Episode 324: Civil War Politics

It’s no secret that historians love to create periods and errors, and then physically argue about them. We love to talk about the long 18th century, the short 18th century, the long 19th century, the short 19th century, the short 20th century — and God knows what will say about the 21st, but we will have something to say about it, of that you can be sure. But often by breaking things into discrete periods such as antebellum, Civil War, and reconstruction, we miss commonalities between periods of time that amount, from the perspective of a medieval or classical historian or anyone focused on the longer duration, to just a few decades. Paul Escott’s new book The Civil War Political Tradition: Ten Portraits of Those That Formed It likewise refuses to divide things into neat and discrete boxes. Rather it profiles very different people who nevertheless all endorsed or rebelled against a political tradition that emphasized individual ambition, short-term thinking, compromise, and a pragmatic approach to problems—a tradition that did not, however, have the necessary power to resolve the crisis over slavery and race. Paul D. Escott is the Reynolds Professor of History Emeritus at Wake Forest University. He was last on the podcast in Episode 294. For Further Investigation Think of this as a background to last week's conversation about James Garfield; he's an example of a politician whose life and views were completely framed and formed by the Civil War. We've talked about John C. Calhoun with Bob Elder; and with Michael Burlingame about Abraham Lincoln. Note that Burlingame and Escott have different perspectives on Lincoln. There is a Papers of Jefferson Davis project, and they have a bibliography of works related to the best qualified American President ever. The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, which has an excellent web page on the reach of Uncle Tom's Cabin Albion Winegar Tourgée (1838-1905)