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

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Summary: Incisive and persuasive analysis.
Review: "A new future requires a new past," so says Marxist historical revisionist Eric Foner.

This book continues some of the most insidious myths of American history. These includes liberal and neo-conservative myths such as those asserting the moral superiority of Lincoln and the Union. Foner echos old dogmas like those claiming that the North was primarily driven by the desire of ending slavery and that 'emancipation' provided a moral justification for the Civil War. However, Foner goes even further with some fabricated "human rights agenda" that the North had in the 1850's that stemmed from Republican Party ideology.

Antebellum politics was divided almost entirely along regional lines since sectionalism set in the 1820's. The real driving cause for southern secession was import tariffs. Just prior to the war between the states, the newly industrialized North didn't want to compete with Europe by making and delivering certain quality finish goods at fair market prices. The powerful interests of the north successfully propositioned the federal government to raise tariffs on imports. The agrarian South was engaged heavily in commerce with the nations of Europe - trading crops for finished goods. These actions would so economically devastate the southern states that it ultimately fueled a rebellion against the Union.

If you want a break from all of the tired leftist diatribes like in "Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men," instead try reading "Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men," which illustrates that the Civil War (the invasion of the South) was wrong and unnecessary for the liberation of slaves. The Lincoln regime ushered in the era of costly and oppressive unconstitutional government. Hummel makes it clear that Lincoln was no crusader for racial equality, that he trampled the Constitution by suspending the writ of habeas corpus, arresting Democratic detractors in the north, and paving the way for an unconstitutional military dictatorship over the south.

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Summary: You don't have to be an historian to appreciate this work!
Review: Foner's account of the antebellum formation of the Republican Party and its ideology is a model for what truly great history writing should be. This work is a relatively easy read (as history texts go), but without sacrificing any academic value. Of all of the books I've read about antebellum American politics, this is far and away my favorite.

Rating:
Summary: Great history of the ideological currents of our nation
Review: His basic argument is that what bound the north together against the south is not the hatred of slavery, but the northern conception of what the economic ordering of society should be. The north was for the free laborer to work to the best of his abilities, while the GOP saw the south as arsitrocratic and decadent. A convicning argument and a fast read. You can see how the arguments about morality and economics have carried through surprisingly intact for over years. This was his doctoral thesis expanded into a book. I'm biased though, he's my Professor at Columbia.

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Summary: A book about the rise of GOP, not the causes of the war
Review: Ryan Setliff reviews a different book than I read. I left with the book with an impression why slavery was the root cause of the formation the Republican party.

Foner doesn't not debate that economics or other causes were not the reason for many events in the 1850's, but only if you dig deep enough into the causes of those causes you'll find the slavery issue lurking around. Slavery bound the Republicans together like no other cause, and it was that issue that was the reason for the creation of the party. Foner makes an rather hard to debate argument on that score.

The reasons for secession are not the subject of the book, and is hardly touched. Tariff's may be the primary reason of that events, but the reason for the Republican party gaining power causing the lattest tariff battle is slavery. There would have been no tariff war with out the Republican's in power. Or at least not in the fall of 1960.

Read this book if you wish to find about the beginnings of the GOP, don't read this book if you wish to find the causes of the Civil War as that is not the focus of the book.

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Summary: The Significance of Republican Ideology
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Scholarly Work
Review: This was the second book I read on the Civil War, following James McPherson's excellent 'Battle Cry of Freedom'. I was led to read it because of my interest in the strange reversal of fortune of the Republican Party amongst African Americans. Why did the party of Lincoln, and more importantly The Radicals, gain less than 10% of the Black vote in 2000? Actually this book doesn't really answer that question, what it does explore (in some detail) is the origins of the Republican Party. That is why I have referred to it as a 'Scholarly Work', the quality of Foner's research is formidable and together with William Geinapp's similar book provide a indispensable guide, not just to the historical events, but as the title suggests - to the underlying ideology that tied some very diverse politicians together. Furthermore in a key chapter ('The Republican Critique of the South') Foner analyses the root of those beliefs.

Rating:
Summary: Scholarly Work
Review: This was the second book I read on the Civil War, following James McPherson's excellent `Battle Cry of Freedom'. I was led to read it because of my interest in the strange reversal of fortune of the Republican Party amongst African Americans. Why did the party of Lincoln, and more importantly The Radicals, gain less than 10% of the Black vote in 2000? Actually this book doesn't really answer that question, what it does explore (in some detail) is the origins of the Republican Party. That is why I have referred to it as a `Scholarly Work', the quality of Foner's research is formidable and together with William Geinapp's similar book provide a indispensable guide, not just to the historical events, but as the title suggests - to the underlying ideology that tied some very diverse politicians together. Furthermore in a key chapter (`The Republican Critique of the South') Foner analyses the root of those beliefs.