- Department of History, Philosophy, and Social Sciences
Pittsburg State University
1701 S. Broadway
Pittsburg, KS 66762
- I am an associate professor of history and director of the School of History, Philosophy, and Social Sciences at Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas, where I teach courses covering the Colonial and Revolutionary eras as well as the early American republic. My research focuses on the ... moreI am an associate professor of history and director of the School of History, Philosophy, and Social Sciences at Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas, where I teach courses covering the Colonial and Revolutionary eras as well as the early American republic.
My research focuses on the political and constitutional history of the early American republic (1776-1861), specifically southern politics and sectionalism. My current research project is a history of the Webster-Hayne Debate and its impact on politics in the South, North, and West.
My first book, The Failure of Popular Sovereignty: Slavery, Manifest Destiny, and the Radicalization of Southern Politics (University Press of Kansas, 2012), reconceptualizes the history of slavery’s westward extension by showing how southerners first advocated popular sovereignty to check federal interference with slavery in the territories only to jettison the idea during the 1850s in favor of federal protection of extension. My book follows the work of other scholars who have sought to connect the sectional crisis of the 1850s with debates over slavery in the early republic. It revises our understanding of popular sovereignty by exploring how the idea emerged after the Revolution and became central to the argument over slavery in the antebellum era. The ambiguities of popular sovereignty initially allowed politicians to evade the extension issue, but as the debate between the proslavery and antislavery movements intensified, the doctrine collapsed.edit
Research Interests: American Studies, U.S. history, Southern Studies (U.S. South), Nationalism, History of Slavery, and 10 moreEarly American Republic, Political History, Southern Studies, Southern History, Early Republic--American History, Civil Rights (History), Regional identity, Sectionalism, Civil War History, and Westward Expansion
Research Interests:
The scholars who have studied popular sovereignty have centered their analysis on three critical issues. First, they have sought to explain the origins of the doctrine. While students of the sectional controversy have generally agreed... more
The scholars who have studied popular sovereignty have centered their analysis on three critical issues. First, they have sought to explain the origins of the doctrine. While students of the sectional controversy have generally agreed that popular sovereignty emerged in the late 1840s, ...