Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War

As modern Republicans like to remind us, the Republican party was formed in the mid-19th century to prevent the spread of slavery into the western territories. And the Democrats represented the status quo. Their reasons were myriad: economic, sociological, political. And while abolitionists were attracted to the party, party leaders denied that abolition was ever on the agenda. And while early Republicans, favored emancipation , the rights of citizenship and integration into American society of emancipated slaves were definitely not part of the plan. Rather, these issues emerged through the execution of the war and its aftermath. In summary, Foner's book presents a thorough, nuanced, and troubling examination of how the republic dealt with slavery and race before, during, and after the civil war.

It's 5 stars easy. I'm not an expert in this field at all. Have read about 7 books on Lincoln, but this book gives amazing context beyond trying to figure out the one personality. It helps me understand not just THE out look on the part of early Republicans, but rather the outlooks. He talks about personalities as well as groups and how things change over time. Well researched. I don't know who has followed up on such a book, or if there is a better book out there now on the subject, but I can't imagine that anyone following Foner does not have to stand on his shoulders.If you are interested in the period, I highly recommend this work.

The roots of the Civil War reach back to the birth of the nation. The Founders agreed to disagree on the issue of slavery in order to form a `more perfect Union.' By the 1860s the nation was at war with itself. Why did the South secede, and why did the North take up arms to prevent its secession? (316) In Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War, the first of Eric Foner's many influential books, he examines the two decades running up to the 1860 presidential election by taking a close look at the ideology of the Republican Party. In a time of rancorous sectional division, during which the Democratic Party was sundered north and south, with each section nominating its own presidential candidate, the Republicans drew anti-slavery Whigs and Democrats together under one banner. The party members shared a resentment of Southern political power, a devotion to the Union, moral revulsion to the peculiar institution, and a commitment to the northern social order and its development and expansion. (310-314) During the 1850s, respected historians agree, that the government of President Buchanan was under the complete control of the South which threatened the essence of the Republican view of democracy--which was majority rule. (100) "The domination of both the South and the federal government by the Slave Power violated this basic democratic belief." (101) Repeated attempts by the southern Slave Power to establish slavery in the western territories brought the sectional conflict to a crisis. The North and South represented two incompatible social systems, and expansion of the decadent South, as Seward warned, might lead to "entirely a slave-holding nation." Several critical chapters of Foner's book delineate the radical, conservative and moderate elements within the newly-formed Republican party, and include the northern Democratic-Republicans who were alienated by the slaveocracy which by then controlled their party. The former Democrats found their party no longer a "champion of popular rights." (177) The radicals battle cry was, "Liberty and Union." This small but powerful minority was influential within the party, and brooked no compromise with the South, believing that the Founders intended that slavery would eventually cease to exist in the nation. (139-144) The conservatives wanted to preserve the Union at any cost, and were willing to make concessions to the South in order to do so. It was the moderates, including Lincoln, who "refused to abandon either of their twin goals--free soil and the Union," and drew the line at expansion of slavery into the new states. (219) It was not the moral imperative of the abolitionists which drew together the radicals and conservatives, the Whigs and Democrats, and the former Liberty, Free Soil and Know-Nothings. It was the political anti-slavery, Free Labor ideology which "blended personal and sectional interest with morality so perfectly that it became the most potent political force in the nation." (309) Foner is the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University whose interest in the antebellum period started in college in the 1960s. Foner has authored more than a dozen books on American political history and race relations, including his latest Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction; published in 2005. Free Soil began as his doctoral dissertation under Pulitzer prizewinner, Richard Hofstadter. This scholar's scholar assumes a substantial familiarity with 19th century American history, leaving the reader to fill in the essential details of the various acts, provisos, compromises and constitutions; likewise, biographical material on important players in the antebellum milieu, like Stephen A. Douglas and William H. Seward, is also given short shrift. An introductory essay written on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Free Soil calls on recent historiography to explore the concept of "free labor" in the 19th century, a time when half of Northern Americans were wage-earners. Free Soil is now nearly forty years old, yet remains a worthwhile read for anyone with a more than superficial interest in the Civil War and its causes. The reader comes away with a greater understanding of the role of the Republican Party in shaping the anti-slavery movement during the antebellum period.

