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Littlefield History of the Civil War Era
Lincoln and the Triumph of the Nation: Constitutional Conflict in the American Civil War
The Civil War placed the U.S. Constitution under unprecedented--and, to this day, still unmatched--strain. In Lincoln and the Triumph of the Nation , Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Mark Neely examines for the first time in one book the U.S. Constitution and its often overlooked cousin, the Confederate Constitution, and the ways the documents shaped the struggle for national survival.
Previous scholars have examined wartime challenges to civil liberties and questions of presidential power, but Neely argues that the constitutional conflict extended to the largest questions of national existence. Drawing on judicial opinions, presidential state papers, and political pamphlets spiced with the everyday immediacy of the partisan press, Neely reveals how judges, lawyers, editors, politicians, and government officials, both North and South, used their constitutions to fight the war and save, or create, their nation.
Lincoln and the Triumph of the Nation illuminates how the U.S. Constitution not only survived its greatest test but emerged stronger after the war. That this happened at a time when the nation's very existence was threatened, Neely argues, speaks ultimately to the wisdom of the Union leadership, notably President Lincoln and his vision of the American nation.
Previous scholars have examined wartime challenges to civil liberties and questions of presidential power, but Neely argues that the constitutional conflict extended to the largest questions of national existence. Drawing on judicial opinions, presidential state papers, and political pamphlets spiced with the everyday immediacy of the partisan press, Neely reveals how judges, lawyers, editors, politicians, and government officials, both North and South, used their constitutions to fight the war and save, or create, their nation.
Lincoln and the Triumph of the Nation illuminates how the U.S. Constitution not only survived its greatest test but emerged stronger after the war. That this happened at a time when the nation's very existence was threatened, Neely argues, speaks ultimately to the wisdom of the Union leadership, notably President Lincoln and his vision of the American nation.
408 pages, Hardcover
First published November 21, 2011
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About the author
Mark E. Neely Jr.
24 books10 followersMark E. Neely, Jr. is an American historian best known as an authority on the U.S. Civil War in general and Abraham Lincoln in particular. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1991. He earned his undergraduate degree in American Studies at Yale University in 1966 and his Ph.D. in history at the same school in 1973. Yale's Graduate School would award him with a Wilbur Cross Medal in 1995.
From 1971 to 1972 Neely was a visiting instructor at Iowa State University. In the latter year, he was named director of The Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a position he held for twenty years.
In 1992, Dr. Neely was named the John Francis Bannon Professor of History and American Studies at Saint Louis University. And, in 1998, he was made the McCabe Greer Professor of Civil War History at Pennsylvania State University.
Neely is best known for his 1991 book The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties, which won both the Pulitzer Prize for History and the Bell I. Wiley Prize the following year. In March 1991, he published an article in the magazine Civil War History, entitled Was the Civil War a Total War?, which is considered one of the top three most influential articles on the war written in the last half of the 20th Century.
- from Wikipedia
From 1971 to 1972 Neely was a visiting instructor at Iowa State University. In the latter year, he was named director of The Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a position he held for twenty years.
In 1992, Dr. Neely was named the John Francis Bannon Professor of History and American Studies at Saint Louis University. And, in 1998, he was made the McCabe Greer Professor of Civil War History at Pennsylvania State University.
Neely is best known for his 1991 book The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties, which won both the Pulitzer Prize for History and the Bell I. Wiley Prize the following year. In March 1991, he published an article in the magazine Civil War History, entitled Was the Civil War a Total War?, which is considered one of the top three most influential articles on the war written in the last half of the 20th Century.
- from Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 3, 2023
The attempt by the states of the South to secede in 1861 created a challenge for the United States on several levels, but foremost among them was the one it posed to the nation’s constitutional structure. At its core lay the fundamental issue of whether secession itself was permissible or not, but closely following upon that was the scope of federal and presidential power in the response to it. Questions about the legality of a draft, the suspension of habeas corpus, and of the attempts to abolish slavery were debated and litigated throughout the conflict, with the legacy of those decisions enduring down to the present day.
