St. George Stock - "Deductive Logic"

John Philip Newman - "'America for Americans!'"

Martin Farquhar Tupper - "Heart"

Marion Zimmer Bradley - "The Colors of Space"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Formation of the Union

A >> Albert Bushnell Hart >> Formation of the Union




[Sidenote: Tariff agitation.]

The narrow failure of the Woollens Bill in 1827 encouraged a protectionist
convention at Harrisburg, which suggested very high duties; but the main
force behind the movement was a combination of the growers and
manufacturers of wool, including many Western men. It is probable that
Clay was glad to make the tariff a political issue, hoping thus to
confound the anti-Adams combination.

[Sidenote: Tariff on raw materials.]
[Sidenote: The act passed.]

A new bill was reported, introducing the novel principle that the raw
materials of manufactures should be highly protected; the purpose was
evidently to frame a tariff unacceptable to New England, where Adams had
his chief support, and to draw the votes of the South and West. The
Western Jackson men favored it because it raised the tariff; and the
Southern anti-tariff men expected to kill Adams with the bill, and then to
kill the bill. They therefore voted for enormous duties: the duty on hemp
was raised from $35 to $60 a ton; on wool from about thirty per cent to
about seventy per cent. In vain did the Adams men attempt to reframe the
bill: when it came to a vote, sixteen of the thirty-nine New England
members felt compelled to accept it, with all its enormities, and it thus
passed the House. Even Webster voted for it in the Senate, and his
influence secured its passage. On May 24, 1828, Adams signed it.
Throughout the debate the influence of the approaching campaign was seen.
John Randolph said of it: "The bill referred to manufactures of no sort or
kind except the manufacture of a President of the United States."

[Sidenote: Southern protests.]

Notwithstanding these political complications the South saw clearly that
the act meant a continuance of the protective system. Five States at once
protested in set terms against the law and against the passage by Congress
of protective acts. Calhoun came forward as the champion of this movement,
and he put forth an argument, known as the South Carolina Exposition, in
which he suggested a convention of the State of South Carolina. "The
convention will then decide in what manner they [the revenue acts] ought
to be declared null and void within the limits of the State, which solemn
declaration would be obligatory on our own citizens." The period of the
Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions seemed to have returned.


139. ORGANIZED OPPOSITION TO ADAMS (1825-1829).


It has been seen that on most of the great questions which arose in
Adams's administration there was a division, not so much on principle, as
between the friends and opponents of the President. The four years of his
administration were really a long drawn Presidential campaign. The friends
of Jackson sought in every possible way to make Adams odious in the public
mind.

[Sidenote: Executive patronage.]
[Sidenote: Retrenchment.]

One of the early evidences of this personal opposition was a report
brought in, May 4, 1826, by a Select Committee on Executive Patronage; it
included Benton and Van Buren, who had heartily given in his adhesion to
Jackson. They reported that the exercise of great patronage by one man was
dangerous, and they proposed that a constitutional amendment be secured,
forbidding the appointment of senators or representatives to office. In
the next Congress, from 1827 to 1829, the Jackson men had a majority in
both Houses, and an attempt was made to prejudice Adams by showing that
the government was extravagant. Resolutions were adopted calling for a
retrenchment; but no misuse of the public money could be brought home to
the President.

The so-called investigations were only political manoeuvres: a President
who permitted his political enemies to remain in office was upbraided for
abusing the appointing power, a President who had never removed one person
for political reason was accused of a misuse of the removing power.
Nevertheless, the steady waning of Adams's popularity shows that he was
not in accord with the spirit of the people of his time.

[Sidenote: Jackson's campaign.]
[Sidenote: The Democrats.]

