In the Habit of Acting Together: The Emergence of the Whig Party in Louisiana, 1828-1840

This new political history on the formation of the Whig Party is a path breaking analysis of Louisiana politics during the 1830s. From award winning historian and commentator, Henry O. Robertson, this book is a fascinating presentation of how Louisiana differed in many ways from the American political mainstream yet remained oddly parallel in other regards. Economic development, ethnicity, slavery, and regional rivalry between sections of the state had a hand in creating the issues and ideas that fired the imagination of early Whigs. Colorful characters and exciting elections make up this lively history which every aficionado of Louisiana’s political past will want to read. The Whigs are hardly known today because the party existed for only a few decades before the Civil War. Lost have been the struggles and triumphs of the Whig organizers who helped guide the destiny of the state during the boom period of the 1830s. This book attempts to recover that past and add a sharper perspective to the scholarly literature on the creation of the Whig party. Read and enjoy this thoroughly researched and well-written account of what one early Whig organizer called friends who got into “the habit of acting together.”