It is the purpose of this study to reveal that the morale of the southern civilians was an important factor in determining the fall of the Confederacy. At the close of the Civil War, the South was exhausted and weak, with only limited supplies to continue their defense. The Confederacy might have been rallied by the determination of its people, but they lacked such determination, for the hardships and grief they endured had turned their cause into a meaningless struggle. Therefore, the South fell because its strength depended upon the will of its population. This study is based on accounts by contemporaries in diaries, memoirs, newspapers, and journals, and it reflects their reaction to the collapse of homefront morale.

American politics from 1832 to 1848 underwent a profound transformation. Whereas in the early years of the republic politics had been based on deference and elitism, by the early 1830's a definite change in the political arena had occurred. With the coming of the "Age of Jackson, " the political rules and styles of the older era began to change. The politics of deference began to give way to the politics of "availability." Because this study is a discussion, examination, and analysis of Webster's and Clay's "appeal to reason, " the sources most heavily consulted were the published and microfilmed correspondence, speeches, and papers of these two statesmen. Other personal papers, correspondence, memoirs, and biographies of other central personalities of the middle period, both protagonists and antagonists, were used in order to place Webster and Clay in proper historical perspective. This dissertation is organized chronologically, and it traces and analyzes the evolution of the candidacies of Webster and Clay for the presidency from the early 1830's through the four presidential elections from 1836 to 1848. Each chapter includes an examination of Clay's and Webster's attempts to secure the Whig nomination and gain the presidency through forceful appeals to the voters' …

Economic reform completely dominated the later half of the nineteenth century. Cooperation proved the more dominant of alternatives. This study examines the significance the English working class perceived in their own Rochdale cooperation. The American labor press reveals the philosophy by which Americans adapted the English idea peculiar to their own cultural traditions. The Sovereigns of Industry are most representative of genuine cooperative practices in labor. The Texas Cooperative Association represents the largest agricultural cooperative undertaking. Both organizations have been examined primarily through their own records. The class fidelity among English workers and the need for class survival necessitated successful cooperation. The American worker, free of permanent caste, experienced no such solidarity and instead opted for individual advancement and upward social mobility.