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The Anti-Rent Era in New York
Law and Politics, 1839-1865
by Charles W. McCurdy
Hardcover, 408 pages, 6-1/8 x 9-1/4, 4 maps, notes, index
Published Spring/Summer 2001
University of North Carolina Press
From the publisher:
A compelling blend of legal and political history, this book chronicles the
largest tenant rebellion in U.S. history. From its beginning in the rural
villages of eastern New York in 1839 until its collapse in 1865, the
Anti-Rent movement impelled the state's governors, legislators, judges, and
journalists, as well as delegates to New York's bellwether constitutional
convention of 1846, to wrestle with two difficult problems of social policy.
One was how to put down violent tenant resistance to the enforcement of
landlord property and contract rights. The second was how to abolish the
archaic form of land tenure at the root of the rent strike.
Charles McCurdy considers the public debate on these questions from a
fresh perspective. Instead of treating law and politics as dependent
variables--as mirrors of social interests or accelerators of social
change--he highlights the manifold ways in which law and politics shaped
both the pattern of Anti-Rent violence and the drive for land reform. In the
process, he provides a major reinterpretation of the ideas and institutions
that diminished the promise of American democracy in the supposed "golden
age" of American law and politics.
About the author
Charles W. McCurdy is professor of history and law at the University of
Virginia.
Contents
Preface
1. Governor Seward and the Manor of Rensselaerwyck
A Whig in the State House
The Patroon's Domain
The Helderberg War
Land Law and the Law of the Land
2. Whig Reconnaissance
Public Purposes in Party Dialogue
The Wheaton Bill
Land Reform and Whig Constitutionalism
The Making of the Manor Commission
3. The Politics of Evasion
Portents of Failure
The Debacle in Albany
Anti-Rent Revived
The Compromise of 1841
4. The Trouble with Democrats
Whig "Fallacies"—Democratic Solutions
Bargain Theory in the Jacksonian Persuasion
Debtors and Tenants before the Legislature
Anti-Rent Transformed
5. Depression-Era Constitutionalism
Tightening the Right-Remedy Distinction
Due Process and the Eminent Domain Power
Judicial Review in a Democracy
The Logic of Constitutional Reform
6. Signs of War
Petitions and Partisanship
Land Reform and Democratic Constitutionalism
Texas and the Reorientation of Parties
The Luxuriation of Anti-Rent
7. Resistance and Reform
The Election of 1844
Bloodshed
Mixed Reactions
Stalemate
8. Political Crossroads
The Washington-Albany Connection
Dilemmas for the Democracy
Land Reform and Constitutional Reform
Partisan Mediators of Anti-Rent Decisions
9. A Cacophony of Voices
The "New Constitution"
Schism
The Rout of the "Indians"
Whig Recriminations
The No-Compromise Persuasion
10. Democratic Futility
Land Reform at the Shrine of Party
Political Fratricide
The Anti-Rent Measures
A Sinking Ship
11. Whig Resolution
Anti-Rent and the Balance of Power
A Troublesome Constituency
Antislavery and Anti-Rent
Dead Ends
12. Enmeshed in Law
Lawyers in Charge
The Failed Compromise of 1850
Division and Decline
The Lease in Fee Besieged
Perpetual Rent
13. The End of an Era
The Anti-Rent Act of 1860
Defeat
Aftermath
Conclusion
Notes
Index
Tables
1. Ballots at Whig State Convention, September 1846
2. Election Returns, November 1846
Maps
1. Hudson River Valley Manors and Patents, c. 1750
2. Albany and Rensselaer Counties in 1839
3. West Side Organizing Drive of 1844
4. East Side Organizing Drive of 1844
Book condition:
This is a new "remainder" book. A remainder is a book that may
have been unsold by the publisher, or it may have been an "unsold" return
from a bookstore. It may have minor shelf wear on the cover, or other mild
imperfection. We do not ship books with major damage. No remainder mark. |
