| Contents |
Signature moments, 1846-1849 -- Eruptions and democracies -- Stirrings: Petitions, prayers, and their venues -- Petitioning in the Settler Republic: space, capital, soldiers -- First nations, first wave petitioners -- Slavery, skin, and black strategy -- Awakenings: Patriotes and rebels: petitioning and parliamentary sovereignty in French Canada -- Producers, electors, city democrats -- The coalescence of opposition: from the Bank War to Canadian reform -- Abolition and the transformation of U.S. politics -- Democracies and closures: Women contesting collectively: work, war, Iglesia, and the ballot -- The eclipse of lordship: petitioning and land tenure in the United States and Canada -- Native continuance, native governance: The closure of petition democracy in the U.S. South, 1839-1860 -- Freedom and the petitioner's democracy -- Afterword: Agendas, organization, and the democracy of petitions. |
| Abstract |
"Known as the age of democracy, the nineteenth century witnessed the extension of the franchise and the rise of party politics. As Daniel Carpenter shows, however, democracy in America emerged not merely through elections and parties, but through the transformation of an ancient political tool: the petition. A statement of grievance accompanied by a list of signatures, the petition afforded women and men excluded from formal politics the chance to make their voices heard and to reshape the landscape of political possibility. Democracy by Petition traces the explosion and expansion of petitioning across the North American continent"-- Provided by publisher. |
