James V. Schall, S.J..
A Student's Guide to Liberal Learning.
Wilmington, Deleware: ISI Books, 2000.
(Series: ISI Guides to the Major Disciplines)
Book information: publisher, Amazon.com.
Free versions! HTML, PDF.
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Monday, January 24, 2005
Harvy C. Mansfield.
A Student's Guide to Political Philosophy.
Wilmington, Deleware: ISI Books, 2001.
(Series: ISI Guides to the Major Disciplines)
Book information: publisher, Amazon.com.
A Student's Guide to Political Philosophy.
Wilmington, Deleware: ISI Books, 2001.
(Series: ISI Guides to the Major Disciplines)
Book information: publisher, Amazon.com.
Thursday, January 20, 2005
George McClellan.
Liberty, Order, and Justice: An Introduction to the Constitutional Principles of American Government, Third Edition.
Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, Inc., 2000.
An excellent introduction to American constitutionalism. Insightful text plus many primary documents. Contains helpful bibliographies for further study.
The Constitution of the United States of America, with Analysis and Interpretation, and Annotations of Cases Decided by the Supreme Court of the United States.
The Avalon Project at Yale Law School: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy provides an abundance of primary sources online. These include the first edition of Blackstone's Commentaries and The Federalist Papers.
Reprints of some of the classic texts such as St. George Tucker's 1803 edition of Blackstone's Commentaries (Number 419) and Joseph Story's Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (Number 412) can be obtained from Lawbook Exchange.
Liberty, Order, and Justice: An Introduction to the Constitutional Principles of American Government, Third Edition.
Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, Inc., 2000.
An excellent introduction to American constitutionalism. Insightful text plus many primary documents. Contains helpful bibliographies for further study.
The Constitution of the United States of America, with Analysis and Interpretation, and Annotations of Cases Decided by the Supreme Court of the United States.
The Avalon Project at Yale Law School: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy provides an abundance of primary sources online. These include the first edition of Blackstone's Commentaries and The Federalist Papers.
Reprints of some of the classic texts such as St. George Tucker's 1803 edition of Blackstone's Commentaries (Number 419) and Joseph Story's Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (Number 412) can be obtained from Lawbook Exchange.
Sunday, January 16, 2005
James G. Leyburn.
The Scotch-Irish: A Social History.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1962 (reprinted 1989 and after).
(Book information at Amazon.com, University of North Carolina Press.)
In the early 1600s the new King of England, James Stuart (James VI of Scotland (1567-1625), James I of England (1603-1625)) proclaimed the Plantation of Ulster in northern Ireland. Its purpose was to subdue and crowd out the Roman Catholic Irish who resisted English rule and in their place settle Protestants from England and lower Scotland. Thus large numbers of Lowland Scots (Presbyterians) emigrated to northern Ireland to become the "Ulster Scots." Highland Scots, regarded as Roman Catholics and savages, were explicitly excluded from this Protestant-only migration. The migration of Scots to Ulster continued on and off through the religious upheavals and wars in England and Scotland of the seventeenth century until economic conditions improved in Scotland with the unification of Scotland and England in 1707 by the Act of Union. Leyburn nicely describes the economic, cultural, political, and religions forces which promoted migration from Scotland to nearby northern Ireland (six of the nine counties of Ulster).
The Ulster Scots prospered throughout the seventeenth century. There is some debate and uncertainty about the degree to which the Presbyterian Ulster Scots may have intermarried with the native Roman Catholic Irish whom they had displaced. Leyburn throughly presents the arguments both for and against intermarriage, concluding that the degree of intermarriage was low. Hence the American Scotch-Irish are considered decendents of Scotland rather than of Ireland (there is no question about this with respect to culture and religion).
