SGACW Chapter One

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SECOND-GUESSING THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR:
A Reassessment of Revisionism and Repressibility

Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the historiography is the antebellum roots of the two major perspectives--slavery-culturalism and Revisionism. Both draw inspiration and validation from arguments developed in the 1850s over the relative merits of confrontation versus compromise, an issue that held centre-stage during the now famous Lincoln-Douglas debates. Yet the antebellum roots of Revisionism or "repressibility," personified by individuals like Stephen A. Douglas, have been mysteriously forgotten ever since the closing of the war. This in itself provides some explanation as to why such a curious charge as "counterfactualism" has been levied repeatedly against the school. No doubt the momentum of military victory crushed any hope that the war itself would be second-guessed by historians from the wartime generation, practically all of whom identified with the Northern cause. Gradually the perspective of what Kenneth M. Stampp calls the "New England partisans" became entrenched to the point of being virtually synonymous with any respectable interpretation of events. 1 As Ramsdell has noted, "The Southern cause was as much on the defensive in this battle of interpretations as ever the Confederacy had been on bloodier fields."2

This chapter will trace the development of the historiography from the late nineteenth century down to the present, with particular emphasis placed on the continuing struggle between the two major schools. The purpose here is to offer a sampling of the issues and tactics employed by each interpretation in order to provide the reader with a working knowledge of the basic premises and assumptions, as well as strengths and weaknesses, of these schools. The survey will follow a rough chronology to highlight the challenge-response interplay between them. As we shall see, slavery-culturalism's dominance may have less to do with superior merit than the comforting assurance it provides Americans in general, and historians in particular.

Most twentieth-century individuals are well aware that victory in war is a mere prelude to another challenge--winning the peace. Very often this translates into silencing the losing side, as well as any peace activists whose voices may have been heard during or even prior to war. After all, there is little point in military action if it brings neither resolution of contention nor legitimation of the violent course chosen. But these goals can be achieved in a variety of ways. Under more brutal occupational regimes, potentially destabilizing individuals are simply eliminated or institutionalized. However, when the victor's cultural heritage is based on a belief in the dignity of the individual, such summary action would be culpable even in the eyes of the triumphant. In such a case it is more effective to stigmatize and marginalize alternative perspectives, whether through the rather direct means of social, political, or economic coercion, or the more subtle approach of "discrediting" the troublesome paradigm. By discrediting a viewpoint, and ostracizing its adherents, the "freedom" regime avoids the visible contradiction of physical walls and watchtowers by erecting a conceptual framework which limits the boundaries of "acceptable" historical inquiry for future generations. The emerging "intellectual" construct, or "dominant paradigm," creates the subtle impression that the marginal ized willingly imprison themselves. Hence the illusion of "freedom" endures.

When Kenneth M. Stampp referred to the postwar dominance of the New England school, he specifically meant a group of writers whom Thomas J. Pressly has called "Unionist historians."3 Both historiographers agree that a rather one-sided perspective emerged from the conflict, as indicated by the work of such contemporary historians as James Schouler and James Ford Rhodes,4 both of whom accepted the concept of "the perpetual Union" as symbolic of America's destiny as a beacon of freedom in a world of despots. Any challenge to this world view was bound to be condemned, particularly when it involved the secession of a slave-holding section from a larger Union ostensibly founded on the principle of universal equality. Pressly explains that

James Ford Rhodes' History Of The Civil War was an early celebration of the Lincoln legend, tracing the Republican leader's presidential career as closely as the fortunes of war. It begins by declaring his election the "great factor in the destruction of slavery" and ends by affirming his status as the "great man of the Civil War."7 But the true extent of this hero-worship is unveiled in the final paragraph with a playful but earnestly offered three-part comparison of Lincoln with Julius Caesar:

