No Party Now: Politics in the Civil War NorthDuring the Civil War, Northerners fought each other in elections with almost as much zeal as they fought Southern rebels on the battlefield. Yet politicians and voters alike claimed that partisanship was dangerous in a time of national crisis. In No Party Now, Adam I. P. Smith challenges the prevailing view that political processes in the North somehow helped the Union be more stable and effective in the war. Instead, Smith argues, early efforts to suspend party politics collapsed in the face of divisions over slavery and the purpose of the war. At the same time, new contexts for political mobilization, such as the army and the avowedly non-partisan Union Leagues, undermined conventional partisan practices. The administration's supporters soon used the power of anti-party discourse to their advantage by connecting their own antislavery arguments to a powerful nationalist ideology. By the time of the 1864 election they sought to de-legitimize partisan opposition with slogans like "No Party Now But All For Our Country!" No Party Now offers a reinterpretation of Northern wartime politics that challenges the "party period paradigm" in American political history and reveals the many ways in which the unique circumstances of war altered the political calculations and behavior of politicians and voters alike. As Smith shows, beneath the superficial unity lay profound differences about the implications of the war for the kind of nation that the United States was to become. |
Contents
The Patriotic Imperative | |
The Emancipation Proclamation and the Party System | |
The Union Leagues and the Emergence of Antiparty | |
The Army Loyalty and Dissent | |
Slavery Reconstruction and the Union Party | |
Emancipation and Antiparty Nationalism in the 1864 | |
Bibliography | |
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Abraham Lincoln American Political antebellum antiparty antislavery army August August Belmont ballot Basler Batterson Blair Campaign document candidate Charles Chicago Club Collection of Broadsides Committee Confederate Congressional District Connecticut conservative Constitution convention Copperheads Crisis Democracy Democratic Party discourse editor electoral emancipation Emancipation Proclamation George Harvard University Henry Historical Society Houghton Library Illinois State Historical issue James John John Murray Forbes Journal League of Philadelphia letter Library of Congress Lincoln Papers Loyal Publication Society loyalty Massachusetts McClellan military newspaper Nicolay nomination Northern November October Ohio opposition Oxford University Press pamphlet partisan partisanship party politics Party System Party’s patriotic peace Pennsylvania People’s platform political culture politicians President presidential election Proclamation quoted radical rebellion rebels Reconstruction republic Republican Party Richard Yates secession Second Party System September Seward Simon Cameron slavery South Southern Speech Thurlow Weed Tribune Union League Union Party Unionists voters War Democrats wartime Washburne Washington William