That such debates took place reflected the unprecedented nature of the conflict. Though the nation had gone to war in the past, Mark Neely notes throughout his study of the constitutional and legal history of the Civil War that these previous conflicts had left little legal precedent to serve as a guide. Moreover, the nature of the war raised a series of questions never before contemplated. This, as Neely points out, proved a test of not just the Constitution of the United States, but its counterpart as well in the Confederate States, which it was in most important respects a carbon copy. Because of this, his book offers an examination of not just the constitutional history of the war for the Union but for that of the Confederacy as well, one that demonstrates the importance of Confederate constitutionalism for understanding our nation’s governing document today.
This forms just one part of a wide-ranging examination of several constitutional and legal issues raised by the war. Neely divides this into three parts, the first of which focuses on Abraham Lincoln’s policies as president and the insights they offer into his constitutional views. He traces the origins of Lincoln’s constitutional thinking not to his training and career as a lawyer, but to his political career and the ideas that emerged from it, highlighting in particular the underappreciated contribution made by the antislavery movement to his understanding of the document. These ideas were never firmly set, but evolved over time and in response to circumstances, receiving clear expression in Lincoln’s first inaugural address and the strongly nationalist case advanced in it. Neely examines his speech in detail, setting out the arguments advanced in it that formed the foundation of his constitutional arguments against secession and laid the groundwork for his administration’s response to it.
Unfortunately, the broad scope of Neely’s book limits his ability to detail fully the subsequent constitutional issues Lincoln faced. Instead, he focuses on two of them in particular: the suspension of habeas corpus and the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. Drawing upon the numerous pamphlets published during the war that served as a major political form of political communication in that era, he details the key arguments made by critics and defenders of Lincoln’s actions. These demonstrate the range of constitutional thinking at that time, one that was not defined by legal thinking alone but was framed by the nationalism that motivated the defense of the Union during the war and ultimately validated Lincoln’s decisions via the ballot box.
In the meantime, many in the North sought to challenge the administration’s actions in the courts. Neely’s review of the judiciary’s role in the war comprises the second part of his book, in which he details the efforts of the “least dangerous branch” to remain relevant in a time of national crisis. This includes not just the federal bench but the state courts as well, many of which heard cases involving the suspension of habeas corpus, the introduction of conscription, and the legality of the war itself. Here Lincoln faced a considerable threat from Roger Taney, the chief justice of the Supreme Court and a Maryland Democrat determined to reign in the expansion of federal power. Yet Taney was frustrated by the essentially passive nature of the judicial branch, which required cases to reach it before judgments could be issued. Opinions Taney drafted ultimately languished unused, as by the time cases involving conscription and other matters reached the nation’s highest court the elderly justice was too ill to intervene to stop the nationalistic shift taking place.
Similar debates took place within the Confederacy, though the context was considerable differently than that of the Union. Neely’s examination of the constitutional history of the Confederacy is by far the most original part of his book, as he surveys considerable ground previously unexamined by other scholars. Part of the reason for this was the absence of a fully-developed legal system, which along with a smaller number of pamphlets limits the ability to explore the debate. Nevertheless, Neely makes good use of the sources available to survey the major constitutional issues the Confederacy addressed during its brief existence. He features throughout this section the effort to reconcile state rights ideals with the nationalistic pressures of war, one that he argues was more successful than has been appreciated and which ensured that state rights were not an obstacle to the Confederate States’ fight for survival.
In the end, however, Neely’s incorporation of the Confederacy’s constitutional history into the larger constitutional history of the United States can serve as little more than a starting point to such a large and under-explored subject. To his credit, the author makes no pretensions as to offering more than this, and calls for further examination of the role of the Constitution in America’s wars. Those who do so have in Neely’s work a fine foundation on which to build, as he provides not just a good (if necessarily limited) introduction to his subject but a great example as well of constitutional history that brings to life the dynamism of the debates and the relevance of their results. Those seeking a more in-depth examination of constitutional issues will want to follow up this book with J. G. Randall’s venerable Constitutional Problems under Lincoln, but for anyone new to the constitutional issues raised over the course of the war Neely’s book serves as an excellent starting point.
That such debates took place reflected the unprecedented nature of the conflict. Though the nation had gone to war in the past, Mark Neely notes throughout his study of the constitutional and legal history of the Civil War that these previous conflicts had left little legal precedent to serve as a guide. Moreover, the nature of the war raised a series of questions never before contemplated. This, as Neely points out, proved a test of not just the Constitution of the United States, but its counterpart as well in the Confederate States, which it was in most important respects a carbon copy. Because of this, his book offers an examination of not just the constitutional history of the war for the Union but for that of the Confederacy as well, one that demonstrates the importance of Confederate constitutionalism for understanding our nation’s governing document today.