By century's end the good-versus-evil dichotomy had been tempered somewhat, but accounts continued to highlight the centrality of irreconcilable moral, social, and material differences to the coming of war.9 The notion of "irrepressibility" remained firmly entrenched. There after, accounts offered by the school still focused on the South's moral accountability, but downplayed intentionality in favour of more empathetic lamentations for a "culture" left behind by the ethical and material "progress" of greater American society.10 The new century brought the "irrepressibility" school its first significant challenge with the work of Charles A. Beard. For him, there were indeed two cultures vying for supremacy within one nation, but to define them in terms of the moral relativity of labour systems was to miss the wider point that the struggle was between Northern capitalist and Southern agrarian elites.11 The mode of labour utilized by each may have been significant, but remained secondary to a deeper principle: A labour system was not synonymous with the economic system it served.12 In simple terms, slavery happened to be the basis of Southern agriculture, rather than the inverse. And it was agricultural concerns, into which slavery factored, that defined Southern interests. Similarly, "free" labour was developed to serve the needs of capitalism.

Instead of viewing the tariff and bank wars of the Jacksonian era as indicative of the planters' deeper fear of having slavery undermined, Beard took the concerns of the Southern aristocracy at face value, arguing that agricultural interests understandably might oppose protective tariffs, internal improvements, and finance schemes deemed "advantageous to business enterprise."13 Eventually slavery itself came under heavy attack by the 1850s, causing the Southern elite to defend this aspect of its interests also, which proved them quite consistent. Given that territorial control translated into Congressional power under the American legislative system, these leaders looked to the "open" lands of the West as the best guarantee of perpetuating their interests. Unfortunately for the Union, Northern capitalists also had fought tariff and bank wars, on the opposing side of course, and were well versed in the potential for exploiting the slavery issue in their own drive for frontier expansion.14 Clearly the lines were drawn.

On the surface Beard's approach was deterministic, a nuance criticized by his later slavery-culturalist critics who remained mysteriously oblivious to their own brand of determinism. But to his thinking it remained the leaders and politicians, not the masses, who were responsible for the violent climax to this essentially economic confrontation. He pointed out that the debates over federal jurisdiction versus states' rights beg an intriguing question:

Beard stopped short of declaring economics the sole determinant in political affairs, but his warning to the incumbent school barely concealed his disgust for the moralistic idealism so highly esteemed by many of his colleagues:

In the wake of Beard's groundbreaking demand for historical accountability came the Revisionists. Not twenty years had passed before Ramsdell attempted to legitimize the request by resurrecting the arguments of antebellum moderates and supporting the accuracy of their claims with the benefit of twentieth-century hindsight. In 1929 he published "The Natural Limits Of Slavery Expansion," resurrecting the antebellum position that a rational assessment of climatic and demographic realities in the territories could have defused the atmosphere of confrontation, especially in regard to the emotionally stirring Kansas- Nebraska Act and its spinoff crisis, "Bleeding Kansas."19 Ramsdell argued along the lines of Stephen A. Douglas, maintaining that the arid soils of the Southwest and cooler climes of the upper Midwest would have proven inhospitable to slave-grown agricultural staples like rice, cotton, hemp, and tobacco.20 Moreover, westward bound settlers hailed predominantly from Northern states, carrying with them a "free soil" ideology that no doubt would have informed the future of Western political and cultural development.21 Expanding on this, however, he offered the twentieth-century assesssment that slavery's primary cash crop-- cotton--was facing a glut in the international market by the late 1850s. Not only would this have undermined slavery's profitability, but the very act of expanding westward, even if it had been possible, would have ensured its eventual demise as a viable system by further augmenting overproduction.22

The clear message was that slavery's threat to the territories, to Northern culture, or even to the nation's future moral character, was exaggerated by antislavery leaders, with devastating consequences for sectional reconciliation. For Ramsdell, slavery itself was "repressible." Therefore one must question any theory of "irrepressibility" that argued for its centrality to Civil War causation.

