The Politics of Union: Northern Politics during the Civil War - Softcover

Rawley, James A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0803289022 ISBN 13: 9780803289024

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, 1980

Synopsis

“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 North—with 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.

About this title

About the Author:

James A. Rawley (1916-2005).

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Publication date: 1980
• ISBN 10: 0803289022
• ISBN 13: 9780803289024
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 202