This forms just one part of a wide-ranging examination of several constitutional and legal issues raised by the war. Neely divides this into three parts, the first of which focuses on Abraham Lincoln’s policies as president and the insights they offer into his constitutional views. He traces the origins of Lincoln’s constitutional thinking not to his training and career as a lawyer, but to his political career and the ideas that emerged from it, highlighting in particular the underappreciated contribution made by the antislavery movement to his understanding of the document. These ideas were never firmly set, but evolved over time and in response to circumstances, receiving clear expression in Lincoln’s first inaugural address and the strongly nationalist case advanced in it. Neely examines his speech in detail, setting out the arguments advanced in it that formed the foundation of his constitutional arguments against secession and laid the groundwork for his administration’s response to it.
Unfortunately, the broad scope of Neely’s book limits his ability to detail fully the subsequent constitutional issues Lincoln faced. Instead, he focuses on two of them in particular: the suspension of habeas corpus and the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. Drawing upon the numerous pamphlets published during the war that served as a major political form of political communication in that era, he details the key arguments made by critics and defenders of Lincoln’s actions. These demonstrate the range of constitutional thinking at that time, one that was not defined by legal thinking alone but was framed by the nationalism that motivated the defense of the Union during the war and ultimately validated Lincoln’s decisions via the ballot box.
In the meantime, many in the North sought to challenge the administration’s actions in the courts. Neely’s review of the judiciary’s role in the war comprises the second part of his book, in which he details the efforts of the “least dangerous branch” to remain relevant in a time of national crisis. This includes not just the federal bench but the state courts as well, many of which heard cases involving the suspension of habeas corpus, the introduction of conscription, and the legality of the war itself. Here Lincoln faced a considerable threat from Roger Taney, the chief justice of the Supreme Court and a Maryland Democrat determined to reign in the expansion of federal power. Yet Taney was frustrated by the essentially passive nature of the judicial branch, which required cases to reach it before judgments could be issued. Opinions Taney drafted ultimately languished unused, as by the time cases involving conscription and other matters reached the nation’s highest court the elderly justice was too ill to intervene to stop the nationalistic shift taking place.
Similar debates took place within the Confederacy, though the context was considerable differently than that of the Union. Neely’s examination of the constitutional history of the Confederacy is by far the most original part of his book, as he surveys considerable ground previously unexamined by other scholars. Part of the reason for this was the absence of a fully-developed legal system, which along with a smaller number of pamphlets limits the ability to explore the debate. Nevertheless, Neely makes good use of the sources available to survey the major constitutional issues the Confederacy addressed during its brief existence. He features throughout this section the effort to reconcile state rights ideals with the nationalistic pressures of war, one that he argues was more successful than has been appreciated and which ensured that state rights were not an obstacle to the Confederate States’ fight for survival.
In the end, however, Neely’s incorporation of the Confederacy’s constitutional history into the larger constitutional history of the United States can serve as little more than a starting point to such a large and under-explored subject. To his credit, the author makes no pretensions as to offering more than this, and calls for further examination of the role of the Constitution in America’s wars. Those who do so have in Neely’s work a fine foundation on which to build, as he provides not just a good (if necessarily limited) introduction to his subject but a great example as well of constitutional history that brings to life the dynamism of the debates and the relevance of their results. Those seeking a more in-depth examination of constitutional issues will want to follow up this book with J. G. Randall’s venerable Constitutional Problems under Lincoln, but for anyone new to the constitutional issues raised over the course of the war Neely’s book serves as an excellent starting point.
May 20, 2025
After reading Neely’s The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties prior to this and not particularly caring for its style and structure, I had second thoughts about reading this follow-up. So I figured I’d at least read the preface and introduction - and then found both of them to be so convoluted that I had no clear idea what this book was even going to be about. “This is a book about the Constitution and about nationalism as well,” Neely explains. He aims to provide “a constitutional history of the American Civil War… not by supplying a comprehensive history of the Constitution in the Civil War but by stimulating interest in the constitutional history of that war.” In case that’s unclear, don’t worry, because “this book does not contain a relentlessly focused argument,” he explains, but “it does contain several arguments.”