In the mid-1930s Avery Craven developed more thoroughly the conspiracy corollary implicit in the perspectives of both Beard and Ramsdell. Craven's position substituted Beard's ambitious economic elites with mere political opportunists prepared to exploit potentially explosive issues for their own gain.23 The moderately contentious issue of slavery had been managed successfully for several generations; suddenly it spiralled out of control in the 1850s. For him, this sudden incapacity to cope was highly suspect, for it paralleled the rise of an antislavery party whose avowed allegiance to "higher law" barely concealed the political and economic pragmatism behind its "free soil" ideology. He reminded the reader that

Craven argued that "free soil's" political potency was more a reflection of the average Northerner's frustration with industrial society than a barometer of moral indignation.25 Western land held the promise of escape and social equality, providing it was obtainable and affordable. But consistent Southern opposition to homestead legislation provoked an underlying resentment that begged for the legitimation easily provided by Republican appeals to morality, which all too often ignored socioeconomic realities in all parts of the Union, including the frontier West.26 As Craven darkly observed, the Republican platform offered a "right to hate" on the basis of questionable facts at best and intentional misrepresentation at worst.27

In the end, he concluded, uncompromising agitation ensured the triumph of emotionalism over reason, which clearly threatens the causal relevance of slavery-based cultural determinism. Had contemporary political and social leaders emphasized similarities between the sections instead of differences, the North and South could have celebrated certain aspects of a common heritage and realized the potentially violent cost of alienation and political belligerence.

Only a year before America's entry into World War II, James G. Randall published "The Blundering Generation," an article condemning military conflict in general and the Civil War in particular.28 Essentially a judgement of ineptitude levied at political, economic, and religious elites of the 1850s, this view undeniably reflected his own frustration with Europe's plunge into yet another military holocaust. He attacked the positions of economic and cultural "determinism" as being far too forgiving of "bogus leadership," choosing instead to stress psychosocial causes of war.29 His criticism of the slavery- culturalists was direct:

Despite its fuzzy logic, the essence of Randall's message remains a worthwhile warning to historians too readily forgiving of a people's blind descent into war. (Ironically, a mere four years after the writing of this piece, the Allies would be holding the German people accountable for riding a Hitlerian wave rendered so "warm" and welcoming by the propaganda of Joseph Goebbels.) He expanded upon the Craven position, reaffirming the responsibility of various antebellum leaders for concocting and perpetuating myths, but also extending accountability to an entire generation that allowed itself to be "misled in its unctuary fury."31 As such, Randall went beyond conspiracy theory, reproaching an entire generation for engaging in a costly, "needless war."

The Beardian and Revisionist challenges to the old Unionist interpretation enjoyed considerable success for some time. No doubt two world wars served their arguments well.32 The respectability of Revisionism in particular lasted well into the 1960s, for the continuing efforts of Ramsdell, Craven, and Randall were buttressed by a new generation of historians sceptical of an "optimistic philosophy" of Civil War causation. The works of Henry H. Simms, David H. Donald, David Potter, Elbert B. Smith, and Robert W. Johannsen (to name but a few) developed variations on these themes.33 But other than filing a few rough edges, exposed by predominantly slavery-culturalist critics, the essential position of the Revisionist school remained that the war at least might have been avoided, and the haste with which moderate voices were dismissed had been unwarranted.

By the late 1940s, what was clearly becoming a "slavery-culturalist" perspective (ie. slavery as the central component of cultural alienation leading to war) received renewed impetus, perhaps understandable given the recent moral imperative of defeating fascism, and the Progressivist fascination with perfecting the American experiment.34 By this point, Beardian and Revisionist objections had destroyed former notions of consensus, thus creating what could be considered a true debate. But into the post-Second World War atmosphere of American military supremacy and moral destiny were introduced the works of Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and Allan Nevins.

Asserting that "at bottom, the antislavery impulse was a moral impulse," Schlesinger essentially viewed the war as an emancipation crusade aimed at eradicating slavery's "challenge to the American ethic."35 For decades after the Missouri crisis and compromise of 1820, the nation "turned and twisted desperately to suppress and deny and bury the terrible fact" of slavery. By the 1850s Northerners "were definitely expressing themselves in the crusade against slavery, and in no other national issue."36 Though agreeing that antislavery sentiment "presents a complex problem of historical causation," he nonetheless criticized "historical materialists" for over-emphasizing social and economic factors in the mobilization of such a massive "crusade."37 He observed:

Nowhere did Schlesinger express his allegiance to "irrepressibility" more effectively, however, than when he likened the slavery issue to "a cloud on the horizon" that "rose, black and threatening," then asked "Who could escape the shadow it promised to cast across the Union?"39 His own answer implied there was no escape, asserting that the "promises of democracy . . . had to be redeemed," and thereby affirming his identity as a true champion of the liberal tradition. Stampp has described Allan Nevins' epic account, Ordeal Of The Union, in the following terms:

