Bookshelf: Maine (Chapter 9)

 

 

     

Maine: The Pine Tree State from Prehistory to the Present (Judd, Churchill, and Eastman)

Chapter 9: Reform Movements & Party Reformation 1820-1861

Drs. Richard R. Wescott and Edward O. Shriver open this chapter by summarizing the journalist Seba Smith's observations as he toured Maine in 1825, but most of the chapter is a review of the political jockeying between members of the Democratic Republican party that led to the splintering of the party that led to the creation of the Democratic Party and Republican Party in 1828.

The middle section of the chapter focuses on various reform movements in Maine, including the pacifist movement, the temperance movement, and the abolitionist movement.

And the conclusion of the chapter once again returns to party politics, this time the reconfiguration of political parties in the U.S. and Maine caused primarily by differences of policies related to temperance and slavery.