After all this, I very nearly gave up on the book altogether before deciding to give it one last chance by reading the first chapter. And that was finally compelling enough for me to decide to plunge forward. I did begin to lose interest about halfway through, but by then I was too committed to quit.
So what is this book about? Generally speaking, it focuses on the legalistic debates during the Civil War about whether various wartime actions were constitutional. It’s divided into three sections - the first and longest focusing on President Lincoln’s actions, the second on the judiciary’s perspective, and the third on the Confederate Constitution.
The first section is by far the strongest. As in his earlier book, Neely takes the position that Lincoln was not as concerned about adhering to the Constitution as he was in making practical decisions and only retroactively looking for legal justifications. This perspective can start to seem cynical at times, portraying Lincoln as a purely political creature, unconcerned with violating the Constitution as long as it helped him achieve his goals.
And yet, while I often disagreed with Neely’s perspective, his point of view is a needed corrective counterpoint to the opposite view of Lincoln as an omniscient, sagacious, strict constitutionalist whose every move was carefully thought out, perfectly justifiable and completely correct.
Neely’s Lincoln is crafty and creative, practical and resourceful, cherry-picking parts of the Constitution to justify his actions and often just making things up as he went along. “Lincoln was a politician… not particularly interested in the reasoning process,” Neely argues, “yet he cared that his own positions be constitutionally plausible,” if not perfectly correct. Instead of analyzing Lincoln’s own constitutional arguments, Neely lets others do the arguing, by quoting legal scholars and pamphleteers of the time who made the constitutional case for and against Lincoln’s actions like suspending the writ of habeas corpus and emancipating the slaves.
Neely is at his most cynical when dismissing some of Lincoln’s deeply-held beliefs, deriding him for believing in “the antislavery myth of the Constitution” and dismissing his fear that the Dred Scott decision could lead to slavery expanding nationwide, “as though it were something real and not an exaggerated bugaboo made on and for the stump.”
And yet Neely also defends Lincoln against some of his harsher critics. He portrays Lincoln as someone who stepped up and acted as a statesman rather than as a pedantic lawyer. Whenever the Constitution was unclear, Lincoln focused on practical arguments and not legalistic textual analysis. And far from acting as a dictator, he was prepared to let the people decide the wisdom of his ways and accept the consequences if his actions were not ultimately justified, quoting Lincoln himself as saying of the president, “if he uses the power justly, the same people will probably justify him; if he abuses it, he is in their hands, to be dealt with.”
Neely again comes close to accusing Lincoln of hypocrisy, for believing the president had no power to interfere with slavery in the states, before ultimately issuing the Emancipation Proclamation anyway - even though interfering with the actual institution of slavery and granting freedom to slaves in wartime were two different things. As for the constitutionality of doing the latter, Neely quotes one of Lincoln's defenders as arguing that “Lincoln had not justified the proclamation of emancipation as an executive power but as a power of the commander in chief, and the two were different.”
And Neely himself defends the Proclamation in the context of seizing enemy property during wartime. Since enslaved people were human and had free will, they did not need to be “seized” to be liberated. The Proclamation, therefore, was an invitation for them to take the initiative and free themselves, Neely concludes, an argument he says would answer “future generations of cynics who derided the Emancipation Proclamation for not really freeing anyone because it applied only to slaves and territory controlled by the enemy.”
All of my comments thus far relate to the first section of the book which, while not perfect, was strong and thought-provoking. I find that I have little to say about the remaining two sections, either of which could have been a separate book altogether.
The middle section deals with the judiciary, described by Neely as “the least dangerous branch” of government, since most disputes involving the president’s war powers never made their way to the U.S. Supreme Court for a final verdict, and the court system instead spent time handling more obscure disputes like dealing with underage soldiers trying to get out of the service. The last section examines the Confederate Constitution, how nationalism and states’ rights coexisted under the Confederate system of government, and how it handled constitutional disputes of its own.
There are merits to each of these sections, but after such a strong opening to the book, they are far less compelling. At best, they seem more like vaguely-related essays than a seamless continuation of a theme; at worst, they come across like a readout of raw material with no real attempt to craft any of it into a readable narrative. The first third of the book may have earned a four- or five-star review from me; the latter two-thirds unfortunately dragged down the rating for the book as a whole.
