CONTENTS
Prologue: The Nine-Month Debate and the Crisis of 1850
I. The Great Distraction: Slavery in the Territories
1.The Slavery Expansion Issue: Denied and Affirmed
2.Consensus and Conflict: Sectional Unity, National Division
II. Contested Territory: State Equality and the Nature of the Union
3.State Equality, the Transactional Union, and the Constitution
4.State Equality, the Perpetual Union, and the People
III. Sections in Conflict: The Voices of 1850
5.Conflicted Commitments: Slavery and Race
6.Images in Conflict: Society, Economy, and Gender
7.The Language of Conflict and the Battlefield of Memory
Epilogue: The Nine-Month Debate and the Crisis of the Union
APPENDIX A: SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES MENTIONED, QUOTED, OR CITED
APPENDIX B: QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE USE OF GENDERED LANGUAGE: SECTION, PARTY, AND AGE