Divided Sovereignties: Race, Nationhood, and Citizenship in Nineteenth-Century America

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the concept of divided sovereignty was used to describe the division of power between state and federal authorities and the potential for one nation to reside within the boundaries of another. Rochelle Raineri Zuck argues that four populations - the Cherokees, African Americans, Irish Americans, and Chinese immigrants - were most often referred to as racial and ethnic nations within the nation and used the concept of divided sovereignty to assert alternative visions of sovereignty and collective allegiance. Their stories intersected with issues that dominated nineteenth-century public argument and contributed to the Civil War.

\n Format: Paperback / softback
\n Length: 304 pages
\n Publication date: 30 November 2019
\n Publisher: University of Georgia Press
\n

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the concept of divided sovereignty emerged as a central theme in debates about the construction of American nationhood and national citizenship. It referred to the division of power between state and federal authorities or the possibility of one nation residing within the geopolitical boundaries of another. The political and social realities of the nineteenth century, such as immigration, slavery, westward expansion, Indigenous treaties, and financial panics, heightened anxieties about threats to national or state sovereignty.

Rochelle Raineri Zuck argues that during the decades between the ratification of the Constitution and the publication of Sutton Grigg's novel Imperium in Imperio in 1899, four populations were most often referred to as racial and ethnic nations within the nation: the Cherokees, African Americans, Irish Americans, and Chinese immigrants. These groups used the concept of divided sovereignty to assert alternative visions of sovereignty and collective allegiance, not just ethnic or racial identity. Writers and orators from these groups engaged with the idea of divided sovereignty to gain political traction and complicate existing formations of nationhood and citizenship.

Zuck's book explores the concept of divided sovereignty through five chapters that focus on these four populations. Through these chapters, Zuck reveals how constructions of sovereignty shed light on a wide range of concerns, including regional and sectional tensions, territorial expansion and jurisdiction, economic uncertainty, racial, ethnic, and religious differences, international relations, immigration, and arguments about personhood, citizenship, and nationhood.

The stories of these groups intersected with the dominant issues of nineteenth-century public argument, contributing to the Civil War. Zuck's work provides valuable insights into the complex and multifaceted nature of sovereignty and its role in shaping American history and society.

\n Weight: 464g\n
Dimension: 151 x 228 x 25 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9780820356808\n \n