In the eighteenth century various forces combined to encourage the Ulster Scots to emigrate again, this time to the American colonies where they would become know as the Scotch-Irish. Three factors stand out: (1) English oppression. (a) The Ulster woolen industry became so successful by the late seventeenth century that English interests obtained from the King and Parliament the Woolens Act of 1699 "prohibiting the exportation of Irish wool and woolen cloth to any place except England and Wales. This prohibition left the foreign and colonial markets wholly to the English. ... Here was a crippling blow to the most prosperous industry in Ulster. (page 159)" (b) Queen Anne's Test Act of 1702 allowed only members of the Church of England to hold public office and teach in schools. The Test Act was mainly intended to exclude Roman Catholics from such offices, but the Ulster Scot Presbyterians who had risen to hold many offices lost all social standing. (2) During the seventeenth century Ulster Scot land tenants had become well established on their farms under long term leases. In the eighteenth century, when those long term leases expired, landlords increased rents, which their tenants could not afford ("rack-rents"). The prospect of land ownership in America motivated many evicted tenants to emigrate. (3) Poor weather and subsequent crop failures initiated discrete waves of emigration to America by Ulster Scots. Although Ulstermen emigrated to American throughout the period 1717 to 1775, pronounced waves of emigration occurred in 1717-18 (drought and subsequent crop failure, rack-rents), 1725-29 (general economic decline in Ireland, rack-rents), 1740-41 (famine in Ireland), 1754-55 (positive news from American settlers, drought in Ulster), and 1771-1775 (leases expired in county Antrim, Ulster). Between 1717 and the start of the American War of Independence, when war-time conditions suppressed population movements, it is estimated that approximately 250,000 Ulster Scots emigrated to the American colonies.
The Scotch-Irish settlement in America moved progressively south during the eighteenth century as northern areas filled first, moving along the inland "Great Philadelphia Wagon Road," which was extended over the course of the century from Philadelphia as the immigration frontier moved further south: through the southeastern counties of Pennsylvania and through the Cumberland Valley of Pennsylvania, through the Shenandoah Valley in Virgnina (the Scotch-Irish did not settle in large numbers in Maryland where the Established Church was Roman Catholic), through the Piedmont region of the Carolinas. The Scotch-Irish thus settled in the backcountry areas of the southern colonies as farmers; they were not the plantation owners of the eastern parts of those colonies, which formed the dominant classes of those colonies. This is not to say that there were no Scotch-Irish settlers in other colonies nor on the eastern shores; there were, as Leyburn describes; however, there numbers were relatively smaller. Following the successful War of Independence, people began to move west across the Allegany and Appalachian Mountains; Leyburn says that in this western migration ethnic distinctions (e.g., English, Scotch-Irish, German, Scottish) and state origins (e.g., Virginia, Pennsylvania) became less prominant as intermingling and intermarriage yielded simply Americans. This book does not extend far beyond the American War of Independence. Migration from Ulster resumed after the American Revolution, but lacked the community-based nature of the earlier migration. The book ends with excellent chapters on frontier society, the Presbyterian church, and the Scotch-Irish in politics.
Leyburn cautions us against the literature of the early twentieth century by those who made sweeping claims "... insistently attributing much of the best in American political tradition to Scotch-Irish pioneers. According to these eulogists, the original democratic influence in the country came from the Scotch-Irish; they contributed the deciding forces to the in the Revolutionary War; they helped shape the Constitution, giving the nation its republican form of government; and after 1789 they provided presidents, justices, legislators, and governors far in excess of their proportional numbers. All of these contributions (and others) were claimed to be the natural and inevitable results of the inherent fine qualities of Scotch-Irish character and of Presbyterianism. (page 296)" No doubt there have been many prominant Americans of Scotch-Irish descent. But "it is misleading, however, to assume that their achievement resulted from some mysterious genetic quality transmitted from generation to generation by the Scotch-Irish heredity or even that Scotch-Irish culture was so uniform and integrated that it necessarially resulted in political leadership. ... It is not evident that other stocks might not name an even more impressive list of political leaders to emphasize the superiority of their heritage. (page 315)" It seems possible that the recent book by James Webb may have fallen into this error.
Other Books:
The Scotch-Irish: A Social History.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1962 (reprinted 1989 and after).
(Book information at Amazon.com, University of North Carolina Press.)
In the early 1600s the new King of England, James Stuart (James VI of Scotland (1567-1625), James I of England (1603-1625)) proclaimed the Plantation of Ulster in northern Ireland. Its purpose was to subdue and crowd out the Roman Catholic Irish who resisted English rule and in their place settle Protestants from England and lower Scotland. Thus large numbers of Lowland Scots (Presbyterians) emigrated to northern Ireland to become the "Ulster Scots." Highland Scots, regarded as Roman Catholics and savages, were explicitly excluded from this Protestant-only migration. The migration of Scots to Ulster continued on and off through the religious upheavals and wars in England and Scotland of the seventeenth century until economic conditions improved in Scotland with the unification of Scotland and England in 1707 by the Act of Union. Leyburn nicely describes the economic, cultural, political, and religions forces which promoted migration from Scotland to nearby northern Ireland (six of the nine counties of Ulster).
