| Book Review | Indiana Magazine of History, 100.4

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to Indiana Magazine of History online. About 161 words from this article are provided below; about 466 words remain.

If you are a individual subscriber to Indiana Magazine of History, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a subscriber to Indiana Magazine of History, you can:: • subscribe here.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of Indiana Magazine of History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | Indiana Magazine of History, 100.4 | The History Cooperative

Reviews

The Invention of Party Politics Federalism, Popular Sovereignty, and Constitutional Development in Jacksonian Illinois

By Gerald Leonard

(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. Pp. x, 328. Notes, bibliography, index. $45.00.)

Using Illinois as a case study, Gerald Leonard argues that constitutional concerns—specifically federalism and the sovereignty of the American people—spurred the development of political parties in the 1820s and 1830s. Martin Van Buren and other like-minded men promoted the idea of a permanent "constitutional" party as "the embodiment of the undivided democracy" (p. 5). Although rooted in an Anglo-American antiparty tradition, the "partyists'" goal, writes Leonard, was "genuinely revolutionary": "to establish for the Democratic party, and only the Democratic party, a kind of lawmaking authority at least as important as that of any branch of government" (p. 19). For both antipartyists and "Van Burenite" advocates of party, the competition that developed between two national political parties by 1840 was an unintended and undesirable consequence of party development.

. . .

There are about 466 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.