The Debate over Slavery: Antislavery and Proslavery Liberalism in Antebellum America. By David F. Ericson. New York: New York University Press, 2000. 216p. $55.00 cloth, $19.00 paper. Democracy and Slavery in Frontier Illinois: The Bottomland Republic. By James Simeone. Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2000. 290p. $38.00.

Abstract

Both the books under review deal with the development of a distinctly American political tradition of liberalism and liberal democracy and its relationship to the thorny issue of racial slavery. However, the authors employ very different means to explore this common goal. While David Ericson, as in his previous work, concentrates on the level of national politics, James Simeone examines the local political culture of “bottomland republicanism” in early Illinois.