The Politics of Union: Northern Politics During the Civil War?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. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
CHAPTER | 6 |
The Appeal to Arms | 18 |
Congress Wages War | 44 |
Liberty and Land | 57 |
Slavery and Politics | 71 |
A Crisis in Northern Unity | 89 |
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abolitionist Abraham Lincoln administration amendment American antislavery army authority bill Blacks cabinet chairman Civil committee Confederacy Confederate confiscation congressional conscription constitutional Copperhead crisis Davis draft election emancipation Emancipation Proclamation enacted executive factions favored federacy Federal Fernando Wood Fessenden finance Fort Sumter freedom Frémont governor habeas corpus Henry Winter Davis House issue Jefferson Davis July Kentucky labor leader legal tender legislation legislature Liberty lican Lincoln loyal Lyman Trumbull majority Maryland McClellan measures ment military militia million national banks navy Negroes North Northern Ohio opposition passed peace platform political president presidential proclamation radical radical Republicans railroad reconstruction Repub Republican party resolution seceded secession secretary sectional Senate session Seward Seymour slavery soldiers South Southern Stanton Stevens Sumner Supreme Court tariff taxation Thirty-seventh Congress tion troops Unionists United Vallandigham victory Virginia volunteers vote voters War Democrats writ of habeas York