Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Introduction 1
4. Chapter One Political Abolition and the Slave Power Argument, 1835–1840 15
5. Interlude One “Bowing Down to the Slave Power”: Northern Whigs, Slavery, and the Speakership, 1839 43
6. Chapter two Agitating the Congress: Abolitionist Lobbying and Antislavery Alliances, 1836–1844 47
7. Interlude Two “A Temporary ‘Third Party’”: Antislavery Whig Dissidents in the 1841 Speakership Contest 73
8. Chapter three Building Third-Party Electoral Power, 1841–1846 77
9. Chapter four Antislavery Upheaval in the Capitol: The Wilmot Proviso Debates and the Widening Sectional Divide, 1846–1848 105
10. Interlude Three “Let the Lines Be Drawn”: Conscience Whig Insurgency and the 1847 Speakership Election 125
11. Chapter five Liberty Men and the Creation of an Anti–Slave Power Coalition, 1846–1849 129
12. Interlude Four “Glorious Confusion in the Ranks”: The Free Soil Balance of Power, 1849 155
13. Chapter six Free Soil Politics and the Twilight of the Second Party System, 1849–1853 161
14. Chapter seven The Nebraska Outrage and the Advent of the Republican Party, 1853–1855 187
15. Interlude Five “A New Era in Our History”: The Longest Speakership Contest in American History and the First Republican National Victory, 1855–1856 207
16. Conclusion 213
17. Acknowledgments 227
18. Abbreviations 231
19. Notes 233
20. Index 291