ABSTRACT
The middle period of American history, roughly from the time when the new middle class begins to appear until it commenced its political and cultural majority in the twentieth century, is referred to by Morton Keller as the "party-democratic regime". The early and mid-nineteenth century saw the release of class tension, often in a violent manner. As the antebellum period moved forward, the espousal of egalitarian and Revolutionary rhetoric led to organized forms of hostility. With the economic boom that came with the Civil War, organized labor experienced a continuing resurgence. Laborers were often subject to a draft that their wealthy counterparts could avoid by paying bounties, and workers also suffered from the inflation produced by the war economy. Not commonly recognized by most Americans, the working conditions and violence of the nineteenth century, the most extreme in American history and at times bordering on a national violent insurgency, has been well described, all within the language of class conflict.
