supported at the outset by the National Science Foundation. We pre-
sented the results of our joint efforts in a number of papers and pub-
lished articles in the late 1970's. I am in Professor Benson's debt for a
stimulating association that was an extraordinary experience and an
important intellectual benchmark for me. Circumstances dictated that
the collaboration be put aside for other things. Nevertheless, what-
ever is here has been richly informed by our original interaction.

Allan G. Bogue has, once again, contributed beyond any calls of
duty or friendship to the development of my ideas about nineteenth-
century American politics and about the framing and quality of my
argument. I owe a great deal to him. He, Nelson Polsby, and David
Brady were splendid intellectual companions while I composed the
first draft of the book, and they have remained vigorously supportive
and helpful since. Samuel T. McSeveney demonstrated, once again,
the unusual quality of his friendship by reading and commenting on
what I have written and by being immediately responsive to my ques-
tions as well as charitable and helpful about my notions and argu-
ments. Phyllis Field and Richard L. McCormick, at the outset, and
Lance Davis, Robert Bates, Stanley Engerman, Marc Kruman, and M.
Philip Lucas, as the manuscript progressed, were always ready and
willing to wrestle with my ideas. At Cornell, two challenging col-
leagues, Walter LeFeber and Theodore J. Lowi, have done much over
the years to make me think through what I believe about American
political history. Almost daily conversations with Glenn Altschuler
have been both provoking and very important to me. His sharp and
incisive reading improved the manuscript in innumerable ways.
Others at Cornell who influenced my thinking include Stuart Blumin,
Michael Kammen, R. Laurence Moore, and Mary Beth Norton. I
thank each of them.

As always, I cannot say enough positive things about the resources
and staff of the Cornell University Library. To single out Alain Seznec,
Marie Gast, and Carolyn Spicer for special mention in no way lessens
my gratitude to the rest of a fine group of people. The Library of
Congress, more anonymously, was also an important source of fugitive
and rare nineteenth-century political materials. A great deal of my
work with political pamphlets was done there as well as in the magnifi-
cent collection of the New York Public Library's American History
Room, now lamentably closed as a separate entity. I am grateful to two
members of the staff of the latter institution, Jerome Stoker and Leon
Weidman, who guided me through its material.

Part of this book was drafted in the congenial atmosphere of the
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto,
California. The excellent support of its staff, led by the then director,

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