How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America

by Heather Cox Richardson

The resurgence of the South’s prewar ideology came from the nation’s new political bloc: the western states. Eastern Republicans had made the mistake of thinking that westerners would join their coalition, only to discover that with their peculiar history and extractive economy, westerners had more in common with antebellum white southerners than with postwar easterners. By the 1890s, a few wealthy men dominated western society. Poor white men had little opportunity, people of color and women had even less, and leaders worked to keep it that way. Still, as in the East before the Civil War, the myth of the individualist convinced Americans that the West was the land of opportunity. Turner’s Frontier Thesis and Roosevelt’s war record took the western ideal and put it on the national stage. By the end of the century, Americans embraced the cowboy image and vowed to spread it across the globe, putting into law that some people were better than others. Once again, freedom was hierarchical.