The Union on Trial: The Political Journals of Judge William Barclay Napton, 1829-1883University of Missouri Press, 2005 - 631 sider Spanning some fifty-four years, The Union on Trial is a fascinating look at the journals that William Barclay Napton (1808¿1883), an editor, Missouri lawyer, and state supreme court judge, kept from his time as a student at Princeton to his death in Missouri. Although a northerner by birth, Napton, the owner or trustee of forty-six slaves, viewed American society through a decidedly proslavery lens. Focusing on events between the 1850s and 1870s, especially those associated with the Civil War and Reconstruction, The Union on Trial contains Napton's political reflections, offering thoughtful and important perspectives of an educated northern-cum-southern rightist on the key issues that turned Missouri toward the South during the Civil War era. Although Napton's journals offer provocative insights into the process of southernization on the border, their real value lies in their author's often penetrating analysis of the political, legal, and constitutional revolution that the Civil War generated. Yet the most obvious theme that emerges from Napton's journals is the centrality of slavery in Missourians' measure of themselves and the nation and, ultimately, in how border states constructed their southernness out of the tumultuous events of the era. Napton's impressions of the constitutional crises surrounding the Civil War and Reconstruction offer essential arguments with which to consider the magnitude of the nation's most transforming conflict. The book also provides a revealing look at the often intensely political nature of jurists in nineteenth-century America. A lengthy introduction contextualizes Napton's life and beliefs, assessing his transition from northerner to southerner largely as a product of his political transformation to a proslavery, states' rights Democrat but also as a result of his marriage into a slaveholding family. Napton's tragic Civil War experience was a watershed in his southern evolution, a process that mirrored his state's transformation and one that, by way of memory and politics, ultimately defined both. Students and scholars of American history, Missouri history, and the Civil War will find this volume indispensable reading. |
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Side 13
... military leader , and U.S. representative from Albemarle County , Virginia , whose 978 - acre farm , Edgeworth , lay twelve miles northeast of Charlottesville.23 Alexander knew Gordon's distinguished 22. William B. Napton , Jr. , to ...
... military leader , and U.S. representative from Albemarle County , Virginia , whose 978 - acre farm , Edgeworth , lay twelve miles northeast of Charlottesville.23 Alexander knew Gordon's distinguished 22. William B. Napton , Jr. , to ...
Side 43
... military officer ) and the Northwest Territory — specifically , Michilimackinack , a military post at the head of Lake Michigan , and Prairie du Chien . Neither territory allowed slavery in 1794 , which is when Rose resided there until ...
... military officer ) and the Northwest Territory — specifically , Michilimackinack , a military post at the head of Lake Michigan , and Prairie du Chien . Neither territory allowed slavery in 1794 , which is when Rose resided there until ...
Side 46
... Military Affairs Committee , steadfastly opposed the war with Mexico . In January 1849 , in an effort to curb the maver- ick senator's free - soil inclinations , Missouri's Democratic junto enlisted Nap- ton to write a series of ...
... Military Affairs Committee , steadfastly opposed the war with Mexico . In January 1849 , in an effort to curb the maver- ick senator's free - soil inclinations , Missouri's Democratic junto enlisted Nap- ton to write a series of ...
Side 53
... military colonies , planted by a State government .... They have been picked and culled from the ignorant masses , which Old England and New England negro philanthropy has stirred up and aroused to madness on this topic . " New ...
... military colonies , planted by a State government .... They have been picked and culled from the ignorant masses , which Old England and New England negro philanthropy has stirred up and aroused to madness on this topic . " New ...
Side 61
... military incursion into Jefferson City ousted and then exiled the governor and a number of state legislators . ) Napton , along with justices William Scott of Cole County and Ephraim B. Ewing of St. Louis , refused to take the oath . He ...
... military incursion into Jefferson City ousted and then exiled the governor and a number of state legislators . ) Napton , along with justices William Scott of Cole County and Ephraim B. Ewing of St. Louis , refused to take the oath . He ...
Indhold
1 | |
81 | |
18621867 | 185 |
18681871 | 291 |
18721883 | 427 |
Address To the People of the United States July 1855 | 559 |
Biographical Information on Naptons Children | 572 |
Missouri Supreme Court Justices during | 574 |
Missouri Governors | 576 |
Missouri Senators | 578 |
US Representatives from Missouri | 580 |
Presidential Candidates | 585 |
Bibliography | 587 |
Index | 601 |
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Almindelige termer og sætninger
abolitionism abolitionists Adams American appointed April army BDAC bench Benton Blair candidate Civil Claiborne F Confederate Congress Constitution convention course David Rice Atchison December declared defeat Democratic party Democratic U.S. representative doubt editor election Elkhill England favor federal government former Democratic Frémont friends Glover governor Grant Gratz Brown Greeley History HLML Jackson James January Jefferson City John Johnson Judge Kansas Kentucky lawyer Legislature Lincoln Louis Louis Democrat majority Melinda Napton ment military Missouri Supreme Court Napton Journal typescript Napton Papers negro never newspaper nomination North northern November oath opinion Phelps political politicians popular President principles proslavery question Radical reported Republican party resolutions result Saline County says Schurz secretary seems slave slavery South Carolina southern speech statesman Tennessee territories Thomas tion U.S. senator U.S. Supreme Court Union Virginia vote Washington Whig Whiskey Ring William York
Populære passager
Side 449 - Congress, banishing all feeling of mere passion or resentment, will recollect only its duty to the whole country; that this war is not waged, upon our part, in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest, or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those states; but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several states unimpaired...
Side 83 - Were I to assign to this term a precise and definite idea, I would say, purely and simply, it means a government by its citizens in mass, acting directly and personally, according to rules established by the majority...
Side 168 - That the Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign power over the territories of the United States for their government and that in the exercise of this power it is both the right and the duty of Congress to prohibit in the territories those twin relics of barbarism, Polygamy and Slavery.
Side 93 - Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies; the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad...
Side 30 - Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church : and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
Side 449 - Congress, banishing all feelings of mere passion or resentment, will recollect only its duty to the whole country; that this war is not waged upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired;...
Side 194 - I have voluntarily given no aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility thereto; that I have never sought nor accepted nor attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever under any authority or pretended authority in hostility to the United States...
Side 84 - ... society; and this is all the laws should enforce on him; and, no man having a natural right to be the judge between himself and another, it is his natural duty to submit to the umpirage of an impartial third. When the laws have declared and enforced all this, they have fulfilled their functions; and the idea is quite unfounded, that on entering into society we give up any natural right.
Side 83 - On this view of the import of the term republic, instead of saying, as has been said, ' that it may mean any thing or nothing,' we may say with truth and meaning, that governments are more or less republican, as they have more or less of the element of popular election and control in their composition : and believing, as I do, that the mass of the citizens is the safest depository of their own rights, and especially, that the evils flowing from the duperies of the people, are less injurious than...
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