However, clarity was not forthcoming. Nevins' generalizations consistently diluted his argument. For example, in relating section alism to the territorial issue, he asserted that

Schlesinger and Nevins perhaps represented a consolidation of the slavery-culturalist position by finally backing the moral argument of the old Unionist historians with a theory of cultural estrangement to "explain" how both sections could view their respective causes in a self-righteous light. In simple terms, the South had been honestly misguided by their limited world view rather than purposely negligent of American ideals. By contrast, Revisionists reminded their opponents that the ethical merit of Northern antislavery itself was compromised severely by the tactics employed by its advocates, including their incessant onslaught of propaganda so instrumental to the growing narcissistic belief in Northern cultural superiority. The result was the twisted employment of coercion and intolerance in the name of individual rights and freedoms.

With the lines of debate drawn, Harry V. Jaffa signalled the charge of slavery-culturalism in 1959 with his Crisis Of The House Divided. This laudatory vindication of Lincoln's moral character included a vitriolic denunciation of Stephen Douglas, peppering the Democratic Senator with barely-disguised comparisons between him and Hitler.46 Using the Lincoln-Douglas debates as the forum for discussion and reassessment, Jaffa began by objecting to Revisionist claims that Lincoln had based his strategy on maintaining an illusion of discrepancy between his own position and that of Douglas. Challenging the suggestions that even Abraham Lincoln could be motivated by political ambition, he declared that they might well have charged him with an "immorality . . . beyond treason," for the point of distinction between the two contenders eventually "led the country into fratricidal war."47

Jaffa harboured no doubt that the critical distinction between the sides was one of morality versus amorality, symbolized by their respective programmes of "ultimate extinction" versus "popular sovereignty." To him, the former represented a "moral decision against slavery" with out which "no guarantee for the future was possible."48 The latter represented yet another indecisive compromise strategy proposing to sideline the slavery issue rather than resolve it. Yet Jaffa's view exemplified a classic slavery-culturalist faux pas, for both programmes addressed only the issue of slavery's expansion, leaving it unscathed where it already stood. He exaggerated the moral urgency of Lincoln's position while ignoring Douglas's quite public declarations that "popular sovereignty" would result in a "free soil" frontier, despite its allegedly amoral pragmatism.

However, what his work lacked in objectivity, it made up for in relevance. Its implicit criticism of the Craven position was supplemented by a logical, thought-provoking attack on Ramsdell's "natural limits" thesis. Jaffa pointed out that slavery could have expanded conceptually and technologically, thereby facilitating geographic expansion in a new form uninhibited by the limitations of traditional South ern agriculture.49 This counterfactual speculation served to highlight an area of congruence between the historiography of American slavery and that of Civil War causation, for it underlined the myriad issues that would come to influence the general discussion, including such topics as the flexibility and profitability of slavery, the nature of Southern industrial enterprise, and the economic versus ideological interpretations of the Southern view of slavery. (These issues are addressed in the following chapter.)

The late 1960s and early 1970s brought a Marxian nuance to slavery- culturalism. In the works of Eugene D. Genovese and Eric Foner, cultural determinism shifted its focus from divergence to universal historical processes. Thus far the liberal subschool had presented a picture of two American cultures that developed differently despite a common set of republican ideals. This explosive mix was seen as an unfortunate tangent or quirk in America's pursuit of full democracy and freedom. For the Marxists, however, the dilemma was not about the developmental divergence of Northern and Southern cultures, but rather the failure of the South to develop at all. Hence Genovese's interest in the semi-feudal stagnancy of Southern society was complemented by Foner's look at North ern industrial capitalism. For these two, the antebellum United States contained a fascinating dialectic.

