Preface

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Preface ix
4. Acknowledgments xii
5. Part One. The Gospel Of Prosperity
6. Chapter 1. “Our Poor Distressed Country" 3
7. Chapter 2. The Necessities of State Aid 32
8. Chapter 3. An Imaginative Reinterpretation of the Law 47
9. Part Two. A Covenant of Public Works: Legislating for the Railroads
10. Chapter 4. “Railroad Fevers” and the Party Line at the Capitols 63
11. Chapter 5. The Enemy Within: Parochialism Run Amok 85
12. Chapter 6. Winning Friends and Influencing Legislation 98
13. Part Three “The Glory is Departed from Israel” : Using the Railroads
14. Chapter 7. “Let the Representatives . . . Have a Hand in It.” 121
15. Chapter 8. Testing the Gospel of Prosperity, 1870-1871 133
16. Chapter 9. “They Must Stand Aside . . .”: The Republican Mission in Peril 146
17. Part Four. Balm in Gilead ? Financing the Railroads
18. Chapter 10. Friends in Need on Capitol Hill 163
19. Chapter 11. Friends in Deed on Wall Street? The Enemy Without 175
20. Chapter 12. Railroad Ties and Bonds: Construction, Credit, and the “Consumptive Purse” 185
21. Part Five. There Is No Salvation: The Fall of the Railroads
22. Chapter 13. The Alabama & Chattanooga Catastrophe 213
23. Chapter 14. “They Have Thus Prostituted . . .” : Republicanism Riven 237
24. Chapter 15. “A War Now Begins between These Roads and the People,” 1873 250
25. Chapter 16. “Men are Giting Desperate . . .”: The Panic, Collapse, and Survival of the Gospel of Prosperity, 1873—1880 268
26. Coda “And Was Jerusalem Builded Here ?” 299
27. Appendix. Could the Democrats Have Done Better? 303
28. Abbreviations 307
29. Bibliography 339
30. Index 353
31. Backmatter 362