The cares of your country are a paramount duty - the Republicans in 1861; now is the time for making money, by honest contracts, out of the government - war bonds; a centralization of power, such as Hamilton might have eulogized as magnificent - monetary legislation; directing the legislation of the country to the improvement of the country - tariff and tax legislation; a large crop is more than a great victory - agricultural legislation; it was statesmanship to give treeless prairies value - the transcontinental railroad; see that all their blessings are the result of their own labour - republicans and slavery.
The virtues of this book are that it fills an important gap between two classics in the field: Eric Foner's Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men and David Montgomery's Beyond Equality. Those books outlined the Republican party's antebellum social and economic ideology and its postwar attitudes toward labor; Richardson's book narrates in detail the party's economic and social legislation during the war, and links this legislation effectively to the coherent ideology, or world-view, of the party's principal spokesmen. Richardson does an excellent job of describing the economic and social ideas of leading Republican theorists and politicians. The writing is clear and the narratives of congressional debates and legislation are lucid. -- James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
Heather Cox Richardson is Associate Professor of American History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
This is a welcome and well-written study. It is political rather
than economic history, charting the evolution of particular
measures without resort to models or econometrics. The outline of
the story is familiar. During the Civil War Congress launched
politics of lasting importance: a government guaranteed
inconvertible currency, a high tariff with protection, the National
Banking, Pacific Railroad, and Homestead Acts. This book takes up
each topic in turn…and analyses their often complex legislative
history… The principal sources are the Congressional Globe,
Executive Documents, Miscellaneous Documents, and congressional
reports, but they are buttressed by wide knowledge of other
contemporary printed and manuscript records. A very useful
historiographical essay is included in the bibliography. In all,
this is a model monograph on a significant subject.
*American Studies in Europe*
Richardson studies public action and legislative outcomes in order
to compare theory with practice. She is far too good a historian to
get drawn into unnecessary debates which would detract from the
story she is telling, but one of the most compelling reasons for
reading this book is precisely the light that it sheds on what
abstract ideas like ‘party ideology’ might actually mean when they
are forced through the processing plant of congressional
policy-making… The cleverness and clarity of this book are a
product of its relatively tight focus… She lucidly sets out her
evidence, elegantly explaining the procedural manoeuvers and the
personal influences which shaped legislation… [This is] an
admirable book about congressional policy-making, filling a
long-overdue gap in the vast literature on the Civil War.
*H-Net Reviews*
The virtues of this book are that it fills an important gap between
two classics in the field: Eric Foner’s Free Soil, Free Labor, Free
Men and David Montgomery’s Beyond Equality. Those books outlined
the Republican party’s antebellum social and economic ideology and
its postwar attitudes toward labor; Richardson’s book narrates in
detail the party’s economic and social legislation during the war,
and links this legislation effectively to the coherent ideology, or
world-view, of the party’s principal spokesmen. Richardson does an
excellent job of describing the economic and social ideas of
leading Republican theorists and politicians. The writing is clear
and the narratives of congressional debates and legislation are
lucid.
*James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil
War Era*
An excellent study of the economic ideas of the Republican party
during the Civil War, and more particularly, of the legislation
passed by the Civil War Congresses (the 37th and 38th Congresses).
The real strength of Richardson’s book is her ability to lucidly
explain Republican economic thought and untangle the complicated
legislative process by which this thought was converted into
economic legislation. The book skillfully analyzes the rise of
cross-cutting influences. Richardson’s discussion of bonds, banks,
and the currency is the clearest analysis available of these
exceedingly complex subjects. An important contribution to Civil
War historiography.
*William E. Gienapp, author of The Origins of the Republican
Party, 1852–1856*
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