Meanwhile, a formidable combination had been formed against him. In
October, 1825, Jackson had been re-nominated by the Tennessee legislature.
Crawford's health had failed, and his followers, chiefly Southern men,
threw in their lot with Jackson. Van Buren prepared to renew the
combination of Southern and Middle State votes which had been so
successful in 1800. His organizing skill was necessary, for the Jackson
men lacked both coherence and principles. Strong bank men, anti-bank men,
protectionists, and free-traders united in the support of Jackson, whose
views on all these points were unknown. Towards the end of Adams's
administration the opposition began to take upon itself the name of the
Democratic party; but what the principles of that party were to be was as
yet uncertain.


140. THE TRIUMPH OF THE PEOPLE (1828).


[Sidenote: Adams's policy.]
[Sidenote: New political forces.]

John Quincy Adams's principles of government were not unlike those of his
father: both believed in a brisk, energetic national administration, and
in extending the influence and upholding the prestige of the United States
among foreign powers. John Adams built ships; John Quincy Adams built
roads and canals. Both Presidents were trained statesmen of the same
school as their English and French contemporaries. The outer framework of
government had little altered since its establishment in 1789; within the
nation, however, a great change had taken place. The disappearance of the
Federalists had been followed by a loss of the political and social pre-
eminence so long enjoyed by the New England clergy; and in 1835 the
Congregational Church was disestablished in Massachusetts. The rise of
manufactures had hastened these changes, both by creating a new moneyed
class, and by favoring the increase of independent mill-hands having the
suffrage and little or no property. Cities were growing rapidly,
especially in the Middle States: in 1822 Boston gave up the town-meeting;
in 1830 New York had two hundred thousand inhabitants, and Philadelphia
one hundred and seventy thousand; and the voters in the cities were more
easily controlled by a few master minds. In the South alone was the old
principle of government by family and influence preserved; but even here
the suffrage was widely extended, and the small planters had to be
tenderly handled.

[Sidenote: Power of the West.]

The West was the most important new element in the government. The votes
of the States west of the mountains elected Jefferson in 1800, and Madison
in 1812, and gave Jackson his preponderance of electoral votes over Adams
in 1824. The West was at this time what the colonies had been half a
century earlier,--a thriving, bustling, eager community, with a keen sense
of trade, and little education. But, unlike the colonies, the West was
almost without the tradition of an aristocracy; in most of the States
there was practically manhood suffrage. Men were popular, not because they
had rendered the country great services, but because they were good
farmers, bold pioneers, or shrewd lawyers. Smooth intriguers, mere
demagogues, were not likely to gain the confidence of the West, but a
positive and forcible character won their admiration. It was a people
stirred by men like Henry Clay, great public speakers, leaders in public
assemblies, impassioned advocates of the oppressed in other lands. It was
a people equally affected by the rough and ruthless character of men like
Jackson. An account which purports to come from Davy Crockett illustrates
the political horse-play of the time. In 1830 he was an anti-Jackson
candidate for re-election to Congress. He was beaten, by his opponents
making unauthorized appointments for him to speak, without giving him
notice. The people assembled, Crockett was not there to defend himself,
his enemies said that he was afraid to come, and no later explanations
could satisfy his constituents.

[Sidenote: General ticket system.]

The political situation was still further complicated by the adoption in
nearly all the States of the general ticket system of choosing electors; a
small majority in New York and Pennsylvania might outweigh large
majorities in other States. In a word, democracy was in the saddle; the
majority of voters preferred a President like themselves to a President of
superior training and education. Sooner or later they must combine; and
once combined they would elect him.

[Sidenote: Democracy vs. tradition.]

There was practically but one issue in 1828,--a personal choice between
John Quincy Adams and Jackson. Not one of the voters knew Jackson's
opinions on the tariff or internal improvements,--the only questions on
which a political issue could have been made. It was a strife between
democracy and tradition. A change of twenty-six thousand votes would have
given to John Quincy Adams the vote of Pennsylvania and the election; but
it could only have delayed the triumph of the masses. Jackson swept every
Southern and Western State, and received six hundred and fifty thousand
popular votes, against five hundred thousand for Adams. It was evident
that there had risen up "a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph."

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