“Altoona was his, and fairly won”: President Lincoln and the Altoona Governors’ Conference, September 1862

This article explores the long-forgotten Altoona Conference of 1862, when nearly a dozen Union governors met at the Civil War\u27s darkest hour to discuss war strategy and, ultimately, reaffirm their support for the Union cause. This article examines and questions the conventional view of the conference as a challenge to President Lincoln\u27s efficacy as the nation\u27s leader. Rather, the article suggests that Lincoln may have actually welcomed the conference and had his own designs for how it might bolster his political objectives

Lincoln’s Legacy for American International Law

Is the United States, as an international actor, different from all other international actors? If so, how is it different? What makes it different? How does American sovereignty fit into a larger conception of international law? These questions go back to the beginning of the Republic, and they remain pressing today. Many have debated this question in terms of the legacy of the Founding. Some find in the Founding the seeds of multilateralism and perhaps even cosmopolitanism; others, rejecting this interpretation, advance a nationalist and unilateralist account of the Founding. But the Founding is not the whole story. This Article argues that our answers to these questions need to account for the Civil War, when the question whether the United States would survive as the continuation of the tradition commenced in 1776 was answered through an unprecedented and, since then, unrepeated violent transformation. The state reconstructed through that war arguably became a new kind of creature in international law, radically different from the arrangements that governed the antebellum regime, thus re-conceiving American sovereignty and refashioning American practice of international law in the image conceived by Abraham Lincoln\u27s rhetoric, statecraft, and worldview. In brief, Lincoln\u27s achievement was to transform the plural United States from a sui generis institutional arrangement in the community of states into a singular nation-state performing a sui generis role in the community of states. In this new role, the United States would serve as an exemplar of a particular kind of society and the kind of person Lincoln thought normatively superior, a vehicle for the formation of a kind of person he believed made such a society possible, and perhaps even a force in the world for the progressive and universal realization of those ideals. Much as Lincoln\u27s achievement was to refashion the American state, Lincoln\u27s vision of American sovereignty made possible and necessary an entirely new approach to international law in which the American state re-defined its relation to the world

Sowing the seeds of secession: the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions 1798, the Hartford Convention 1814, The South Carolina Nullification Crisis 1830-33

This paper explores the development of secession as a response to federal laws in the United States. The main argument of the paper is the idea that secession could be used as a legitimate response for a state or states to unfavorable federal laws and policies was planted with the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions and continued to develop during the Hartford Convention and South Carolina Nullification Crisis. The main primary documents used in this paper to support the thesis are the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, the Report of the Hartford Convention and the South Carolina Nullification document. Additional primary sources include newspaper reports, presidential speeches and annual messages to Congress, and the South Carolina Exposition and protest as well as John C. Calhoun’s speech on the relationship between the federal government and the states. The paper examines the preamble and ratification of the constitution relying on primary sources for discussion and secondary sources to provide additional information. The discussion then moves on to discussions of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, the Hartford convention and South Carolina Nullification Crisis in separate chapters. The development of secession culminates in a chapter about the Civil War which explores the connection between the secession documents and the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. The final chapter discusses two Supreme Court decisions in which the majority opinions rule of the legality of secession. The epilogue briefly discusses present day secessionist movements in two states. (Author abstract)Smith, P.M. (2018). Sowing the seeds of secession: the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions 1798, the Hartford Convention 1814, The South Carolina Nullification Crisis 1830-33. Retrieved from http://academicarchive.snhu.eduMaster ArtsHistoryCollege of Online and Continuing Educatio

Kermit Roosevelt III, \u3ci\u3eThe Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America\u27s Story\u3c/i\u3e

This review summarizes the key thesis of the book, The Nation That Never Was, which argues for a reset of the Constitutional baseline of principles. The book argues that the Gettysburg Address should be considered a key part of modern constitutional guarantees of equality and liberty. The review explains this thesis, and notes the questions it leaves open

The American Civil War: A Military History

Preeminent Historian Examines the American Civil War John Keegan’s reputation as one of, if not the, most preeminent military historians of the last generation needs little or no introduction. Keegan’s work, especially his military studies of the First and Second World Wars, has always...