The Civil War era is surely one of the most complex, controversial, and tumultuous periods in our nation's history and one of the most difficult to capture. "Free Soil, Free Labor, ..." is a sterling effort to provide insight into the social philosophies of the time that almost inevitably led to the breakup of the Union. While ostensibly concerned with the ideology of the Republican Party leading up to the Civil War, the author clearly shows that the Republicans also both reflected and advanced the belief system that came to permeate much of the North.A key component of Northern thinking emphasized a free labor and producer ethic, which extolled the virtues of free, independent, and propertied working men. Dependency was eschewed as evidence of personal shortcoming. But the institution of slavery violated that ethic in every way. Not only were slaves not free, but also Southern aristocratic society degraded free labor. To be a free laborer in the South was to be a member of a lower class. These diametrically opposed views of labor were the basis of an ongoing controversy dating from the Missouri Compromise over the issue of permitting slavery in newly obtained territories or newly admitted states. The Northern and Republican position was one of "free soil," for free laborers.Though not emphasizing the chronological history of the Republican Party, the author traces the assimilation into the party of members or adherents of the Abolitionists, the Liberty Party, the Free Soil Party, anti-slavery Democrats and Whigs, the Know-Nothings, and the so-called radical Republicans. A good sampling of the pronouncements of the leading Northern political figures of the era as well as the positions of key newspaper publishers is quite illuminating. It is a mild criticism of the book that the author, in following the historical trail, at times provides insufficient background on historical events that he refers to such as the Wilmot Proviso, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Lecompton controversy, etc.Certainly much of the rise of the Republican Party was due to a concern of Northern Whigs and Democrats that the political process in Washington was being dominated by a southern Slave Power. That Slave Power was seen as a force intent on expanding the geographical reach of slavery. Every attempt at expansion of slave territory drove more and more people to the ranks of the parties that became the Republican Party. The author is keen to point out that while anti-slavery was a moral crusade on the part of some Republicans, for most the prevention of the Slave Power in expanding its reach and the preservation and expansion of Northern society superceded any moral imperative to emancipate slaves.It is not the author's intent to directly list the causes of the Civil War, yet it would be difficult to deny the relevance of this book in answering those questions. But the author does address some claims of causation. While not denying that protective tariffs were controversial issues, he downplays their overall significance. For one, many leading Republicans were free traders, not protectionists. Republicanism was not simply warmed over Whiggery intent on protecting industry. In fact, many Republicans had a distrust of emerging corporations. In addition, he gives little credence to suggestions that the Civil War represents either a failure of political compromise or political incompetence.The author amply demonstrates that the election of President Lincoln in 1860 constituted a culminating point for both the North and the South. Clearly, the Republicans had emerged as a voice for a Northern society that was based on entrepreneuralism, free labor, progress, and expansion. For the South, the election of Republicans was seen as a dire threat to a way of life wholly different than that of the North. No longer the foremost power in Washington, Southerners had grave misgivings concerning the designs of Republicans on dismantling their society. And neither the Democrats who had stared down John Calhoun in the Nullification Crisis or the Republicans with a Whig background of Henry Clay's Americanism were about to simply let the South secede.According to the author there was "the conviction that North and South represented two social systems whose values, interests, and future prospects were in sharp, perhaps mortal, conflict with one another." And for those who would downplay the essential role of slavery in the impending conflict, the author quotes another historian as indicating that "By 1860, slavery had become the symbol and carrier of all sectional differences and conflicts."In an introduction twenty-five years after the original, the author acknowledges that the ideology of free labor was already fraying by 1860. In the first place, by that point more than half of all men were wage earners and not independent workers. Secondly, the Republican fiction that both capital and labor had similar interests was belied by the greater power of capital to make the employment relationship hardly free. But those realities rose to the front after the Civil War as industrialism really expanded.For those who would have wanted a bigger and more comprehensive book, there is merit in that. The book is somewhat narrowly focused. That is not to deny that the capturing of Republican ideology is not a significant contribution. But Southern reactions as the Republican Party was growing would have been interesting. But this book should be on the list of anyone wanting to understand the Civil War era.

A classic in a good newish edition

Eric Foner is a Master in the Civil War. This book describes very well the growing of the Republican Party and it way to a better society.

Very bad condition