Righteous Strife: How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln's Union

(Hardback)

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The first major account of the American Civil War to give full weight to the central role played by religion, reframing the conflict through Abraham Lincoln's contentious appeals to faith-based nationalism The first major account of the American Civil War to give full weight to the central role played by religion, reframing the conflict through Abraham Lincoln's contentious appeals to faith-based nationalism How did slavery figure in God's plan Was it the providential role of government to abolish this sin and build a righteous nation Or did such a mission amount to "religious tyranny" and "pulpit politics," in an effort to strip the southern states of their God-given rights In 1861, in an already fracturing nation, the tensions surrounding this moral quandary cracked the United States in half, and even formed rifts within the North itself, where antislavery religious nationalists butted heads with conservative religious nationalists over their visions for America's future. At the center of this melee stood Abraham Lincoln, who would turn to his own faith for guidance, proclaiming more days of national fasting and thanksgiving than any other president before or since. These pauses for spiritual reflection provided the inspirational rhetoric and ideological fuel that sustained the war. In Righteous Strife, Richard Carwardine gives renewed attention to this crucible of contending religious nationalisms, out of which were forged emancipation, Lincoln's reelection, and his second inaugural address. No understanding of the American Civil War is complete without accounting for this complex dance between church and state-one that continues to define our nation.

Reviews

"There is no greater interpreter of how religious thought and imagery shaped Abraham Lincolns statecraft than Richard Carwardine, who has now turned his attention to broader questions of how a clash of theological worldviews gave us what Lincoln called a new birth of freedom. With grace and insight, Carwardine sheds new and important light on issues of perennial significance in Americas pastand present. Jon Meacham, author of And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle

An extraordinary and indispensable bookwith radiant prose, Carwardine evokes Americans profound yearning to divine the workings of Providence and to define the Civil War as a holy conflict. Elizabeth R. Varon, author of Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South

"Not since James Moorhead's American Apocalypse, almost fifty years ago, have we had so thorough an exposition of religion's place as a motivator, a definer, and a divider in the American Civil War. No one has a more vast command of the intellectual geography of American religion in the mid-nineteenth-century than Richard Carwardine, and no one paints in more complex and comprehensive colors the labors of the American soul to come to terms with the war that wracked its national body from 1861 to 1865." Allen C. Guelzo, author of Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment

"Righteous Strife is the greatest work yet by one of our truly outstanding scholars of the Civil War era. How did a people that, as Lincoln put it, read the same Bible and prayed to the same God come to slaughter each other so With his singular subtlety backed with a lifetime of learning, Richard Carwardine explains by embedding slavery, antislavery, and nationalism in the history of American Protestantism as never before." Sean Wilentz, author of No Property in Man: Slavery and Antislavery at the Nations Founding

"An extraordinary range of research supports Richard Carwardines riveting account of the competing Christian nationalisms that confronted Abraham Lincoln during the crisis of the Civil War. Righteous Strife excels in explaining Lincolns own complicated religious views and how those views shaped his cautious course toward supporting abolition and full rights for African Americans, while he was contending with at least three rival groups of Unionists who knew for certain what God had in mind for the United States." Mark A. Noll, author of Americas Book: The Rise and Decline of a Bible Civilization, 1794-1911

"This compelling book adds luster to Richard Carwardine's enviable reputation as an interpreter of Abraham Lincoln and the 19th-Century United States. A splendid reckoning of how religion interacted with politics, fostered different conceptions of nationalism, and shaped debates about emancipation, it highlights the daunting complexity of a profoundly consequential era." Gary W. Gallagher, author of The Enduring Civil War: Reflections on the Great American Crisis

"Richard Carwardines Righteous Strife will stand as the authoritative volume on the fascinating and impactful debate between and among Christian denominations during the bloody American Civil War. A superb scholar of both Lincoln and American religion, Carwardines chapters highlight the growth of a triumphant and nationalistic northern religious sensibility that emerged in 1864 and 1865, presided over and curated by President Abraham Lincoln, and famously proclaimed in his Second Inaugural Address." Joan Waugh, author of U.S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth

"Righteous Strife offers a strikingly novel perspective on the Civil War era. The author of the most astute account of Abraham Lincolns religious sensibilities, Richard Carwardine brings the same subtlety to bear on the clash of religious nationalisms through which Americans came to terms with the problem of slavery. Based on deep research and rendered in lucid prose, this is a must-read for anyone hoping to understand the greatest crisis in American history." James Oakes, author of The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution

An immensely informative account of the infusion of religion in civil and political culture in the decades before the secession of Confederate states and throughout the Civil War. Glenn C. Altschuler, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Remarkable. Philip Martin, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

At the heart of Righteous Strife is Lincolns deepening belief in the role of Providence in his presidency, and the way this belief steeled him on the difficult path to emancipation. The halls of Lincolns White House were famously filled with those seeking something from him, and Carwardine demonstrates in overwhelming detail the number of petitions, resolutions, memorials, and visits from church groups and officials who sought to influence and instruct him. Robert Wilson, The American Scholar

A portrait of an uncommonly introspective president. . . . Carving out his space in this crowded field, Carwardine nimbly pairs Lincolns religious evolution with a schism that divided what he terms religious nationalists, primarily Protestants from the North and Midwest who, although united in their opposition to the attempted secession from the Union of 11 Southern states, divided bitterly over the future of slavery. Tom Peebles, Washington Independent Review of Books

An important and welcome addition to the growing historiography of Civil War religion. Max Longley, Emerging Civil War

Author Bio

RICHARD CARWARDINE is the author of Lincoln- A Life of Purpose and Power, winner of the Lincoln Prize, the largest award for nineteenth-century American history, and Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America. He is Emeritus Rhodes Professor of American History and Distinguished Fellow of the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University.