Isaiah D. Clawson was a physician and politician from Salem County in the antebellum era. He first affiliated with the Whig Party. When that party disintegrated in the mid-1850s, Clawson sought the ...support of the American (Know-Nothing) Party before affiliating with the more enduring Republican Party. Clawson's political maneuvers when he ran for, and was elected to, the U.S. House of Representatives in 1854 and 1856 revealed the political options open to Whigs as their party faded from the political scene. In the context of New Jersey politics, where the American Party endured longer than elsewhere, political figures such as Clawson had to gain and hold on to support from both Americans and Republicans to unify the opposition to the Democrats. Although Clawson's political positions were more in line with Republican thinking on slavery and internal improvements, political realities of the time compelled him to rely on a united opposition to win and retain his seat in the House of Representatives.
Richard Smith Coxe was the descendant of a prominent Burlington, New Jersey, family. He followed in the footsteps of his father, William Coxe, by affiliating with the Federalist Party until its ...demise after the War of 1812. After manifesting an interest in New Jersey politics early in his career, Coxe left his home state, and its political life, relocating to Washington, DC, where he became a prominent attorney. In the nation’s capital, he specialized in matters of maritime and international law. For a time, he worked closely with fellow New Jerseyan and Secretary of the Navy Samuel Southard. Despite his new focus on a legal career, Coxe remained, to a lesser degree, politically active, supporting the Whig Party, especially Henry Clay and William Henry Harrison. Although his political views were based on Federalist, then Whig, principles, Coxe’s legal career led him, at times, to take exception to those principles. For example, while not overtly supporting war with Mexico in 1846, unlike many Whigs, he saw the claims of clients who had suffered losses because of political and social turbulence in Mexico as justification for more forceful action against that nation.
Matter and Substance Bendler, Bruce A.
Journal of Presbyterian history (1997),
12/2019, Letnik:
97, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
In 1741, the Presbyterian Synod of Philadelphia divided into Old and New Sides, a schism that took place in the context of the Great Awakening, but was also the result of longstanding disagreements. ...This article is a study of published correspondence between Gilbert Tennent and David Evans in 1742. Tennent, a leader of the New Side, harshly attacked his erstwhile colleagues, even asserting that some of them lacked genuine faith in Christ. The lesser-known Evans, pastor of the Old Side Presbyterian congregation in Pilesgrove, New Jersey, took issue with Tennent on a wide range of longstanding disagreements. The Tennent-Evans correspondence discusses these points of disagreement, setting forth the significant differences between the two Sides, and offering insight as to why reconciliation did not come about until 1758.
Bruce A. Bendler reviewing The Secret History of the Jersey Devil: How Quakers, Hucksters, and Benjamin Franklin Created a Monster, by Brian Regal and Frank Esposito
Political and economic transitions reshaped New Jersey as they did throughout the United States during the 1820s. By the end of that decade an emergent second party system, centered on support of or ...opposition to Andrew Jackson, defined both national and state elections. The “Market Revolution” had begun to transform the nation’s economy. Industrialization and improvements in the transportation network led to the eclipse of purely local markets by national ones. Politicians and entrepreneurs at the local level sought to adapt to such transitions. William N. Jeffers of Salem County, New Jersey, so adapted his approach to both political and economic relationships. Jeffers furthered his political ambitions by identification with the Jacksonian movement in New Jersey. He sought to advance his economic ambitions by obtaining a charter for a bank and for a steam mill to take advantage of Salem County’s agricultural economy.
In November 1773, a bill to forbid the importation of slaves into New Jersey, and ease the colony’s rigid requirements for manumission, was introduced in the colonial Assembly. This effort was led by ...Quakers who opposed slavery, but realized that full and immediate abolition was not politically possible. They thus chose the more politically realistic objectives of placing restrictions on slave importation and easing requirements for manumission. Because of growing opposition to even those measures, the bill failed to win passage. This paper argues that efforts to enact this bill formed part of a well-coordinated effort to restrict slavery in late colonial New Jersey, led by Samuel Allinson of Burlington and his allies in the colonial Assembly. Allinson also secured the support of noted abolitionists Anthony Benezet of Philadelphia and Granville Sharp of England. Furthermore, he employed rhetoric in his efforts to restrict slavery similar to that employed in concurrent protests against British encroachments on colonial liberties. Although the bill did not pass, Allinson’s correspondence with Benezet and Sharp, the numerous petitions presented in its support, and the publications urging its enactment, prove that there was a serious and well-organized movement in New Jersey to restrict slavery just before the Revolution, with the ultimate goal of its abolition.
This paper investigates the emergence of a rural variant of Federalism in the state of Delaware. Historians who have written about the Federalist Party have generally portrayed it as a movement based ...in the urban and commercial regions of the young republic. In Delaware, Federalists drew their greatest support from the most rural county—Sussex—of a rural state. At the same time, the opposition Democratic-Republican movement appealed to the most commercially developed region of the state, the area around the town of Wilmington. Thus, the current scholarship does not suffice to explain the full support for and the political appeal of Federalism, especially at the state and local level. To research the political culture of Delaware and determine the reasons for its unique political culture, I have focused on the documents that best link the government with its constituents: the petitions presented to the legislature. Petitioning provided a means for citizens to state their grievances and expectations. By using records that reveal social and economic status, such as tax records, I have learned the social standing of those who participated in the petitioning process. To supplement the petitions, I have looked at the appeals political leaders presented to their constituents during election campaigns in media such as newspapers and political tracts. By interpreting election returns in the context of the above sources, the composition of the rural Federalist electorate comes to light. This dissertation proves that, by the constitutional standards of the time, a broad segment of the eligible electorate actually participated in political activity. The political culture that developed in colonial times, and which was molded during the years of war, reflected the expectations of a politically active electorate. Federalists could not dominate the state with the passive acquiescence of the public. Rather, they had to listen to and negotiate with a sometimes-recalcitrant body politic to retain their hegemony over Delaware government. Federalist leaders in Delaware had the flexibility to adapt to change over time in the political culture. In Delaware, they did not become a permanent and increasingly irrelevant minority as they did in other states.