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. |
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Page vii
... appealed for votes, did it alter the substance and structure of party competition, or the meaning of popular political engagement? Unlike their southern counterparts, most northerners on the home front experienced the Civil War at arms ...
... appealed for votes, did it alter the substance and structure of party competition, or the meaning of popular political engagement? Unlike their southern counterparts, most northerners on the home front experienced the Civil War at arms ...
Page 7
... appeal driven by the moral power inherent in the wartime themes of emancipation and national redemption. On another level, though, something of the complexity of wartime political culture is lost if we depict the antiparty discourse ...
... appeal driven by the moral power inherent in the wartime themes of emancipation and national redemption. On another level, though, something of the complexity of wartime political culture is lost if we depict the antiparty discourse ...
Page 13
... appeal to a call for a patriotism that transcended party. More important, Washington's warning, soaked in classical republican assumptions about “cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men,” chimed with the mid-nineteenth century variant ...
... appeal to a call for a patriotism that transcended party. More important, Washington's warning, soaked in classical republican assumptions about “cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men,” chimed with the mid-nineteenth century variant ...
Page 18
... appeal, for example, was that, as a soldier and as a farmer, he seemed to be a man who embodied the enduring spirit of republican simplicity and therefore above the party fray. Jackson's campaign biographers portrayed him as a “private ...
... appeal, for example, was that, as a soldier and as a farmer, he seemed to be a man who embodied the enduring spirit of republican simplicity and therefore above the party fray. Jackson's campaign biographers portrayed him as a “private ...
Page 21
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Contents
3 | |
9 | |
2 The Patriotic Imperative | 25 |
3 The Emancipation Proclamation and the Party System | 49 |
4 The Union Leagues and the Emergence of Antiparty Nationalism | 67 |
5 The Army Loyalty and Dissent | 85 |
6 Slavery Reconstruction and the Union Party | 101 |
7 Emancipation and Antiparty Nationalism in the 1864 Election Campaign | 124 |
Conclusion | 154 |
Notes | 167 |
Bibliography | 223 |
Index | 259 |
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Abraham Lincoln administration American appeal argued army August battle Boston Brooklyn Daily Eagle called campaign candidate cause Charles Chicago citizens City Civil Civil War claim Club Collection Committee Congressional Connecticut conservative Constitution convention crisis culture Daily Democratic Party Democrats Division draft editor effect efforts election electoral emancipation example explained former George Henry History Illinois issue James John July June leaders leading letter Lincoln Papers Loyal loyalty majority March McClellan means meeting military newspaper nominated North Northern November October Ohio opposed opposition organization partisan partisanship patriotic peace Pennsylvania Philadelphia platform political politicians President presidential quoted radical rebel rebellion reported Representatives republic Republican Party rhetoric September Seward slavery Society soldiers South Southern speech tion Union League Union Party Unionists United University Press victory vote voters warned wartime Whigs wrote York