Series Editor's Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Prologue, 178
1. The Threads of a Global Loom: Cotton, Slavery, and Union in an Interdependent Atlantic, 1789-1820
Cotton, Empire, and Nation
The Formation of a Transatlantic Cotton Interest
Cotton's Revolution and Its Limits
2. Calculating the Cost of Union: Nationalism and Sectionalism in a Republican Era, 1796-1818
The Cotton South and a Republican Coalition of Equals
The Honor of Bearing It Best: Cotton, Commercial Warfare, and War
Peace Abroad, Dissension at Home: Republicans Active and Passive
3. Protecting Slavery and Free Trade: The Political Economy of Cotton, 1818- 1833
Panic and Protection
Cotton and a Harmonious Domestic and International Division of Labor
Unequal Protection under the Law and Cotton's Minority Status
4. Building Bridges to the West and the World: Empowerment and Anxiety in the Second Party System, 1834-1848
Publishing the Banns of Marriage: The Search for Lower South Commercial Advancement
American Proslavery Thought in the Age of British Abolition
The Second Party System in the Cotton South
5. An Unnatural Union: King Cotton and Lower South Secession, 1849- 1860
Economic Advancement in an Age of Democratic Ascendance
Converting Friends to Enemies and Enemies to Friends: The Search for Natural Allies
Realists Decide: Election and Secession
Epilogue, 1861
Notes
Essay on Sources
Index