Politics of Long Division: The Birth of the Second Party System in Ohio, 1818-1828

In a sequel to his 1998 , Ratcliffe (American history, U. of Durham, England) investigates the origins of the important series of political contests now known as the Second Party System. Historians have claimed that the mass parties of the antebellum era emerged in the 1830s, but he offers evidence that by 1828 the battle lines had been laid down in Ohio that would dominate local and national politics until the eve of the Civil War and even persist into the 20th century. Jacksonian opposition, he says, was the wedge of the cleavage in popular political loyalties. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR