Parties and politics in North Carolina, 1836-1865

The political upheavals of the 1850s and the outbreak of the Civil War brought an end to the two-party politics throughout much of the South. In North Carolina, however, the two-party system persisted during the crisis of secession and throughout the short and troubled existence of the Confederate States of America. Following the course of North Carolina's internal politics from 1836 to the end of the Civil War, this study discusses the sources of the state's political continuity and explores how its competitive two-party system shaped political ideology, government policy-making, constitutional reform, and popular attitudes toward slavery and the sectional crisis. -- from Book Jacket.