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Politicians, Planters, and Plain Folk: Courthouse and Statehouse in the Upper South, 1850-1860
Politicians Planters and Plain Folk Courthouse and Statehouse in the Upper South 18501860 Author:Ralph A. Wooster Dust jacket notes: "...Stretching over 1,000 miles from the Atlantic to the hills and mountains of Arkansas and Missouri, the Upper South served as a great border between the slave states of the Lower South and the free states of the North. Although they did not have the same degree of political unity as did their neighbors farther to the south,... more » the staes of the Upper South were drawn together in the 1850s in an effort to preserve the Union. Toward this end, their political leaders exhibited a spirit of moderation and compromise that was rarely found among leaders of the Lower South. When compromise failed, however, they withdrew from the Union and joined their sister states of the Lower South to uphold the social, political, and economic structures of their southern homeland. Who were these individuals who served in the state and county governments in the Upper South, and how were they different from their counterparts in the Lower South? Paying particularly close attention to the legislatures - the center of governmental activity in the Upper South - Professor Wooster marshalls an impressive amount of evidence to provide answers to these questions...."« less