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Bibliographic Essay
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291 Bibliographic essay the dearth of academic writing about the career of James Gillespie Birney leaves one wondering about the independence of thought among historians throughout the past century and a half since Birney’s death. We have seen how theodore Roosevelt’s vicious condemnation of Birney’s political initiatives in his biography Thomas Hart Benton (Houghton Mifflin, 1886) caused negative effects on the Birney historiography. Apparently taking cues from a powerful political source such as Roosevelt, historians began ignoring both Birney and the liberty party in histories of the Republican party. A prime example is William livingstone’s History of the Republican Party (William livingstone, 1900), which fails to even mention Birney or the liberty party contributions to its establishment. the list of supposedly comprehensive histories of the Republican party as well as the antislavery movement that ignore Birney is as puzzling as it is long, and i would not attempt a compilation here. the Birney situation brings to mind an error in original reporting that is carried forward interminably until someone takes note and makes corrections. it is on that cusp of history that, hopefully, i stand. pRiMARy souRCes Without the Letters of James Gillespie Birney in two volumes, compiled and edited by Dwight lowell Dumond at the university of Michigan (peter smith, 1966), the task of evaluating Birney’s contributions would have been vastly more difficult, if not impossible. While Birney’s weekly newspaper, the Philanthropist (Achilles pugh, 1836–1837), has much ideological posturing about the antislavery movement, it reveals little about Birney’s life during those tumultuous years in Cincinnati. Among the outstanding works that do credit Birney and the liberty party and put them in historical perspective are Richard sewell’s Ballots for 292| Bibliographic Essay Freedom (W.W. Norton and Company, 1980) and eric foner’s Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (oxford university press, 1995). Also important are Dwight lowell Dumond’s Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America (W.W. Norton and Company, 1966) and Antislavery Origins of the Civil War in the United States (university of Michigan press, 1959). the primary source for much early Republican history is Under the Oaks, edited by William stocking (Detroit tribune, 1904). Major sources of information about Birney’s life are William Birney’s James G. Birney and His Times: The Genesis of the Republican Party (D. Appleton and Company, 1890); Betty fladeland’s James Gillespie Birney: Slaveholder to Abolitionist (Cornell university press, 1955), adapted from a 1952 doctoral dissertation at the university of Michigan; and Beriah Green’s 1844 campaign piece, Sketches of the Life and Writings of James Gillespie Birney (Jackson and Chaplin, 1844). the Harriet Beecher stowe connection with Birney, together with some details on his activities in Cincinnati, is carried in Joan Hedrick’s Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life (oxford university press, 1994). some of Birney’s political collaborations are tracked in Albert B. Hart’s Salmon P. Chase (Houghton Mifflin, 1899) and Jacob W. schuckers’s The Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase (D. Appleton and Company , 1874). Henry Mayer’s biography of William lloyd Garrison, All On Fire (st. Martin’s Griffin 1998), gives detail on the conflict between Birney and Garrison, as does the four-volume biography William Lloyd Garrison: The Story of His Life, by Garrison’s sons, Wendell phillips Garrison and francis Jackson Garrison (the Century Co., 1885). some perspective on the 1844 presidential campaign is furnished by Horace Greeley’s Recollections of a Busy Life (J.B. ford and Co., 1868) and Joel H. silbey’s Storm Over Texas (oxford university press, 2005), although detail on Birney’s role is noticeably lacking in both books. loCAl HistoRies local histories that incorporate details about Birney’s early days in Kentucky and Alabama include, from Kentucky: Calvin fackler’s Early Days in Danville (the standard printing Co., 1941) and Richard Carl Brown’s History of Danville and Boyle County Kentucky (Bicentennial Books, 1992); from Alabama: thomas McAdory owen’s Transactions of the Alabama Historical Society (the Alabama Historical society, 1899), edward Chambers Betts’s [18.208.172.3] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 13:00 GMT) Bibliographic Essay| 293 Early History of Alabama, 1804–1870 (the Brown printing Co., 1916), and Daniel Dupre’s Transforming the Cotton Frontier: Madison County, Alabama, 1800–1840 (louisiana state university press, 1997). A perusal of the files of the Filson Club Historical Quarterly, published at louisville by the filson...