With ballots and bullets : partisanship and violence in the American Civil War

Author / Creator

Kalmoe, Nathan P. author

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Online

Physical

Summary

"With Ballots & Bullets reveals disquieting relationships between mass partisanship and violence in the Civil War era. The book provides historical insights on the impact of ordinary people in the ...

"With Ballots & Bullets reveals disquieting relationships between mass partisanship and violence in the Civil War era. The book provides historical insights on the impact of ordinary people in the loyal states, but it also speaks to the nature of partisan conflict across time. It challenges and affirms historical and political scholarship with evidence from America's most costly and consequential conflict, a cataclysm that still resounds in our politics today. The book contributes four key insights about mass partisanship in the Civil War era using vast datasets of election returns, individual Union soldier records, Census reports, and a representative sample of newspapers: 1) parties mobilized the killing in a fundamentally partisan war, 2) voters were impervious to unprecedented political and military events before, during, and after the war, 3) partisanship polarized the war's effects on voters, and 4) partisanship profoundly shaped post-war memory. These powerful dynamics arose from interactions between and among leaders & citizens. The Civil War remade the nation and its people. This book shows the violent, dynamic role of mass partisanship in that remaking"--

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