Lincoln and the War Governors

Download or read book Lincoln and the War Governors written by William Best Hesseltine and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The conflict of 1861-5 was a war between the states on the one hand and the growing power of the national government on the other. In popular speech, the Southern Confederacy symbolized the particularist principles of states' rights, and the United States embodied the national creed. But, as in most wars, neither side had a clear monopoly of either contending dogma. Within the confines of the Confederacy, ardent Southern nationalists battled unceasingly with the adherents of state sovereignty, while in the North the struggle between nation and state went on steadily. This latter struggle is the theme of this book. When the smoke of the Civil War had lifted from the battlefields, it was seen that a new nation had been erected on the ruins of the old federal union. But though the fact of national sovereignty was distinct, the process by which Abraham Lincoln, architect of the nation, had used the exigencies of war and politics to build a new structure was not so readily evident. Only by tracing the relations between the federal government and the states during the war years can the foundation of the new nation be made clear"--Page v-vi.