The people's martyr
Subtitle: Thomas Wilson Dorr and his 1842 Rhode Island rebellion
By: Erik J. Chaput
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 2013
Language: eng
Number of pages: 322
ISBN-13: 9780700619245
Copyright date: 2013
Subjects: Dorr Rebellion, 1842; Politics and government; Suffrage; History
Description: "In 1840s Rhode Island, the state's seventeenth-century colonial charter remained in force and restricted suffrage to property owners, effectively disenfranchising 60 percent of potential voters. Thomas Wilson Dorr's failed attempt to rectify that situation through constitutional reform ultimately led to an armed insurrection that was quickly quashed--and to a stiff sentence for Dorr himself. Nevertheless, as Erik Chaput shows, the Dorr Rebellion stands as a critical moment of American history during the two decades of fractious sectional politics leading up to the Civil War. This uprising was the only revolutionary republican movement in the antebellum period that claimed the people's sovereignty as the basis for the right to alter or abolish a form of government. Equally important, it influenced the outcomes of important elections throughout northern states in the early 1840s and foreshadowed the breakup of the national Democratic Party in 1860. Through his spellbinding and engaging narrative, Chaput sets the rebellion in the context of national affairs--especially the abolitionist movement. While Dorr supported the rights of African Americans, a majority of delegates to the "People's Convention" favored a whites-only clause to ensure the proposed constitution's passage, which brought abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass, Parker Pillsbury, and Abby Kelley to Rhode Island to protest. Meanwhile, Dorr's ideology of the people's sovereignty sparked profound fears among Southern politicians regarding its potential to trigger slave insurrections. Drawing upon years of extensive archival research, Chaput's book provides the first scholarly biography of Dorr, as well as the most detailed account of the rebellion yet published. In it, Chaput tackles issues of race and gender and carries the story forward into the 1850s to examine the transformation of Dorr's ideology into the more familiar refrain of popular sovereignty. Chaput demonstrates how the rebellion's real aims and significance were far broader than have been supposed, encompassing seemingly conflicting issues including popular sovereignty, antislavery, land reform, and states' rights. The People's Martyr is a definitive look at a key event in our history that further defined the nature of American democracy and the form of constitutionalism we now hold as inviolable"--

"Chaput tells the story of Dorr's life and the short-lived rebellion that he led against Rhode Island authorities in 1842. Occurring a decade after the Nullification Crisis, the uprising was the first and only attempt in America to claim the people's sovereignty as the basis for the right to alter or abolish their form of government. This unrecognized critical moment on antebellum national politics, Chaput shows, influenced the outcomes of important elections throughout the northern states in the early 1840s, widened the North-South fissure within the Democratic Party, and further defined the nature of American democracy and form of constitutionalism we now hold as inviolable"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 297-313) and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note:; title: List of Illustrations; title: Acknowledgments; title: Introduction; title: 1. Beginnings; title: 2. Jacksonian Dissident; title: 3. The Abolitionists and the People's Constitution; title: 4. Peaceably If We Can, Forcibly If We Must; title: 5. The Arsenal; title: 7. Grist for the Political Mill; title: 8. The People's Sovereignty in the Courtroom; title: 9. The Legacy of the People's Sovereignty; title: Coda; title: Notes; title: Selected Bibliography; title: Index.