The dominion of voice
Subtitle: riot, reason, and romance in antebellum politics
By: Kimberly K. Smith.
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Lawrence
Language: eng
Number of pages: 318
Subjects: Political culture -- Northeastern States -- History -- 19th century.; Riots -- Political aspects -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; Rhetoric -- Political aspects -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; Politics and literature -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; United States -- Politics and government -- 1815-1861.; United States -- Intellectual life -- 1783-1865.; Political culture -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; Northeastern States -- Intellectual life -- 19th century.
Description: In this work of historically informed political theory, Kimberly Smith sets out to understand how nineteenth-century Americans answered the question of how the people should participate in politics. Did rational public debate, the ideal that most democratic theorists now venerate, transcend all other forms of political expression? How and why did passion disappear from the ideology (if not the practice) of American democracy?

To answer these questions, she focuses on the political culture of the urban North during the turbulent Jacksonian Age, roughly 1830-50, when the shape and character of the democratic public were still fluid.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 293-308) and index.