The Civil War as Institutional Fulfillment

Alexander, Thomas B.

doi:10.2307/2207054

Cited by 22 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Northern leaders recognized that party loyalties among voters remained strong and potent, given continuities among Democrats and the anti-Democratic faction holding over from the prior party system (T. B. Alexander 1981;Holt 1978;Kalmoe 2020;Silbey 1977).…”

Section: Motivations Among the Mass Publicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Partisanship and Racial Attitudes in U.S. Civil War Enlistment

Ramanathan

Kalmoe

2022

J. Race Ethnicity Politics

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In this article, we investigate why millions of northern white men volunteered to fight in the Civil War. Prior studies have found that Republican partisanship played a significant role in boosting Union enlistment but do not test the competing hypothesis that views about slavery and race motivated them instead. Such views were highly salient among party elites before and during the war, which was sparked by a presidential election between parties divided over the expansion of Black enslavement. However, among the white mass public, we argue that partisanship rather than race-related attitudes explains patterns of war mobilization. Linking Union war participation records with election returns, we show that county-level war participation is better explained by Republican partisanship rather than views about the status of Black Americans (as measured by support for equal suffrage referenda and the Free Soil party). Analyzing a sample of partisan newspaper issues, we further show that Republican elites de-emphasized slavery as they sought to mobilize mass war participation while antiwar Democrats emphasized antiabolition and white supremacy, suggesting each party’s elites saw antislavery messaging as ineffective or even detrimental in mobilizing mass enlistment. This analysis offers additional evidence on the power of partisanship in producing mass violence and sheds more light on political behavior during a critical period in the history of U.S. racial politics.

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Section: Motivations Among the Mass Publicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Partisanship and Racial Attitudes in U.S. Civil War Enlistment

Ramanathan

Kalmoe

2022

J. Race Ethnicity Politics

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“…One of the authors helped assemble our set and drew from it for that volume. I recombined county-aggregate data from this set for the extended counterfactual reconstruction of states as Thomas Jefferson originally proposed, to suggest the impact of decisions about state size and boundaries on sectional controversy and secession, for my presidential paper at the Southern Historical Association (Alexander, 1981). I am pleased to report that I was not impeached for offering a counterfactual.…”

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confidence: 99%

Ex Parte County Aggregates Et Cetera

Alexander¹

1987

Social Science History

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The fourth president of our Association made a presentation totally different from those of his predecessors, stating that he wanted to interdict any presumption that such addresses ought to fit a particular mold. Subsequently, these addresses have been comfortingly varied—the eighth just not given at all in the cheery din of a great Chinese restaurant in Toronto. I feel free, therefore, to do exactly what I please today, and I appreciate the supportive precedents.

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Running to Lose?: John C. Breckinridge and the Presidential Election of 1860

Jenkins

Morris

2006

Electoral Studies

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The Civil War as Institutional Fulfillment

Cited by 22 publications

References 1 publication

Partisanship and Racial Attitudes in U.S. Civil War Enlistment

Partisanship and Racial Attitudes in U.S. Civil War Enlistment

Ex Parte County Aggregates Et Cetera

Running to Lose?: John C. Breckinridge and the Presidential Election of 1860

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