virginia: the old dominion

The emergence of the two-party system in the 1830s led to the democratization of the nation and to decades of heated dispute about democracy. In Democratizing the Old Dominion, the first comprehensive study of antebellum Virginia politics, William G. Shade demonstrates that Virginia typified the nation more closely than did any other state both in the emergence and development of the two-party system and in economic development.

William G. Shade is Professor of History and Director of American Studies at Lehigh University. His publications include Banks or No Banks: The Money Issue in Western Politics, 1832-1865; The Evolution of Electoral Systems; and Our American Sisters: Women in American Life and Thought.