Genovese viewed the South as an enigmatic society that had failed to keep pace with an industrializing world, thus falling behind on the historical continuum of "modernization."50 The result was a semi-feudal culture dominated by an aristocratic elite whose struggle for survival within a wider, more progressive national milieu eventually led to political confrontation, secession and war.51 It was the emphasis on ideology and the concept of "progress" that distinguished Genovese (and Foner) from the Beardian school, for the problem ran much deeper than mere economic interests. For him, Southern economic stagnancy was symptomatic of a slave-holding ideology that encouraged reinvestment in an endangered labour system, rather than instilling a commitment to diversification, mechanization, and eventually free labour.52

In Weberian fashion, Genovese seemed to be arguing that the economic system influenced the culture, but that the culture further entrenched the economic system. In a non-industrial society, slaves were best employed in agricultural pursuits. The ownership of slaves came to represent the wealth of the owner, and hence his suitability for societal leadership. These social and financial dividends further legitimized the purchasing of land and slaves, thereby diverting capital investment away from the development of an industrial infrastructure so crucial to economic development.53 Moreover, as Northern and British industrial expertise matured, the cycle was reinforced, for any fledgling Southern industries faced stiff competition from the cheap production methods used elsewhere. Eventually the slave-labour South squared off against free-labour industrialized cultures in a political and economic duel it could not win.54 Lacking a domestic market of its own, it was hopelessly dependent on the trading whims and good faith of competitors, an ironic circumstance which severely undermined its political clout within both the federal and international contexts.55

If the cotton monopoly and a staples-based economy actually were proving a long-term curse, the narrow world-view of the planters blinded them to this reality. Genovese highlighted the paternalistic nature of Southern society, which derived directly from the psychological development of young Southerners maturing in a slave society.56 Aristocratic males were well aware from an early age that their destiny was to rule, control, and protect their slaves, their families, and society at large. They learned to resent challenges to their authority, whether from within their domain or without. Genovese felt that men accustomed to unquestioning obedience were unlikely to cultivate the patience and understanding required to deal with criticism, especially in such an overtly political forum as the national Congress.57 Already overly- confident in the virtue of their lifestyle, Southern "statesmen" merely closed their ears and minds to the often counterproductive diatribes of Northern politicians.

Foner's studies of Northern society provided the foil for Genovese's portrayal of the South. He revealed a society in which antislavery reflected more than simply moral repugnance, but an ideology originating with the Puritan-Protestant work ethic of early New England, which developed steadily over the centuries into a celebration of the "nobility of labour" as a means to securing the virtues of social mobility and individual improvement in a free and democratic society.58 The spirit of economic innovation permeated the pursuit of material and social advancement, thus promoting an atmosphere encouraging to the development of industrial capitalism and the free labour system so vital to its risky capital ventures.59 These ideological and material circumstances enabled Northern society to keep pace with the "modernization" of Great Britain and Northwestern Europe.

The aristocratic South and its slave-based labour system contradicted Northern ideology by degrading labour, emphasizing class distinction, and robbing African-Americans of the freedom necessary for individual self-improvement. Northern frustration with the national paradox had become acute by the 1850s due to the perpetual political confrontations, and found expression in the rise of the first political party to articulate successfully the Northern view of national destiny.60 Foner felt the Republican Party's brand of "antislavery" fused a moral imperative with the practical assessment of the myriad interests informing the ideological supremacy of "free soil" sentiment. He explained that

Clearly these "opportunities" were threatened by the spectre of slavery's westward expansion, which would jeopardize the availability of cheap land suitable for the small freehold farmer. Without the frontier safety valve to check the growth of the urban proletariat in the Northeast, employment opportunities would dwindle, wages would decline, and the American Dream of social mobility and individual betterment would evaporate.62 Moreover, the dignity of labour would be further under mined by the apparent legitimation of slavery within the Union.63

Unlike Schlesinger, Foner refused to reduce Northern political culture to the singular issue of slavery. He acknowledged the evident force of nativism, and its politically organized expression, in the formation of the American Party (or "Know Nothing" Party). Yet he questioned its relevance to national political fortunes, suggesting its quick demise reflected an incapacity to satisfy the public demand for an antislavery programme.64 Despite conceding a modest nativist element in the Republican Party's platform, Foner maintained that slavery was the primary political issue of the decade, as verified by Lincoln's rapid rise to the Presidency on the promise of ensuring its "ultimate extinction."

