The politics of long division : the birth of the second party system in Ohio, 1818-1828 /

Ratcliffe serves readers in two significant ways--by continuing the story he began in his Party Spirit in a Frontier Republic (CH, Jan'99), and by portraying the "birth of the second party system in Ohio." By combing through an enormous amount of source material to weave a complicated story, Ratcliffe takes issue with scholars who have dismissed the decade from 1818 to 1828 and deals effortlessly with details across the state to illustrate the interplay of forces present at both the beginning and end of the decade. Old Republicans, Democratic Republicans, Federalists, Whigs, Adams-Clay men, Jacksonians, Legitimates, Persisters, and Transients are among the factions considered, as Ratcliffe explains Ohio's pre-1828 political climate. Ohioans, like their citizen counterparts nationally, were driven by the ways in which matters such as slavery, race, sectional competition, economics (including the bank), internal improvements, and anticorruption impacted local issues and personalities. Although Ohio is not touted as an American political microcosm, this study may serve as a model for others seeking to analyze the complicated mosaic of America's political landscape. All levels. J. H. O'Donnell III; Marietta College