Abstract
ABSTRACT: Partisan relationships have always been fundamental to American politics. In antebellum Pennsylvania the personal and political partnership of Democrats James Buchanan and Jehu Glancy Jones was absolutely critical to state and national events. While much scholarship exists on Buchanan, few historians have examined the life of Jones, a man of undeniable importance to Buchanan’s rise to the presidency, the passage of now-infamous antebellum legislation, and the fracturing of the Democratic Party. By studying Jones’s career, we can better appreciate the role of political underlings, dispel myths about the motives and principles of antebellum Democrats, and clarify the links between state and national politics.