Foner's attention to nativism responded to a third challenge to slavery-culturalism, masterminded by Lee Benson. Believing that historians had been misled by deterministic paradigms, Benson developed a methodical approach to understanding exactly what, why, and how issues influenced American voters in the Jacksonian era. His intent was to introduce quantifiable evidence into the study of antebellum political behaviour by examining ballot returns on local, regional, and national levels.65 Suggesting that history is better understood as the ongoing interaction of human individuals and their personal motivations, he downplayed the value of hailing "economic forces" or "cultural forces" as primary determinants of historical events. Instead, historians would benefit by examining "men or groups of men," divided into categories of class, religion, and ethnic background, to discern the true complexity of contemporary issues and their interplay.66

While Benson initially avoided the Civil War causation debate, his methodology provided a course for alternative explanations of political fortunes during the 1850s. For example, Joel H. Silbey explained the demise of Know Nothingism rather differently than Foner, arguing that the one-dimensional nativist appeal of the American Party succumbed to the multi-issue versatility of the Republican platform rather than mere appeals to antislavery sentiment.67 Caught in yet another realignment of the two-party system, even the most stubborn nativists had little choice but to vote against the immigrant-laden Democrats by voting for the Republicans, who meanwhile had incorporated a nativist tinge into their programme on local and regional levels.68 Silbey offered an amusing taste of the era's political complexity with the following:

The work of Michael F. Holt brought a more compromising perspective to the "new political history," suggesting that strictly ethnocultural interpretations of political culture and Civil War causation are some what reductionist, but nevertheless affirming that

The greatest achievement of the "new political historians" was to suggest an explanation for Republican victory in 1860 without resorting to Beardian elitism, Revisionist finger-pointing, or slavery-cultural determinism. The conclusion was that average American voters had played a major role in the nation's fate, simply by expressing their individual world views in a political system of rather limited options. Though esteemed through the 1960s and early 1970s, this final theoretical challenge to slavery-culturalism's dominance was ultimately unsuccessful, for reasons detailed momentarily.

Of the alternative perspectives, only Revisionism continues its adversarial role in a truly independent manner, and as such the "irrepressibility" debate survives, albeit in a far less intense form than forty years ago. Robert W. Johannsen in particular remains dedicated to Stephen A. Douglas' vindication, and has written prolifically on this Democratic Senator from Illinois.72 But perhaps not even the passage of thirty-five years has repaired the damage inflicted upon this politician's point of view by Jaffa's pen. Moreover, Johannsen appears to stand alone against the gradual consolidation of slavery-culturalism's renewed predominance, examples of which come to us through such recent works as Bruce Levine's Half Slave And Half Free: The Roots Of Civil War (1992)73 and Peter Kolchin's American Slavery, 1619-1877 (1993).74

Levine's book in particular provides a prime example of how slavery- culturalism has dealt with the alternative schools. The Beardian view is incorporated into the first two chapters, where he writes of westward expansion in terms of the "lure of greater profits" for slaveholders,75 and a potentially "tremendous domestic market for manufactured goods" to be developed by "enterprising individuals" from the Northeast.76 The "new political historians" are paid lip-service with his brief account of nativism, but are relegated to irrelevance with the assertion that Know Nothingism's decline meant that the "main line of partisan cleavage would now follow the division over the slavery issue."77 (This is remarkably similar to Foner's assessment.) And with the exception of bibliographical references to David M. Potter, David H. Donald, and Robert W. Johannsen, which find no corresponding expression in the actual text, Revisionism is ignored completely.

Quite incredibly, Levine presents his book as a "synthesis."78 In fact it is nothing of the sort. Rather, it envelopes economic determinism within the wider spectrum of cultural determinism, thereby preserving "irrepressibility." It condescendingly invites, then deflects, an ethnocultural perspective that questions cultural determinism but does not specifically advocate "repressibility." And it mysteriously silences the one perspective with which there is no possible compromise. As such, Levine's work actually is highly relevant. It represents what Shryock condemned as an "optimistic philosophy of history." But more importantly, it is a microcosmic expression of the historiographical processes that have served to protect the slavery-culturalist interpretation from pertinent criticism for the better part of the century.

