A Summary View of the Rights of British America and Notes on the State of Virginia complete; seventy-nine letters; "Response to the Citizens of Albemarle," 1790; "Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank," 1791; and many other writings.

Dominated by the personalities of three towering figures of the nation's middle period -- Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and President Andrew Jackson -- Olive Branch and Sword: The Compromise of 1833 tells of the political and rhetorical dueling that brought about the Compromise of 1833, resolving the crisis of the Union caused by South Carolina's nullification of the protective tariff.

In 1832 South Carolina's John C. Calhoun denounced the entire protectionist system as unconstitutional, unequal, and founded on selfish sectional interests. Opposing him was Henry Clay, the Kentucky senator and champion of the protectionists. Both Calhoun and Clay had presidential ambitions, and neither could agree on any issue save their common opposition to President Jackson, who seemed to favor a military solution to the South Carolina problem. It was only when Clay, after the most complicated maneuverings, produced the Compromise of 1833 that he, Calhoun, and Jackson could agree to coexist peaceably within the Union.

The compromise consisted of two key parts. The Compromise Tariff, written by Clay and approved by Calhoun, provided for the gradual reduction of duties to the revenue level of 20 percent. The Force Bill, enacted at the request of President Jackson, authorized the use of military force, if necessary, to put down nullification in South Carolina. The two acts became, respectively, the olive branch and the sword of the compromise that preserved the peace, the Union, and the Constitution in 1833.

A careful study of what has become a neglected event in American political history, Merrill D. Peterson's work spans a period of over thirty years -- sketching the background of national policy out of which nullification arose, detailing the explosive events of 1832 and 1833, and then tracing the consequences of the compromise through the dozen or so years that it remained in public controversy. Considering as well the larger question of decision making and policy making in the Jacksonian republic, Peterson nonetheless never loses sight of the crucial role played by the ambitions, whims, and passions of such men as Calhoun, Clay, and Jackson in determining the course of history.

Since its publication in 1960, The Jefferson Image in the American Mind has become a classic of historical scholarship. In it Merrill D. Peterson charts Thomas Jefferson's influence upon American thought and imagination since his death in 1826. Peterson's focus is "not primarily with the truth or falsity of the image either as a whole or in its parts, but rather with its illuminations of the evolving culture and its shaping power. It is posterity's configuration of Jefferson. Even more, however, it is a sensitive reflector, through several generations, of America's troubled search of the image of itself." In a new Introduction Peterson discusses the publication of his book and remarks in the directions of new scholarship. He also draws attention to the continuing interest in Jefferson as shown by recent historical fiction, motion pictures and documentaries, by the remaning of the Libarary of Congress main building and the National Gallery of Art's exhibition, The Eye of Thomas Jefferson, by President William Jefferson Clinton's preinagural pilgrimage to Monticello, and by the Sotheby's auction of a Jefferson letter that commanded the highest auction price ever paid for such a manuscript.

Many visitors over the generations have recorded their impressions of Monticello and its creator. These writings, especialy those from Jefferson's lifetime, preserve important details about him and the house and grounds that might otherwise have been lost. In Visitors to Monticello, Merrill D. Peterson provides a collegtion of thirty-five of these writings dating from 1780 to 1984.

Dumas Malone's classic six-volume biography "Jefferson and His Time "was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in history and became the standard work on Jefferson's life.

Volume 1. "Jefferson the Virginian"This first volume explores the early phases of Jefferson's life, from his youth, education, legal career, and marriage, to the building of Monticello, writing of the Declaration of Independence and his highly contentious governorship.

Adams and Jefferson: A Revolutionary Dialogue documents the public lives and personal friendship of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, from their first meeting as delegates to the Second Continental Congress to their deaths on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. This study takes a look at some of the famous correspondence between the two statesmen who devoted their lives to a new chapter of freedom and self-government. Peterson draws an extended parallel between the backgrounds, experiences, personalities, and intellectual styles of Adams and Jefferson and examines their work in the achievement of independence and the design of new governments for Massachusetts and Virginia. While Adams and Jefferson had much in common, their ideas of human nature, history, society, and government included many differences that would reveal themselves in the course of time. Merrill D. Peterson looks at Adams and Jefferson's relationship across their lives, including their disputes in the midst of the coming French Revolution, their excitement for the establishment of a new American government under the Constitution, their contest for the presidency in 1796, and their eventual reconciliation.

Adams and Jefferson: A Revolutionary Dialogue documents the public lives and personal friendship of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, from their first meeting as delegates to the Second Continental Congress to their deaths on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. This study takes a look at some of the famous correspondence between the two statesmen who devoted their lives to a new chapter of freedom and self-government. Peterson draws an extended parallel between the backgrounds, experiences, personalities, and intellectual styles of Adams and Jefferson and examines their work in the achievement of independence and the design of new governments for Massachusetts and Virginia. While Adams and Jefferson had much in common, their ideas of human nature, history, society, and government included many differences that would reveal themselves in the course of time. Merrill D. Peterson looks at Adams and Jefferson's relationship across their lives, including their disputes in the midst of the coming French Revolution, their excitement for the establishment of a new American government under the Constitution, their contest for the presidency in 1796, and their eventual reconciliation.

Dumas Malone's classic six-volume biography "Jefferson and His Time "was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in history and became the standard work on Jefferson's life.

Volume 1. "Jefferson the Virginian"This first volume explores the early phases of Jefferson's life, from his youth, education, legal career, and marriage, to the building of Monticello, writing of the Declaration of Independence and his highly contentious governorship.