Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic

This is the first of a two-volume treatment of slavery, capitalism and politics in the forty years before the Civil War. It is also a Marxist interpretation of the origins of the Civil War.

Context; 1. Slavery, Sectionalism and the Jeffersonian Tradition; 2. Free Labor, Slave Labor, Wage Labor; Part I. Slavery Versus Capitalism: 3. Abolitionism; 4. The Proslavery Argument: Dilemmas of the Master Class; Part II. the Second Party System: 5. Whigs and Democrats; 6. Slavery, Economics and Party Politics, 1836-1850; Conclusion: Part III. Economic Development, Class Conflict and american Politics, 1820-1850.