 | Executing Democracy: Volume Two: Capital Punishment and the Making of America, 1835-1843 Subjects: Capital punishment -- United States -- History; Crime -- United States -- History; Rhetoric -- Political aspects -- United States -- History; Debates and debating -- United States -- History; United States -- History -- Colonial period ca. 1600–1775; Uni; This eye-opening and well-researched companion to the first volume of Executing Democracy enters the death-penalty discussion during the debates of 1835 and 1843, when pro-death penalty Calvinist minister George Barrell Cheever faced off against abolitionist magazine editor John O'Sullivan. In contrast to the macro-historical overview presented in volume 1, volume 2 provides micro-historical case studies, using these debates as springboards into the discussion of the death penalty in America at large. Incorporating a wide range of sources, including political poems, newspaper editorials, and warring manifestos, this second volume highlights a variety of perspectives, thus demonstrating the centrality of public debates about crime, violence, and punishment to the history of American democracy. Hartnett's insightful assessment bears witness to a complex national discussion about the political, metaphysical, and cultural significance of the death penalty. Stephen John Hartnett is Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado-Denver. He is the author of several books, including Democratic Dissent and the Cultural Fictions of Antebellum America, winner of the National Communication Association's James A. Winans-Herbert A. Wichelns Memorial Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Rhetoric and Public Address. |
