The Politics of Union

by Rawley, James A.

• ISBN13: 9780803289024
• ISBN10: 0803289022
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1980-11-01
• Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr

Summary

"The best general account of politics in the North," as David Herbert Donald calls this book, is also the first one-volume history of its subject. Abraham Lincoln's single goal of saving the Union required not simply subduing the South but contending as well with divisiveness in the Northwith refractory state officials, draft resisters, peace advocates, secret organizations, with Northern Democrats (too often seen only as Copperheads or as traitors to the Union), and with powerful Republicans who often vocally disagreed with Lincoln's policies. In this account, Radical Republicans represent consensus with Lincoln more than conflict, sectional more than economic interests, and party over faction. Largely, dissent was heard and accommodated; and, if the federal legislation of the time did amount to a Second American Revolution, it emerged from the conflicts, within the North as well as against the South, of a nation at war. The outcome was a nation not only saved but strengthened and slavery ended.

Author Biography

James A. Rawley (1916-2005).

Table of Contents

Preface to the Bison Book Edition
Acknowledgments
Introduction	p. 1
The Rupture of the Republic	p. 5
The Appeal to Arms	p. 18
A Giant Committee of Ways and Means	p. 30
Congress Wages War	p. 44
Liberty and Land	p. 57
Slavery and Politics	p. 71
A Crisis in Northern Unity	p. 89
The National Spirit is Growing Stronger	p. 104
Dissidence and Decision	p. 119
The Sharp Advance of Union Policy	p. 135
The Referendum of 1864	p. 154
The Union Saved but Not Restored	p. 164
A New Federalism	p. 183
Guide to Further Study	p. 190
Index	p. 199
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