Yankee Leviathan: The Origins of Central State Authority in America, 1859–1877

by Richard Franklin Bensel

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.

Genres: History, American History, Politics, Civil War, Nonfiction, The United States Of America, Economics

468 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

A foundational work within the "American political development" theoretical framework, Bensel sets himself to the ambitious yet admirable task of proving that the modern American "central state authority," i.e. state apparatus, owes more to the Civil War as its origins than any other event, yet the failure of Reconstruction prevented the development of a strong central state authority until the beginning of the New Deal.

What agonizes me over this review is that, in broad strokes, I completely agree with the thesis that Bensel presents. He first argues that the South committed to secession for three main reasons: 1) Lincoln and the Republicans were an obvious threat to slavery, and even its limiting was a threat to its existence; 2) that the South felt that secession would be comparatively easy; 3) the longer secession was put off, the more the South would be connected to and subordinate to the Northern political economy. The Civil War was also unavoidable because 1) both moderate and radical Republicans were anti-slavery to the point of its extinction (regardless of how they got to that point or their positions upon freedmen); 2) the South utterly refused to compromise on the tariff (as it would subjugate the South to the Northern political economy) in exchange for protection of slavery in 1860; 3) successful secession of the South could have led to further fragmentation of the Union between western agrarian interests and northeastern industrial-finance capital/manufacturing. During these events, the federal structure in the South was actively being overtaken and utilized by secessionist elements to prepare for the creation of the Confederacy, and secessionist elements in the Buchanan administration were actively treasonous and aiding them.

Bensel concludes after a lengthy analysis of both the Union and Confederate central state authorities that the vast productive and financial resources of the north allowed them to continue business as usual, relying on market-based capitalist solutions for war mobilization, while the limitations of southern political economy compelled the Confederacy to adopt innovative strategies that, at times, actively opposed the structure of the plantation political economy with state power over production and labor. Bensel then dedicates the rest of the book to analyzing the failure of Reconstruction, pointing out class contradictions in the national Republican coalition and how finance capital refused to support the continuation of Reconstruction and instead moved towards "reform" elements hostile to it. Southern Reconstruction in particular failed because of a lack of willingness for extended military occupation and an outright refusal of the majority of the Republican coalition to consider the state-backed redistribution of property and wealth (towards freedmen and Unionist poor whites) necessary to prevent Redemption because of the implication it would have for northern property relations. This last point leads Bensel to point out, perhaps the most interesting thesis in the work, the fact that the Democrats in the North relied on the poor and in the South they relied on elites, and vice-versa for the Republicans. Bensel uses this as a compelling explanation for the lack of development of a typical social-democratic or socialist movement in the United States.

Despite agreeing almost unanimously with Bensel's various arguments, I cannot help but admit that I was terribly bored by his book. For primary sources, he relies almost exclusively upon legislative voting records without references to specific individuals as references, throwing out tables of "statist" and "nonstatist" voting patterns for issue after issue. He engages with secondary sources often, but this is contained often to footnotes. Even for me, someone who is prone to theoretical historical writing himself, Bensel's constant theoretical explanations from the APD angle prevents the reader from truly diving into his work. I understand why assignments which have used this text only use excerpts or chapters.

[Julian Haigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

An analysis of statist structures in the lead-up to, development during and Reconstruction from the American Civil War on both the Confederate and Union sides. This book deals with slavery as merely a subset of systemic differences between an industrializing North and the plantation-south. It emphasizes the political bases of support (not class-based politics but systemic economic), the use of monetary policy for the industrializing interests of the North and the developing structure of the American banking system and Treasury departments. I'm reading the Battle for Bretton Woods concurrently and finding much explained in how the world economic system is set up through a better understanding of the systemic choices that America took in its own development. So much had confused me in understanding American politics in the later 19th Century, has been cleared up by this book.

[Frank Stein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty disappointing overall. The author's so interested in providing statistical tables of votes in the House of Representatives (and dividing all votes into "statist" or "antistatist" positions) that he often neglects to identify what actual laws are passed and enacted, what they did, and how they operated. His entire description of the money market operations of the Treasury department in the last half of the book seem extremely confused, and he doesn't connect that description with most of the info from the first half of the book or form a coherent story out of it.

Some interesting takeaways though. I had no idea how borderline treasonous Buchanan's administration was. His General-in-Chief Winfield Scott said after secession the government should just allow the fragments of "the great Republic to form themselves into new Confederacies." Scott's secretary took all the notes on security arrangements from a secret meeting and gave them directly to Southern politicians. The Secretary of War John Floyd tried to transfer arms to the South from a Pittsburgh arsenal before mob action stopped him. The Secretary of the Treasury Howell Cobb of Georgia was widely rumored to be harboring an active "disunion plot" inside the very cabinet. The fact that the republic survived at all until Lincoln came into office is kinda amazing.

Also, his discussion of the Confederate government is pretty interesting. It was basically more centralizing and controlling than the federal government. By 1863 it had given the Secretary of the War total discretion to exempt certain groups from the ubiquitous draft, which the South started a year before the North, and which allowed him to basically control all labor movements in the Confederacy. By the end of the war the central government in Richmond was basically running the whole Railroad system using both impressment and labor controls. It also taxed slave overseers (exempt from the draft by law) to pay for poor relief to families with soldiers at war. The Confederate government collected the funds and then distributed them to the states, an early grant-in-aid program ahead of its time. By the end of the war almost 1/3 of families in some states were receiving relief, though in increasingly worthless Confederate currency.

Still, despite a few interesting tidbits, I wish the book had been better organized and better written.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book... It's such a landmark in political economy and in Civil War historiography. That said, it's a dense book and not one for the general reader. In fact, it may not even be for many students of the Civil War.

[David]

"...deals incisively with issues that are very much alive today, particularly the tension between the states and the federal government..." -- Washington Post Book World, 8 Feb 09

[Kathy Elrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extensive research. The only thing that got me was the length - the book itself is a leviathan of research!

[Marvin Kierstead · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very thorough. Although highly detailed, an informative account of USA financing the cost of prosecuting the war.