Mastering America: Southern Slaveholders and the Crisis of American Nationhood

by Robert E. Bonner

• ISBN13: 9780521833950
• ISBN10: 0521833957
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-04-27
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Mastering America recounts efforts of 'proslavery nationalists' to navigate the nineteenth-century geopolitics of imperialism, federalism, and nationalism and to articulate themes of American mission in overtly proslavery terms. At the heart of this study are spokesmen of the Southern 'Master Class' who crafted a vision of American destiny that put chattel slavery at its center. Looking beyond previous studies of the links between these 'proslavery nationalists' and secession, the book sheds new light on the relationship between the conservative Unionism of the 1850s and the key formulations of Confederate nationalism that arose during war in the 1860s. Bonner's innovative research charts the crucial role these men and women played in the development of American imperialism, constitutionalism, evangelicalism, and popular patriotism.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. vii
List of Abbreviations	p. ix
Prologue: Confederate Common Sense	p. xi
The Geopolitics of Mastery
Slaveholders' Stake in the American Empire	p. 3
The Compound Republic and the Cause of the South	p. 41
The Contours of Proslavery Americanism
Republican Masters and American Mission	p. 81
Reformed Slaveholders and the Gospel of Nationhood	p. 114
Fragments from the Past, Histories for the Future	p. 149
Yankee Apostates and Allies in the American 1850s	p. 184
Confederate nationhood and the Revolutions of War
The Anatomy of Confederate Nationhood	p. 217
Reckoning with Confederate Purpose	p. 252
Liberty, Slavery, and the Burdens of Confederate Nationhood	p. 286
Epilogue: "A People Brought to the End of a Given Cycle"	p. 323
Acknowledgments	p. 329
Index	p. 333
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