The First Presidential Contest

The First Presidential Contest
Author :
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
Total Pages : 528
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780700623518
ISBN-13 : 0700623515
Rating : 4/5 (515 Downloads)

Book Synopsis The First Presidential Contest by : Jeffrey L. Pasley

Download or read book The First Presidential Contest written by Jeffrey L. Pasley and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2016-12-04 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first study in half a century to focus on the election of 1796. At first glance, the first presidential contest looks unfamiliar—parties were frowned upon, there was no national vote, and the candidates did not even participate (the political mores of the day forbade it). Yet for all that, Jeffrey L. Pasley contends, the election of 1796 was “absolutely seminal,” setting the stage for all of American politics to follow. Challenging much of the conventional understanding of this election, Pasley argues that Federalist and Democratic-Republican were deeply meaningful categories for politicians and citizens of the 1790s, even if the names could be inconsistent and the institutional presence lacking. He treats the 1796 election as a rough draft of the democratic presidential campaigns that came later rather than as the personal squabble depicted by other historians. It set the geographic pattern of New England competing with the South at the two extremes of American politics, and it established the basic ideological dynamic of a liberal, rights-spreading American left arrayed against a conservative, society-protecting right, each with its own competing model of leadership. Rather than the inner thoughts and personal lives of the Founders, covered in so many other volumes, Pasley focuses on images of Adams and Jefferson created by supporters-and detractors-through the press, capturing the way that ordinary citizens in 1796 would have actually experienced candidates they never heard speak. Newspaper editors, minor officials, now forgotten congressman, and individual elector candidates all take a leading role in the story to show how politics of the day actually worked. Pasley's cogent study rescues the election of 1796 from the shadow of 1800 and invites us to rethink how we view that campaign and the origins of American politics.


The First Presidential Contest Related Books

The First Presidential Contest
Language: en
Pages: 528
Authors: Jeffrey L. Pasley
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2016-12-04 - Publisher: University Press of Kansas

GET EBOOK

This is the first study in half a century to focus on the election of 1796. At first glance, the first presidential contest looks unfamiliar—parties were frow
The Timeline of Presidential Elections
Language: en
Pages: 221
Authors: Robert S. Erikson
Categories: Political Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2012-08-24 - Publisher: University of Chicago Press

GET EBOOK

In presidential elections, do voters cast their ballots for the candidates whose platform and positions best match their own? Or is the race for president of th
The One-party Presidential Contest
Language: en
Pages: 0
Authors: Donald John Ratcliffe
Categories: Presidents
Type: BOOK - Published: 2015 - Publisher:

GET EBOOK

The 1824 Presidential election was a struggle between personalities; all five were from the same party, the Democratic Republicans. The result was a contest dec
Gilded Age Cato
Language: en
Pages: 289
Authors: Charles W. Calhoun
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014-07-15 - Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

GET EBOOK

Union general, federal judge, presidential contender, and cabinet officer—Walter Q. Gresham of Indiana stands as an enigmatic character in the politics of the
The Election of 1860
Language: en
Pages: 272
Authors: Michael F. Holt
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2017-10-20 - Publisher: University Press of Kansas

GET EBOOK

Because of its extraordinary consequences and because of Abraham Lincoln's place in the American pantheon, the presidential election of 1860 is probably the mos