Francis W. Pickens and the Politics of Destruction

Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1986. First Edition. Octavo with dark grey boards in light grey pictorial jacket; light grey endpapers; xiii, 256 pages: portraits; index; 24 cm. Near fine copy with ink library stamp to title page; else clean, bright and tight; in near fine jacket with small chip at head of spine, now in archival mylar. Hardcover. ISBN: 080781699X

In antebellum South Carolina, politics was a passion interlaced with calculation and intrigue. John Edmunds offers a complete examination of Francis Pickens and uses him as a vehicle to reveal the labyrinths of antebellum South Carolina political life. This novel exploration of what was perhaps the most archaic political, social, and economic system in the nation provides another dimension to the study of South Carolina history. - Jacket flap. Contents: Young radical. A provocative course. A vile association. Harbinger of doom. A litany of destruction. An insolvable dilemma. A mere office-seeker. The rose of Texas. A fire-eater down to the ground. Governor and council. There can lay no peace for me. | South Carolina, South Carolina Politics and government 1775-1865