Tag: Theodore Dwight Weld

The rise of organized party politics in the so-called Age of Jackson brought with it an aggressive anger-spiked style of political warfare. The bullying power of Southern entitlement showed its full force in Congress. Representative John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts deliberately tried to put Southerners “in a blaze” over the issue of slavery. When it came to congressional combat, Northerners weren’t fighting men of the same sort as Southerners. And in time, that logic spread. The intensification of the nation’s ongoing slavery crisis fueled a spike in Southern bullying in Congress, and that anger proved contagious. The telegraph circulated news from Washington with remarkable speed, confronting increasing numbers of Americans with images of raging slaveholders holding dominion in Congress. Rage begat rage, and Northern noncombatants became fighting men, making cross-sectional discourse ever more difficult. Such is the impact of a politics of anger. But bullying power holders often pay a price, fueling a backlash through the contagion of rage.