Introduction

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Introduction 1
4. Prologue: A Second American Revolution? George Washington and the Origins of the Civil War 9
5. Part I Constitutionalism Endangered: The Road to Civil War
6. 1 Martin Van Buren as Statesman: State Rights and the Rise of the “Free Soil” Party 29
7. 2 Lincoln on Black Citizenship 55
8. 3 Lincoln, Secession, and Revolution: Th e Civil War Challenge to the Founding 81
9. Part II Legal Change and Constitutional Politics in Reconstruction and the Gilded Age
10. 4 The Trial of Jefferson Davis and the Americanization of Treason Law 113
11. 5 At Every Fireside: Constitutional Politics in the Era of Reconstruction 133
12. 6 “The Legitimate Object of Government”: Constitutional Problems of Civil War–Era Republican Policy 161
13. Part III Contesting the Legacy of Lincoln and the Civil War in the Progressive Era
14. Woodrow Wilson and the Meaning of the Lincoln Legacy 183
15. 8 The Idea of Constitutional Conservatism in the Early Twentieth Century 202
16. Notes 223
17. List of Contributors 269
18. Index 273