Nelson L. Dawson holds a PhD from the University of Kentucky and taught college-level history for 30 years. He also served as Director of Research and Interpretation for the Kentucky Historical Society and held other leadership positions in Kentucky history societies.

Dr. Dawson has been editor of the Filson History Quarterly and, most recently, The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society. He has published three previous books in addition to contributing articles to a variety of US history journals.

Americans who came of age after 1960 have been shown a Democratic Party that sought to promote equality by giving people the tools to get out of poverty by providing subsidized housing, economic opportunity, aid to education, and other massive...

Americans who came of age after 1960 have been shown a Democratic Party that sought to promote equality by giving people the tools to get out of poverty by providing subsidized housing, economic opportunity, aid to education, and other massive programs aimed at overcoming the disadvantages faced by people of color.

Yet here we are today. The Democratic Party represents the ghastly end-product of a devolution which reflects all the current politically-correct distortions of plain common sense.

The book traces history and reveals the Democratic Party’s continuing cynical exploitation of today’s African Americans. Clearly, the Democratic Party has not been magically delivered from its sordid past rooted in slavery and segregation.

Despite this systemic failure, the Democratic Party has benefited from a pervasive politically correct mindset in both the popular culture and in academia. Most historians are sympathetic to the Party, overlooking and rationalizing its flaws. This book is a needed corrective to the default perspective given in U.S. history textbooks and elsewhere. It provides a scholarly critique demonstrating that this perspective is indefensible. The book is an extended analysis based on wide-ranging, detailed research in the historical literature; it fits into a unique niche. It is a well-documented analysis combining lively, accessible prose with thorough scholarship.

The work will be of interest to the historical community as well as general readers interested in U.S. history and politics. Since it is critical of the Democratic Party, it will also be of special interest to political conservatives.

However, its purpose transcends partisanship. It is intended to provide a solid historical foundation which is essential for the cogent reevaluation of public policy. We cannot shape a viable future without confronting the realities of our past.

Chapter One: The Glorious Cause or a Kind of Revolution? 1776-1783

Chapter Two: If You Can Keep It: The Making of the Constitution, 1783-1789

Chapter Three: Party Games: The 1790s Chapter Four: Utopia in Power, 1800-1815

Chapter Four: Utopia In Power, 1800–1815 51 

Chapter Five: A Lucid Interval, 1815-1828

Chapter Six: King Andrew and the People, 1828-1837

Chapter Seven: Adrift: From Jackson to Polk, 1837-1844

Chapter Eight: War, Arsenic, and Compromise, 1844-1850

Chapter Nine: House Dividing, 1850-1860

Chapter Ten: House Divided, 1860-1865

Chapter Eleven: Massive Resistance: Reconstruction, 1865-1877

Chapter Twelve: Ongoing Follies: To the Urban Plantation