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Eric Foner, "The Causes of the American Civil War: Recent Interpretations and New Directions," Civil War History 20 (September 1974): 197-214.
SYNOPSIS:
Foner gives an overview of the major schools of interpretation on the causes of the Civil War--"the new political history"
and the "modernization thesis." Where new political historians, according to Foner, substitute religion and ethnicity for
class determinism, modernization historians reduce the conflict to an "industrial" or "modern" (usually ill-defined) North
versus an agricultural or "pre-modern" South. Foner suggests that neither approach sufficiently address the social history
of North and South. He argues that little is known about the rank-and-file Republicans, Democrats, Northerners, and Southerners,
about the everyday citizens and their relationship to politics. Foner emphasizes that American society as a whole was highly
competitive and individualistic, and that any explanation of the Civil War must combine social and political approaches, taking
account of how social and economic structures affected political ones and how events occurred in the wider context of these
structures.
EXCERPT:
"While rightly rejecting the economic determinism of progressive historians, the new political historians seem to be in danger
of substituting a religious or cultural determinism of their own. Indeed, the interpretive framework of the new school is
strikingly similar to that of the progressives. Both pose a sharp distinction between 'real' and 'unreal' issues, both put
thousands of persons in the quasi-conspiratorial position of concealing their real intentions, and both take an extremely
limited view of individual motivation. . . . But the new interpretation leaves a yawning gap between political processes and
the outbreak of war." (200-01)
RELATIONSHIP:
Foner's study has influenced all historians of the sectional conflict, including us. Though he restricts his analysis to
the level of ideology and politics, Foner demonstrated that white Northern men voted for the Republicans because the ideology
of the party resonated so deeply with their own experiences and expectations. Despite our agreement, however, we find that
Democrats shared much of the economic ideology of the Republicans, including a belief in the virtues of free labor for white
men. A higher-resolution view of Northern communities such as Franklin reveal the importance of ethnic, spatial, and generational
differences as well as suggestions of at least subtly different notions regarding the welfare of black Americans.
Citation: Key = H051
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