Stampp points out several reasons why the Beardian school failed to stand on its own. These included the growing perception that the North ern and Southern economies actually were complementary, the observation that pro-Southern congresses and presidential administrations had dominated the 1850s, and the seemingly tolerant attitude of northeastern business elites toward Southern concerns.79 Together these factors do cast doubt on a position arguing for the economic confrontation between Northern and Southern elites. But recalling the Genovese and Foner positions, it is clear that recent slavery-culturalist viewpoints have stressed both the ideological and economic factors working toward cultural alienation. This marks a progression from the "moral impulses" argument of Schlesinger and Jaffa. Clearly economic determinism has somehow survived the apparent demise of the Beardians. Levine's work is merely a recent example of this theoretical hijacking, which is unsurprising considering Foner was his consulting editor.

In a recent article, Ronald P. Formisano addressed several slavery culturalist assaults on the "new political historians," implying with his title that they were at least partially responsible for "The Invention Of The Ethnocultural Interpretation."80 Listing Foner among the critics, he argued that the "ethnocultural" label placed upon the school (and particularly Lee Benson's seminal work) is reductionist and deliberately misrepresentative.81 In fact, he held the very concept of historiographical "schools" highly suspect, arguing that

The next three chapters will address the ways in which critics of Revisionism have attempted to discredit the work of Ramsdell, Craven and Randall. Here was a perspective which could be neither incorporated nor deflected by slavery-culturalism, for its conceptual framework was not simply different, but directly contrary. And given "repressibility's" antebellum roots, we could safely say that even the Civil War failed to discredit its message of accountability. As we shall see, critics of the interpretation have employed a variety of tactics to facilitate its demise, but with no convincing or permanent result. For whatever the technical weaknesses of particular arguments, Revisionism's questioning spirit is compelling, and no less relevant today than sixty years ago.

1. Stampp, The Imperiled Union, p.193. Thomas J. Pressly's historiographical analysis identifies Stampp's "partisans" as "nationalist" or "Unionist" historians who "studied the American experience by and large in a sympathetic spirit." For them the war had "destroyed the institution of slavery and had preserved and strengthened the American nation." See Thomas J. Pressly, Americans Interpret Their Civil War, (Seattle: University of Washington, 1953), pp. 38-41 and 223-224.

6. This passage is quoted from James Schouler's History Of The United States Of America Under The Constitution (New York, 1892), in George M. Fredrickson (Ed.), Great Lives Observed: William Lloyd Garrison (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968), p. 130.

7. James Ford Rhodes, History Of The Civil War, 1861-1865 (New York: MacMillan Company, 1917), pp. 1 and 438.

11. Beard, The Economic Basis Of Politics, pp. 194-195. Stampp, The Imperiled Union, pp. 196-198.

15. Charles A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation Of The Constitution Of The United States, 3rd Edition (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1960), p. xvii.

19. Charles W. Ramsdell, "The Natural Limits Of Slavery Expansion," The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XVI (June 1929--March 1930): 151-171. See pp. 153-157 and 162-163. Stampp, The Imperiled Union, p. 202.

23. Avery Craven, "The Coming Of The War Between The States: An Interpretation," J.S.H., 2 (May 1936, #2): 303-322. See p. 304. Stampp, The Imperiled Union, p. 203.

25. Craven argued that Northern fears of "the money power" and Slave-Power conspiracies reflected "far more the deep resentments of a `grasping' people than it did a belief in abstract ideals." Simi larly, he saw such militant movements as the temperance, antislav ery, and free soil lobbies as bitter expressions of a society dis turbed by its rather chaotic plunge into industrialization and social change. His is a unique perspective that views Northern "perfectionism," in its various political, social and religious forms, as avowedly optimistic perhaps, but symptomatic of a deeper pessimism. Ibid., pp. 305-314.

28. James G. Randall, "The Blundering Generation," M.V.H.R. XXVII (June 1940--March 1941): 3-28. Stampp, The Imperiled Union, pp. 205-206. Pressly, p. 308.

31. Ibid., pp. 8. See also J.G. Randall and David Donald, The Divided Union, (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1961), p. 532.