The Ulster Scots prospered throughout the seventeenth century. There is some debate and uncertainty about the degree to which the Presbyterian Ulster Scots may have intermarried with the native Roman Catholic Irish whom they had displaced. Leyburn throughly presents the arguments both for and against intermarriage, concluding that the degree of intermarriage was low. Hence the American Scotch-Irish are considered decendents of Scotland rather than of Ireland (there is no question about this with respect to culture and religion).
In the eighteenth century various forces combined to encourage the Ulster Scots to emigrate again, this time to the American colonies where they would become know as the Scotch-Irish. Three factors stand out: (1) English oppression. (a) The Ulster woolen industry became so successful by the late seventeenth century that English interests obtained from the King and Parliament the Woolens Act of 1699 "prohibiting the exportation of Irish wool and woolen cloth to any place except England and Wales. This prohibition left the foreign and colonial markets wholly to the English. ... Here was a crippling blow to the most prosperous industry in Ulster. (page 159)" (b) Queen Anne's Test Act of 1702 allowed only members of the Church of England to hold public office and teach in schools. The Test Act was mainly intended to exclude Roman Catholics from such offices, but the Ulster Scot Presbyterians who had risen to hold many offices lost all social standing. (2) During the seventeenth century Ulster Scot land tenants had become well established on their farms under long term leases. In the eighteenth century, when those long term leases expired, landlords increased rents, which their tenants could not afford ("rack-rents"). The prospect of land ownership in America motivated many evicted tenants to emigrate. (3) Poor weather and subsequent crop failures initiated discrete waves of emigration to America by Ulster Scots. Although Ulstermen emigrated to American throughout the period 1717 to 1775, pronounced waves of emigration occurred in 1717-18 (drought and subsequent crop failure, rack-rents), 1725-29 (general economic decline in Ireland, rack-rents), 1740-41 (famine in Ireland), 1754-55 (positive news from American settlers, drought in Ulster), and 1771-1775 (leases expired in county Antrim, Ulster). Between 1717 and the start of the American War of Independence, when war-time conditions suppressed population movements, it is estimated that approximately 250,000 Ulster Scots emigrated to the American colonies.
The Scotch-Irish settlement in America moved progressively south during the eighteenth century as northern areas filled first, moving along the inland "Great Philadelphia Wagon Road," which was extended over the course of the century from Philadelphia as the immigration frontier moved further south: through the southeastern counties of Pennsylvania and through the Cumberland Valley of Pennsylvania, through the Shenandoah Valley in Virgnina (the Scotch-Irish did not settle in large numbers in Maryland where the Established Church was Roman Catholic), through the Piedmont region of the Carolinas. The Scotch-Irish thus settled in the backcountry areas of the southern colonies as farmers; they were not the plantation owners of the eastern parts of those colonies, which formed the dominant classes of those colonies. This is not to say that there were no Scotch-Irish settlers in other colonies nor on the eastern shores; there were, as Leyburn describes; however, there numbers were relatively smaller. Following the successful War of Independence, people began to move west across the Allegany and Appalachian Mountains; Leyburn says that in this western migration ethnic distinctions (e.g., English, Scotch-Irish, German, Scottish) and state origins (e.g., Virginia, Pennsylvania) became less prominant as intermingling and intermarriage yielded simply Americans. This book does not extend far beyond the American War of Independence. Migration from Ulster resumed after the American Revolution, but lacked the community-based nature of the earlier migration. The book ends with excellent chapters on frontier society, the Presbyterian church, and the Scotch-Irish in politics.
Leyburn cautions us against the literature of the early twentieth century by those who made sweeping claims "... insistently attributing much of the best in American political tradition to Scotch-Irish pioneers. According to these eulogists, the original democratic influence in the country came from the Scotch-Irish; they contributed the deciding forces to the in the Revolutionary War; they helped shape the Constitution, giving the nation its republican form of government; and after 1789 they provided presidents, justices, legislators, and governors far in excess of their proportional numbers. All of these contributions (and others) were claimed to be the natural and inevitable results of the inherent fine qualities of Scotch-Irish character and of Presbyterianism. (page 296)" No doubt there have been many prominant Americans of Scotch-Irish descent. But "it is misleading, however, to assume that their achievement resulted from some mysterious genetic quality transmitted from generation to generation by the Scotch-Irish heredity or even that Scotch-Irish culture was so uniform and integrated that it necessarially resulted in political leadership. ... It is not evident that other stocks might not name an even more impressive list of political leaders to emphasize the superiority of their heritage. (page 315)" It seems possible that the recent book by James Webb may have fallen into this error.
Other Books:
- Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fischer.
- From British Peasants to Colonial American Farmers by Allan Kulikoff.
