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Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic: Volume 1, Commerce and Compromise, 1820-1850

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The emphasis here is upon the "class" tensions within the slave South and between the North with its "wage labor" and the South with its slave labor. Far too many historians in recent years have been afraid to use the concepts of "class" and "capitalism" for fear of being tainted with the brush of Marxism. But these are clearly terms and concepts the abolitionists and the pro-slavery thinkers themselves used in their attempts to make sense of their world. Ashworth does an admirable job of employing these concepts while avoiding the pitfalls of dogmatism and economic reductionism. He draws inspiration from Antonio Gramsci's concept of "hegemony" to provide his class and material analysis with a balance that emphasizes the complexities of human motivation.

The author clearly reveals the points at which the slave system was in inner conflict and shows how the southern attempts to provide an intellectual defense of slavery were doomed to fail because of the conflicts and tensions within the southern class system. He goes on to detail the ideology and the foundations of the Jacksonian Democrats, the Whig Party, and the Republican Party and in the process gives the reader a balanced perspective on the forces that led to the Civil War. This is a book that should be read by anyone interested in why the two sections of the country were so different and came to think of themselves as different peoples.