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The Webster-Hayne Debate. Bitter sectional disputes emerged during the presidency of Andrew Jackson: the issues that divided north from south, and sometimes east from west, included the disposal of...
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The legislature of South Carolina retained a great deal of authority over many aspects of everyday life. Roads could not be built, ferries across rivers could not be established, slaves could not be...
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"Southern Chivalry - Argument versus Clubs," a cartoon by I.L. Magee, illustrated the strong feelings of revulsion that Northerners expressed over the Sumner-Brooks affair. The question of expansion...
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The lands added to the nation through the conquests of the Mexican War raised anew the question of whether or not slavery would be allowed to expand into the new territories of the west. For two years...
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Runaway slaves were a constant problem in maintaining a workforce of unfree laborers. Slaves ran away because of mistreatment, out of a desire for freedom, or often simply to be reunited with husbands...
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Legareville was a summer resort community of the early 19th century, where planters and their families could retreat from the heat and disease of their plantations and enjoy cooling breezes. This 1919...
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This relief map of what is now Parris Island shows the distribution of the land among the large plantation owners around 1820. Courtesy of the United States Marine Corps, Parris Island Museum.
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Antebellum Charleston was famed for its racing, and for the devotion that its citizens showed to breeding and racing horses, making the contests extravagant betting and drinking events. Here the...
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"Friends and Amateurs in Musick" was drawn in 1827 by Thomas Middleton, an amateur artist; it is probably deliberately modeled on the convivial gathering of "Peter Manigault and His Friends" (see...
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"The seat of Dr. William Read on the Cooper River" illustrates the continued wealth and prosperity of the large planters in the Lowcountry even as the economic center of cotton growing moved westward...