- A History of Ulster by Jonathan Bardon.
- The Great Wagon Road: From Philadelphia to the South by Parke Rouse.
- The People with No Name: Ireland's Ulster Scots, America's Scots Irish, and the Creation of a British Atlantic World, 1689-1764 by Patrick Griffin.
- Scots Irish in Pennsylvania & Kentucky by Bill Kennedy.
- At the Edge of Empire: The Backcountry in British North America by Eric Hinderaker and Peter C. Mancall.
- Carolina Cradle: Settlement of the Northwest Carolina Frontier, 1747-1762 by Robert W. Ramsey.
- Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America by James Webb.
Sunday, January 09, 2005
Schlesinger, The Age of Jackson (1945)
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
The Age of Jackson.
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1945.
(Book information at Amazon.com.)
This book is a history of domestic politics in the United States from the late 1820s through the 1850s. The author fawns over radical democratic ideologues of the urban north east (Boston, New York, Philadelphia) and disparages or ignores the political developments of democrats' opponents, for example, the Whig Party. Schlesinger seems to view this historical epoch not on its own terms, but rather through the anachronistic lens of the socialism of his own day, the 1930s and 1940s, in terms of a conflict between "progressives" or "liberals" and "conservatives," which I regard as an ill-defined and false dicotomy. A flawed (deeply partisan) classic of American historical literature, this book deserves to be read with cautious skepticism, and under no circumstances should you read it as your sole source for this period.
Schlesinger focuses generally on economic class warfare, particularly in the urban, industrialized North: New York (source of Martin Van Buren, Jackson's successor as President, and a hotbed of radical democrats) and Massachusetts (another hotbed of radical democrats); and on the journalistic propagandists of "Jacksonian democracy," many of whom obtained govenment employment in the administrations of Jackson and Van Buren.
Chapter 31, "Minorities and Majorities," contains a nice discussion of the seemingly perverse alliance between anti-property / anti-business / anti-capitalist Democrats of the North and pro-slavery Democrats of the South (e.g., John C. Calhoun). But at the same time Schlesinger deliberately ignores the political thought embodied in The Federalist, particularly number 10, or perhaps that is representative of the radical democrats of that time. (This is perhaps due to the Jeffersonians', the Democrats', and also Schlesinger's, disparagment of all things Federalist. Their empahsis on democracy to the exclusion of all the political philosophy upon which American constitutional republican government is based I consider a fundamental and obvious defect. It bears repeating: the American government is not a democracy; it is a constitutional representative federal republic which occasionally conducts democratic elections.) I find Schlesinger's analysis and defense of the Dorr Rebellion in Rhode Island in 1842 an unconstitutional abomination. It appears to me that the Democrats of the time, and Schlesinger himself, became intellectually unhinged when confronting the fact that the Democratic Party, a self-described "Party of the People," could lose an election to a majority of the people, as in the Presidential Election of 1840.
This book might have been more accurately titled "The Rise and Fall of the Jacksonian Democratic Party." I found the book relatively weaker for the period after 1840. The 1840s was a period of division and decline for the Democrats. Both the Democratic and Whig Parties split and collapsed in the 1850s over the issue of Slavery, the Whigs never to recover. Schlesinger covers the 1840s and 1850s with sketchy brevity as the Jacksonians were consumed by party division and died off. The Republican Party would rise in the 1850s as, generally speaking, the anti-Slavery party, inheriting components from both the Democrats and Whigs; however, that subject is beyond the scope of Schlesinger's book.
Other Books:
Some Links:
The Age of Jackson.
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1945.
(Book information at Amazon.com.)
This book is a history of domestic politics in the United States from the late 1820s through the 1850s. The author fawns over radical democratic ideologues of the urban north east (Boston, New York, Philadelphia) and disparages or ignores the political developments of democrats' opponents, for example, the Whig Party. Schlesinger seems to view this historical epoch not on its own terms, but rather through the anachronistic lens of the socialism of his own day, the 1930s and 1940s, in terms of a conflict between "progressives" or "liberals" and "conservatives," which I regard as an ill-defined and false dicotomy. A flawed (deeply partisan) classic of American historical literature, this book deserves to be read with cautious skepticism, and under no circumstances should you read it as your sole source for this period.
Schlesinger focuses generally on economic class warfare, particularly in the urban, industrialized North: New York (source of Martin Van Buren, Jackson's successor as President, and a hotbed of radical democrats) and Massachusetts (another hotbed of radical democrats); and on the journalistic propagandists of "Jacksonian democracy," many of whom obtained govenment employment in the administrations of Jackson and Van Buren.
