The Doom of Reconstruction : : The Liberal Republicans in the Civil War Era / / Andrew L. Slap.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Fordham University Press Complete eBook-Package Pre-2014
• VerfasserIn: Slap, Andrew L.,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : Fordham University Press, , [2022]; ©2007
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: Reconstructing America
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (306 p.)

In the Election of 1872 the conflict between President U. S. Grant and Horace Greeley has been typically understood as a battle for the soul of the ruling Republican Party. In this innovative study, Andrew Slap argues forcefully that the campaign was more than a narrow struggle between Party elites and a class-based radical reform movement. The election, he demonstrates, had broad consequences: in their opposition to widespread Federal corruption, Greeley Republicans unintentionally doomed Reconstruction of any kind, even as they lost the election. Based on close readings of newspapers, party documents, and other primary sources, Slap confronts one of the major questions in American political history: How, and why, did Reconstruction come to an end? His focus on the unintended consequences of Liberal Republican politics is a provocative contribution to this important debate.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 Rehearsal in Missouri for the Liberal Republican Movement, 1865–1870 -- 2 The Liberal Republican Conception of Party, 1848–1872 -- 3 Preserving the Republic while Defeating the Slave Power, 1848–1865 -- 4 The Liberal Republican Dilemma over Reconstruction, 1865–1868 -- 5 Legacies of the Civil War Threaten the Republic, 1865–1872 -- 6 Grant and the Republic, 1868–1872 -- 7 The National Phase of the Liberal Republican Movement, 1870–1872 -- 8 The Experience of a Third Party in the Nineteenth Century -- 9 The Lasting Effect of 1872 Campaign Rhetoric -- 10 The Liberal Republicans Try Again, 1872–1876 -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index