Yankee Leviathan: The Origins of Central State Authority in America, 1859-1877 [Paperback]

Richard Franklin Bensel (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521398177 | ISBN-13: 978-0521398176 | Publication Date: January 25, 1991

This book describes the impact of the American Civil War on the development of central state authority in the late nineteenth century. The author contends that intense competition for control of the national political economy between the free North and slave South produced secession, which in turn spawned the formation of two new states, a market-oriented northern Union and a southern Confederacy in which government controls on the economy were much more important. During the Civil War, the American state both expanded and became the agent of northern economic development. After the war ended, however, tension within the Republican coalition led to the abandonment of Reconstruction and to the return of former Confederates to political power throughout the South. As a result, American state expansion ground to a halt during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This book makes a major contribution to the understanding of the causes and consequences of the Civil War and the legacy of the war in the twentieth century.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Bensel's work is impressive because he keeps his eye on the interrelationship of two broad issues: state formation and political economy. These issues are now at the forefront of the best new writing on the history of American politics, and Bensel's manuscript definitely marks a step forward for a discussion now associated with the writings of Skocpol, Skowronek and others...The reader comes away from the book with a deepened understanding of how political structures evolved during the Civil War era, and how this evolution was related both to class relations and broad issues of political economy." Eric Foner, Columbia University

"Bensel's perspective on the political economy of sectionalism seems inexhaustible as a source of fresh insight into the struggles of the Civil War era. In Yankee Leviathan, the irresistable conflict of the 1850s is not simply resolved in the North's favor, it is transposed into the structure and operations of new state formation." Stephen Skowronek, Yale University

Product Details

• Paperback: 468 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (January 25, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521398177
• ISBN-13: 978-0521398176
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #429,965 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful study of the birth of "Big Government" in America, January 20, 2000

By 

Christopher P. Atwood (Bloomington, IN United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Yankee Leviathan: The Origins of Central State Authority in America, 1859-1877 (Paperback)

This books argues powerfully and convincingly that what happened in the US Civil War created a truly new state in America, one that owed little to old republic that preceded it. It also suggests that this sort of revolution from above is probably of broader historical significance in modern history than the more paradigmatic European revolutions (such as in France or Russia).

Richard Bensel uses a systematic methodology first to define state strengthening (i.e. how the state in a nation acquires relative freedom from the society in which it dwells), and then to characterize how it was built in the Civil War years. His main source of information is votes in the US and Confederate congresses, which he analyzes with a gimlet eye to sectional stresses and political economy. This is one case where quantitative methodology helps to make a clear, convincing and powerful argument.

It should also be noted that (contrary to the impression that the other review gives) this book is no shill for the Confederate cause either. As a political scientist with a focus on finance capital, Bensel does not view the Civil War through the lens of a noble crusade to abolish slavery. At the same time, however, he uses the same lens of political economy to look at the southern state-building as well. Ironically, the "Dixie Leviathan" was even more powerful and autonomous than the Yankee one. The small size of the southern economy and the broad popularity of the war gave the Confederate government both the need and the ability to confiscate property and trample states rights far more effectively than the Republicans did in the Union. The old slogans of Jeffersonian small government disappeared and big-government national mobilization became Dixie's order of the day.

As Bensel makes clear, the constitutional order broke down in 1860 because it could not peacefully regulate conflicts in the US political economy. The Jeffersonian republic died, and the issue in the Civil War was never Leviathan vs. limited government, but one leviathan or two. The ultimate irony is that Yankee Leviathan's swallowing up of Dixie Leviathan ended up recreating the conditions of sectional stalemate that still serve to limit the further growth in power of the American state.

Any one interested in American government or the strong modern state as an historical phenomenon, must read and digest this book.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, September 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Yankee Leviathan: The Origins of Central State Authority in America, 1859-1877 (Paperback)

This book blew me away. All the books I'd read on American Reconstruction before this concentrated on carpetbaggers and scalawags, or on issues of equality. This one is different. Bensel looks at Reconstruction as the triumph of the Hamiltonian vision for America. Here the Republican Party, like the Russian Bolsheviks in the early 20th century, dominate the American political-economy with no significant political opposition.

With the Southern Democrats crushed in the Civil War and their opposition to Northern industrial development silenced, the Republicans are able to push forward their agenda of rapid national expansion and heavy governmental subsidies for Northern business interests. Little to nothing is spent on rebuilding the Southern infrastructure or on ensuring equality of opportunity for the freed slaves. Why wouldn't the Republicans live up to their wartime promises of providing land or other economic opportunities to African-Americans? Because if they did, then Northern factory workers would take notice and demand their fair share of Northern industry. This was intolerable to Northern business intersts. Thus, the South becomes an economic colony of the North, while the Republican Party's pro-business attitude helps turn Northern workers into virtual wage-slaves. Bensel's book is dense and difficult to read. Nevertheless, it's mind-opening rewards are worth the effort.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well crafted History, July 19, 2002

By 

David Mitchell (Bay Area, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Yankee Leviathan: The Origins of Central State Authority in America, 1859-1877 (Paperback)

Bensel is perhaps the best in the area of American Political Development. His work his thorough, accurate, and - unlike so many others - enjoyable. He gives a very clear explanation of how the Federal Government gained strength during and immediately after the Civil War.