J. C. A. Stagg

Borderlines in borderlands : James Madison and the Spanish-American frontier, 1776-1821

In examining how the United States gained control over the northern borderlands of Spanish America, this work reassesses the diplomacy of President James Madison. Historians have assumed Madisons motive in sending agents into the Spanish borderlands between 1810 and 1813 was to subvert Spanish rule, but Stagg argues that his real intent was to find peaceful and legal resolutions to long-standing disputes over the boundaries of Louisiana at a time when the Spanish-American empire was in the process of dissolution. Drawing on an array of American, British, French, and Spanish sources, the author describes how a myriad cast of local leaders, officials, and other small players affected the borderlands diplomacy between the United States and Spain, and he casts new light on Madisons contribution to early American expansionism.

The Problem of Klan Violence: the South Carolina Up-Country, 1868–1871

The period of Reconstruction in the South was marred by frequent outbreaks of racial violence and South Carolina undoubtedly achieved a certain notoriety in this respect. Yet this phenomenon of recurring violence – even in its best known manifestation, the Ku Klux Klan – has not really received much intensive study from either the ‘revisionist’ school of Reconstruction historians or any local historians of the South. There is still a great deal of uncertainty about the questions of why the Ku Klux Klan came into existence in the Southern states, and who organized and participated in its vigilante activities. These questions can be easily posed but, largely because of the lack of source materials which bear directly upon them, they have proved to be extremely difficult to answer satisfactorily.

The Papers of James Madison: Secretary of State Series. Volume 5: 16 May-31 October 1803

During the six months covered in this volume, Madison contended with the failed negotiations between Spain and the United States to settle disputed boundaries, and the failure to win French support; Great Britains refusal to respond to U.S. complaints of the impressment of American seamen and violations of neutral trade; reports from the territorial governors of Michigan, Orleans, and Louisiana; detailed accounts of the June 1805 treaty negotiations between the United States and Tripoli; and the arrival of the Tunisian ambassador, Soliman Melimeni, in November 1805. Madison spent three months of this period in Philadelphia, where he had taken Dolley Madison to seek treatment for her ulcerated knee. Also included is a lengthy correspondence between the Madisons, written after Jamess return to Washington in October 1805. Access to people, places, and events discussed in this volume is facilitated by detailed annotation and a comprehensive index.

The Papers of James Madison: Secretary of State Series. Volume 2: 1 August 1801-28 February 1802.

During the six months covered in this volume, Madison contended with the failed negotiations between Spain and the United States to settle disputed boundaries, and the failure to win French support; Great Britains refusal to respond to U.S. complaints of the impressment of American seamen and violations of neutral trade; reports from the territorial governors of Michigan, Orleans, and Louisiana; detailed accounts of the June 1805 treaty negotiations between the United States and Tripoli; and the arrival of the Tunisian ambassador, Soliman Melimeni, in November 1805. Madison spent three months of this period in Philadelphia, where he had taken Dolley Madison to seek treatment for her ulcerated knee. Also included is a lengthy correspondence between the Madisons, written after Jamess return to Washington in October 1805. Access to people, places, and events discussed in this volume is facilitated by detailed annotation and a comprehensive index.