Expansion and Conflict

Expansion and Conflict is by William E. Dodd, professor of American history at the University of Chicago. The preface says the purpose of the volume is to show the action and reaction of the most important social, economic, political, and personal forces that have entered into the make-up of the United States as a nation. The preface says the primary assumption of the author is that the people of this country did not compose a nation until after the close of the Civil War in 1865.

The text says that a body was looked to in the hope that something might be done to put slavery in a way to final extinction, and names Madison, Monroe, Chief Justice Marshall and John Randolph as members. The text says that the convention decided, in the face of serious threats of secession on the part of the up country, to grant the more populous section only a slight increase in the number of representatives. Under the heading Prosperity, the text says that partisan opposition to Franklin Pierce had almost disappeared before the day of his inauguration in 1853.