John Brown’s Trial


Book Description

Here, Brian McGinty provides a comprehensive account of the trial of abolitionist John Brown. After the jury returned its guilty verdict, an appeal was quickly disposed of, and the governor of Virginia refused to grant clemency.







Democracy and the Origins of the American Regulatory State


Book Description

"Political scientist Samuel DeCanio examines how political elites used high levels of voter ignorance to create a new type of regulatory state with lasting implications for American politics. Focusing on the expansion of bureaucratic authority in late-nineteenth-century America, DeCanio's exhaustive archival research examines electoral politics, the Treasury Department's control over monetary policy, and the Interstate Commerce Commission's regulation of railroads to examine how conservative politicians created a new type of bureaucratic state to insulate policy decisions from popular control"--Back cover.




Slave Life in Georgia


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The Fallacies of States' Rights


Book Description

Barber shows how arguments for states’ rights from John C. Calhoun to the present offend common sense, logic, and bedrock constitutional principles. The Constitution is a charter of positive benefits, not a contract among separate sovereigns whose function is to protect people from the central government, when there are greater dangers to confront.







Weird John Brown


Book Description

Combining theology, politics and historical analysis, “theorizes what might be at stake—ethically—for America’s current political life” (Andrew Taylor, Journal of American History). Conventional wisdom holds that attempts to combine religion and politics will produce unlimited violence. Concepts such as jihad, crusade, and sacrifice need to be rooted out, the story goes, for the sake of more bounded and secular understandings of violence. Ted Smith upends this dominant view, drawing on Walter Benjamin, Giorgio Agamben, and others to trace the ways that seemingly secular politics produce their own forms of violence without limit. He brings this argument to life—and digs deep into the American political imagination—through a string of surprising reflections on John Brown, the nineteenth-century abolitionist who took up arms against the state in the name of a higher law. Smith argues that the key to limiting violence is not its separation from religion, but its connection to richer and more critical modes of religious reflection. Weird John Brown develops a negative political theology that challenges both the ways we remember American history and the ways we think about the nature, meaning, and exercise of violence. “Powerfully combines theology and political theory. . . . Recommended.” —R. J. Meagher, Choice “Smith illustrates how an ethical and philosophical reading of history can help us to better understand the world we live in.” —Franklin Rausch, New Books in Christian Studies “A brilliantly original and compelling book.” —John Stauffer, Harvard University “A very sophisticated philosophical and theological reflection on John Brown and the question of divine violence.” —Willie James Jennings, Duke University







The Franco-Texan Land Company


Book Description

The Franco-Texan Land Company was formed, ostensibly, by the French bondholders of the Memphis, El Paso, and Pacific Railroad in an attempt to salvage their investments through sale of lands in the railroad's Texas land grant. Most of the land company's wealth, however, went into the pockets of unscrupulous local managers and directors, and another railroad eventually built a road across Texas along the Memphis, El Paso, and Pacific right of way. Despite their unsavory histories, the land company and its railroad parent played an important part in the development of Northwest Texas. Virginia Taylor's account of their activities furthers the study of the role of land companies in the settlement of the United States and adds interesting sidelights on one of the immigrant groups that left the imprint of Europe on frontier Texas.




John Brown, Abolitionist


Book Description

An authoritative new examination of John Brown and his deep impact on American history.Bancroft Prize-winning cultural historian David S. Reynolds presents an informative and richly considered new exploration of the paradox of a man steeped in the Bible but more than willing to kill for his abolitionist cause. Reynolds locates Brown within the currents of nineteenth-century life and compares him to modern terrorists, civil-rights activists, and freedom fighters. Ultimately, he finds neither a wild-eyed fanatic nor a Christ-like martyr, but a passionate opponent of racism so dedicated to eradicating slavery that he realized only blood could scour it from the country he loved. By stiffening the backbone of Northerners and showing Southerners there were those who would fight for their cause, he hastened the coming of the Civil War. This is a vivid and startling story of a man and an age on the verge of calamity.