American Mobbing, 1828-1861: Toward Civil War

by David Grimsted

Overview

American Mobbing, 1828-1861: Toward Civil War is a comprehensive history of mob violence related to sectional issues in antebellum America. David Grimsted argues that, though the issue of slavery provoked riots in both the North and the South, the riots produced two different reactions from authorities. In the South, riots against suspected abolitionists and slave insurrectionists were widely tolerated as a means of quelling anti-slavery sentiment. In the North, both pro-slavery riots attacking abolitionists and anti-slavery riots in support of fugitive slaves provoked reluctant but often effective riot suppression. Hundreds died in riots in both regions, but in the North, most deaths were caused by authorities, while in the South more than 90 percent of deaths were caused by the mobs themselves.
These two divergent systems of violence led to two distinct public responses. In the South, widespread rioting quelled public and private questioning of slavery; in the North, the milder, more controlled riots generally encouraged sympathy for the anti-slavery movement. Grimsted demonstrates that in these two distinct reactions to mob violence, we can see major origins of the social split that infiltrated politics and political rioting and that ultimately led to the Civil War.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195172812
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, USA
Publication date:	10/28/2003
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	1.00(w) x 1.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

University of Maryland, College Park

Table of Contents

1. 1835: The Year of Violent Indecision
2. Riots Hatching Resistance: Against Abolitionists and in Aid of Fugitive Slaves
3. The Peculiar Institution of Southern Violence
4. White Fears: Silencing Questions
5. Black Fears: Repressing Dark Realities
6. "Times That Tried Men's Bodies": The Manly Sport of American Politics
7. The Mobs of the Second Party System
8. Trying to Forget Slavery: Nativism and New Riots
9. Bleeding Majoritarianism: The Sectional Mod Systems Meet, Mingle, and Mangle
10. Vintage Violence

Editorial Reviews

"...Grimsted has produced a well-written and provocative account of a difficult subject. He is to be commended for making some sense out of the senseless, and his work should be read by all those interested in the causes of America's bloodiest war."—Mississippi Quarterly

"[A] lively, eloquent study....American Mobbing is a smart, passionate examination of an unusually contentious era. Scholars and general readers interested in prewar America will wish to read it, and they will much enjoy the time spent doing it."—Civil War History

"David Grimsted's groundbreaking tome, the product of over twenty-five years of work, is a deeply considered meditation on the relationship between mob violence and the coming of the Civil War....He addresses one of the central questions in American History and his important answers deserve widespread acclaim and continued commentary."—Journal of Social History

"[Grimsted] offers lengthy analyses...extensive...contextual examinations...provocative and controversial."—The North Carolina Historical Review

"...David Grimsted has made a major contribution to the historiography of mob violence in the nineteenth-century United States. His book illuminates how often antebellum Americans negotiated their differences through rioting. More importantly it shows the price that this nation has paid for engaging in such behavior....American Mobbing is required reading for those interested in Civil War causation and the history of mob violence in the United States."—Reviews in American History

"Based upon his research into some 1,218 antebellum riots, Grimsted's erudite book argues that the North and South had distinct systems of social violence. While the numbers of riots and riot deaths in each region are comparable, the nature of political violence in each was dramatically different...A pioneering social history of sectionalism, one that shifts focus away from congressional debates and reveals how the slavery controversy reverberated in communities around the country. American Mobbing challenges readers to rethink the ways that antebellum politics have been periodized and researched."—The Journal of Southern History

"This disturbing and compelling volume...helps to explain persistent southern violence—in Reconstruction, in the outbreaks of lynching during the Jim Crow era, in the spasm of thuggery during the Second Reconstruction of the 1960s, and in continued higher rates of bloodletting for the former slave states than for the rest of the developed world."—Georgia Historical Quarterly

"Grimsted's is a bold and brilliant argument well supported by observations of hundreds of riots, compiled largely from newspapers, as well as the close analysis of several dozen events about which a wider variety of sources and commentaries is available."—Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"American Mobbing has been long awaited by scholars of antebellum social and political history. The book traces the development of two distinct traditions of mob violence: in the North, violence occurred when authorities failed to protect anti-slavery minorities; in the South, violence occurred mainly when authorities moved to stop anti-slavery speech and activities. The book reaches its great climax in the 'bleeding majoritarianism' of the Kansas crisis, when the separate traditions 'met, mingled and mangled' the second party system and the country. Grimsted thus presents an original and persuasive argument about the forces driving the nation toward civil war."—Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society

"Every scholarly library should have this book. It is encyclopedic and vigorously researched....Correct in arguing that rioting played a major role in driving the nation to civil war."—Law and History Review

From the Publisher