Executing democracy
Subtitle: capital punishment and the making of America
By: Stephen John Hartnett.
Series: Rhetoric and public affairs series
Publisher: Michigan State University Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: East Lansing
Language: eng
ISBN-13: 9780870138690
Subjects: Capital punishment -- United States -- History; Crime -- United State -- History; Rhetoric -- Political aspects -- United States -- History; Debates and debating -- United States -- History; United States -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775; United States -- History -- 1783-1865
Description: "This eye-opening and well-researched companion to the first volume of Executing Democracy enters the death-penalty discussion during the debates of 1835 and 1843, when pro-death penalty Calvinist minister George Barrell Cheever faced off against abolitionist magazine editor John O'Sullivan. In contrast to the macro-historical overview presented in volume 1, volume 2 provides micro-historical case studies, using these debates as springboards into the discussion of the death penalty in America at large. Incorporating a wide range of sources, including political poems, newspaper editorials, and warring manifestos, this second volume highlights a variety of perspectives, thus demonstrating the centrality of public debates about crime, violence, and punishment to the history of American democracy. Hartnett's insightful assessment bears witness to a complex national discussion about the political, metaphysical, and cultural significance of the death penalty."--Publisher's website.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: v. 1. From settlement to federalism: "a dung born tribe" debates the spectacle of producing "a terror to others," 1683-1807