32. Stampp notes that the "exposure of the prowar propagandists of 1914-1917 presumably stimulated a more critical view of the agita tors of the 1850s." See Stampp, The Imperiled Union, p. 214.

33. A comprehensive examination of accomplished Revisionist histor- ians is impractical to this study, due to spatial constraints. Admit- tedly the choice of Ramsdell, Craven, and Randall could be seen as rather arbitrary accreditation. However, it is the opinion of this student that the early works of these three comprise the theoretical foundation for the entire school, and therefore must serve as the primary reference point for any reevaluation of its interpretive merit.

34. The potential for juxtaposing the crusading nature of the World Wars with that of the Civil War is frequently addressed in the lit erature. For examples, see Stampp, The Imperiled Union, p. 214; Harry V. Jaffa, Crisis Of The House Divided: An Interpretation Of The Issues In The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday and Company, 1959), pp. 407-408; and Avery Craven, Civil War In The Making, 1815-1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univer sity Press, 1959), pp. 90-112. Craven drew interesting parallels between antebellum sectional politics and the twentieth-century Cold War, going so far as describing North-South tensions in terms of an uneasy "coexistence" between rival interpretations of America's republican experiment.

35. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age Of Jackson (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1945), pp. 432 and 424. Stampp, The Imperiled Union, p. 194.

41. Allan Nevins, Ordeal Of The Union: Volume Two--A House Divid ing, 1852-1857 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1947), p. 520.

46. Harry V. Jaffa, Crisis Of The House Divided: An Interpretation Of The Issues In The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday and Company, 1959). Jaffa accuses Douglas of advocating "white supremacy" (p. 408), a rather boring charge to levy at any nineteenth-century Caucasian of the English-speaking world. More over, he unequivocally parallels "popular sovereignty" with Hitler's "policy of lebensraum" (p. 407).

50. Eugene D. Genovese, The Slaveholders Dilemma: Freedom And Progress In Southern Conservative Thought, 1820-1860 (Columbia, S.C.: University Of South Carolina Press, 1992), pp. 11-13 and 101.

51. Eugene D. Genovese and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, "The Slave Economies In Political Perspective," The Journal of American History, 66 (June 1979, #1): 16.

56. Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World The Slaves Made (New York: Vintage Books, 1972), pp. 91-97.

58. Eric Foner, "Slavery And The Republican Ideology," reproduced Edwin C. Rozwenc, The Causes Of The Civil War, 2nd Edition (Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath and Co., 1972), pp. 268-273. Stampp discusses Foner in The Imperiled Union, p. 195.

60. Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology Of The Republican Party Before The Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 9-10.

62. Eric Foner, Politics And Ideology In The Age Of The Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 49-50. Also see Foner, in Rozwenc, p. 278.

65. Lee Benson, The Concept Of Jacksonian Democracy: New York As A Test Case (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961).

67. Joel H. Silbey, The Transformation Of American Politics, 1840- 1860 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1967), pp. 13-14.

70. Michael F. Holt, Political Parties And American Political Development: From The Age Of Jackson To The Age Of Lincoln (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992), p. 13. This book is a compilation of various essays and articles published by Holt over the course of his career to date. They reveal an evolution of his position from one of strict adherence to social analyses of politics to a more multi-faceted perspective.

72. Johannsen reveals Douglas' seldom appreciated devotion to national progress in his book The Frontier, The Union, And Stephen A. Douglas (Chicago: University Of Illinois Press, 1989). More recently, he studied the nature of Lincoln's political ambition and its relationship to the slavery issue in Lincoln, The South, And Slavery: The Political Dimension (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press). Johannsen's kind treatment of Douglas echoes the thoughts of an earlier Revisionist, George Ford Milton, who in 1934 delivered an address entitled "Stephen A. Douglas' Efforts For Peace," which was published in the Journal Of Southern History, 1 (May 1935): 261-275.

73. Bruce Levine, Half Slave And Half Free: The Roots Of Civil War (New York: Hill and Wang, 1992).

80. Ronald P. Formisano, "The Invention Of The Ethnocultural Interpretation," American Historical Review, 99 (April 1994, #2): 453-477.