Synopses & Reviews
George W. Bush and Al Gore were by no means the first presidential hopefuls to find themselves embroiled in a hotly contested electoral impasse. Two hundred years earlier, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams endured arguably the most controversial and consequential election in American history. Focusing on the wide range of possible outcomes of the 1800-1801 melee, this collection of essays situates the American Revolution of 1800 in a broad context of geo-political and racial developments in the Atlantic world as a whole. In essays written expressly for this volume, leading historians of the period examine the electoral, social, and political outcome of Jefferson's election in discussions strikingly relevant in the aftermath of the 2000 election.
Contributors
Joyce Appleby, University of California, Los AngelesMichael Bellesiles, Emory UniversityJeanne Boydston, University of WisconsinSeth Cotlar, Willamette UniversityGregory Evans Dowd, University of Notre DameLaurent Dubois, Michigan State UniversityDouglas R. Egerton, Le Moyne College, SyracuseJoanne Freeman, Yale UniversityJames E. Lewis Jr., independent scholar Robert M. S. McDonald, United States Military Academy, West PointJames Oakes, City University of New York Graduate CenterJeffrey Pasley, University of Missouri, ColumbiaJack N. Rakove, Stanford UniversityBethel Saler, Haverford CollegeJames Sidbury, University of TexasAlan Taylor, University of California, Davis
Table of Contents
"What is to become of our government?" The revolutionary potential of the election of 1800 / James E. Lewis Jr.-- The political presidency: discovery and invention / Jack N. Rakove -- " The soil will be soaked with blood": taking the revolution of 1800 seriously / Michael A. Bellesiles -- Corruption and compromise in the election of 1800: the process of politics on the national stage / Joanne B. Freeman -- 1800 as a revolution in political culture: newspapers, celebrations, voting, and democratization in the early republic / Jeffrey L. Pasley -- Thomas Jefferson and the psychology of democracy / Joyce Appleby -- Was there a religious revolution of 1800? / Robert M.S. McDonald -- Thomas Jefferson in Gabriel's Virginia / James Sidbury -- "Whom have I oppressed?" The pursuit of happiness and the happy slave / James Oakes -- Making gender in the early republic: Judith Sargent Murray and the revolution of 1800 / Jeanne Boydston -- Spinning wheel revolution / Gregory Evans Dowd -- "Troubled water": rebellion and republicanism in the revolutionary French Caribbean / Laurent Dubois -- The empire of liberty reconsidered / Douglas R. Egerton -- Joseph Gales and the making of the Jeffersonian middle class / Seth Cotlar -- An empire for liberty, a state for empire: the U.S. national state before and after the revolution of 1800 / Bethel Saler -- A northern revolution of 1800? Upper Canada and Thomas Jefferson / Alan Taylor.