Chapter 31, "Minorities and Majorities," contains a nice discussion of the seemingly perverse alliance between anti-property / anti-business / anti-capitalist Democrats of the North and pro-slavery Democrats of the South (e.g., John C. Calhoun). But at the same time Schlesinger deliberately ignores the political thought embodied in The Federalist, particularly number 10, or perhaps that is representative of the radical democrats of that time. (This is perhaps due to the Jeffersonians', the Democrats', and also Schlesinger's, disparagment of all things Federalist. Their empahsis on democracy to the exclusion of all the political philosophy upon which American constitutional republican government is based I consider a fundamental and obvious defect. It bears repeating: the American government is not a democracy; it is a constitutional representative federal republic which occasionally conducts democratic elections.) I find Schlesinger's analysis and defense of the Dorr Rebellion in Rhode Island in 1842 an unconstitutional abomination. It appears to me that the Democrats of the time, and Schlesinger himself, became intellectually unhinged when confronting the fact that the Democratic Party, a self-described "Party of the People," could lose an election to a majority of the people, as in the Presidential Election of 1840.
This book might have been more accurately titled "The Rise and Fall of the Jacksonian Democratic Party." I found the book relatively weaker for the period after 1840. The 1840s was a period of division and decline for the Democrats. Both the Democratic and Whig Parties split and collapsed in the 1850s over the issue of Slavery, the Whigs never to recover. Schlesinger covers the 1840s and 1850s with sketchy brevity as the Jacksonians were consumed by party division and died off. The Republican Party would rise in the 1850s as, generally speaking, the anti-Slavery party, inheriting components from both the Democrats and Whigs; however, that subject is beyond the scope of Schlesinger's book.
Other Books:
- The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America 1815-1846, by Charles Sellers
- Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America, by Harry L. Watson
- The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War, by Michael F. Holt
- The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, by Merrill D. Peterson
- Social Theories of Jacksonian Democracy: Representative Writings of the Period 1825-1850, edited by Joseph L. Blau
- Andrew Jackson and the Bank War: A Study in the Growth of Presidential Power, by Robert V. Remini
Some Links:
- Andrew Jackson
- Presidential Election of 1828
- Democratic Party
- Second Bank of the United States
- Martin Van Buren
- Presidential Election of 1840
- Whig Party
- Republican Party
Monday, January 03, 2005
Robert Leckie.
From Sea to Shining Sea: From the War of 1812 to the Mexican War, the Saga of America's Expansion.
New York: HarperCollins, 1993 (HarperPerrenial, 1994).
(Book information at Amazon.com.)
This books is a popular (i.e., non-academic: no footnotes, limited bibliography) military history of the United States for the period from after the American Revolution through the Mexican-American War; that is, for the years from the 1780s through 1848. (The author has written separate books on the American Revolution and the Civil War.) The book focuses on four conflicts:
I found the book an excellent introduction to these subjects.
Some Links:
From Sea to Shining Sea: From the War of 1812 to the Mexican War, the Saga of America's Expansion.
New York: HarperCollins, 1993 (HarperPerrenial, 1994).
(Book information at Amazon.com.)
This books is a popular (i.e., non-academic: no footnotes, limited bibliography) military history of the United States for the period from after the American Revolution through the Mexican-American War; that is, for the years from the 1780s through 1848. (The author has written separate books on the American Revolution and the Civil War.) The book focuses on four conflicts:
- War with the "Barbary Pirates" (1801-1805); this involved a series of conflicts with the North African states that egaged in priacy: Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli. This War was the source of the quote "Millions for Defense but Not One Cent for Tribute." For several centuries the major European trading nations had paid off these states to protect their trade from attack.
- War of 1812 (1812-1815)
- Texas Revolution (1835-1836)
- Mexican-American War (1845-1848)
I found the book an excellent introduction to these subjects.
Some Links:
- First Barbary War (aka: the Barbary Coast War; the Tripolitan War)
- Louisiana Purchase
- The War of 1812
- Battle of New Orleans
- Andrew Jackson
- Monroe Doctrine
- Texas Revolution
- Texas Revolution (The Handbook of Texas Online)
- Santa Anna
- Republic of Texas
- Texas, a State in the United States of America
- Manifest Destiny
- The Mexican-American War
- The U.S.-Mexican War by The Descendants of Mexican War Veterans
- James Knox Polk
- Zachary Taylor
- History of the United States Navy
- United States Marine Corps
- United States Marine Corps History and Museums Division
- Military History of the United States
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