Northern Democrats

doi:10.1017/9781316650707.020

19 - Northern Democrats

from Part IV - Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2019

Adam I. P. Smith

Edited by

Aaron Sheehan-Dean

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Aaron Sheehan-Dean: Affiliation:
Louisiana State University

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Summary

That almost half the Northern electorate continued to vote for Democrats is one of the worst understood aspects of the Civil War experience. In too many accounts of the war, Northern Democrats either do not figure at all, or do so only as morally blind obstructionists on the wrong side of history. Yet there is a case for saying that rather than being peripheral to the narrative of the war, Northern Democrats should be center stage. Because the route to Confederate victory lay in convincing the North that the cost of coercion was too high to be worth paying, the views and actions of that large and fluctuating group of white Northerners who had never joined the Republican bandwagon was crucial.

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of the American Civil War , pp. 394 - 413

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316650707.020 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2019

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References

Key Works

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19 - Northern Democrats

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