Written only a decade and a half ago, this book already seems a product of its time in some respects. Careful debates about the limits of executive authority seem somewhat quaint in this era of governing by executive order. But Neely portrays his work not as the final word on the subject, but as a launching point for further study. So what value the book may lack in readability and cohesiveness, perhaps it will prove to have as a resource for future authors aiming to turn this five-star research into more than a three-star read.
After all this, I very nearly gave up on the book altogether before deciding to give it one last chance by reading the first chapter. And that was finally compelling enough for me to decide to plunge forward. I did begin to lose interest about halfway through, but by then I was too committed to quit.
So what is this book about? Generally speaking, it focuses on the legalistic debates during the Civil War about whether various wartime actions were constitutional. It’s divided into three sections - the first and longest focusing on President Lincoln’s actions, the second on the judiciary’s perspective, and the third on the Confederate Constitution.
The first section is by far the strongest. As in his earlier book, Neely takes the position that Lincoln was not as concerned about adhering to the Constitution as he was in making practical decisions and only retroactively looking for legal justifications. This perspective can start to seem cynical at times, portraying Lincoln as a purely political creature, unconcerned with violating the Constitution as long as it helped him achieve his goals.
And yet, while I often disagreed with Neely’s perspective, his point of view is a needed corrective counterpoint to the opposite view of Lincoln as an omniscient, sagacious, strict constitutionalist whose every move was carefully thought out, perfectly justifiable and completely correct.
Neely’s Lincoln is crafty and creative, practical and resourceful, cherry-picking parts of the Constitution to justify his actions and often just making things up as he went along. “Lincoln was a politician… not particularly interested in the reasoning process,” Neely argues, “yet he cared that his own positions be constitutionally plausible,” if not perfectly correct. Instead of analyzing Lincoln’s own constitutional arguments, Neely lets others do the arguing, by quoting legal scholars and pamphleteers of the time who made the constitutional case for and against Lincoln’s actions like suspending the writ of habeas corpus and emancipating the slaves.
Neely is at his most cynical when dismissing some of Lincoln’s deeply-held beliefs, deriding him for believing in “the antislavery myth of the Constitution” and dismissing his fear that the Dred Scott decision could lead to slavery expanding nationwide, “as though it were something real and not an exaggerated bugaboo made on and for the stump.”
And yet Neely also defends Lincoln against some of his harsher critics. He portrays Lincoln as someone who stepped up and acted as a statesman rather than as a pedantic lawyer. Whenever the Constitution was unclear, Lincoln focused on practical arguments and not legalistic textual analysis. And far from acting as a dictator, he was prepared to let the people decide the wisdom of his ways and accept the consequences if his actions were not ultimately justified, quoting Lincoln himself as saying of the president, “if he uses the power justly, the same people will probably justify him; if he abuses it, he is in their hands, to be dealt with.”
Neely again comes close to accusing Lincoln of hypocrisy, for believing the president had no power to interfere with slavery in the states, before ultimately issuing the Emancipation Proclamation anyway - even though interfering with the actual institution of slavery and granting freedom to slaves in wartime were two different things. As for the constitutionality of doing the latter, Neely quotes one of Lincoln's defenders as arguing that “Lincoln had not justified the proclamation of emancipation as an executive power but as a power of the commander in chief, and the two were different.”
And Neely himself defends the Proclamation in the context of seizing enemy property during wartime. Since enslaved people were human and had free will, they did not need to be “seized” to be liberated. The Proclamation, therefore, was an invitation for them to take the initiative and free themselves, Neely concludes, an argument he says would answer “future generations of cynics who derided the Emancipation Proclamation for not really freeing anyone because it applied only to slaves and territory controlled by the enemy.”
All of my comments thus far relate to the first section of the book which, while not perfect, was strong and thought-provoking. I find that I have little to say about the remaining two sections, either of which could have been a separate book altogether.
The middle section deals with the judiciary, described by Neely as “the least dangerous branch” of government, since most disputes involving the president’s war powers never made their way to the U.S. Supreme Court for a final verdict, and the court system instead spent time handling more obscure disputes like dealing with underage soldiers trying to get out of the service. The last section examines the Confederate Constitution, how nationalism and states’ rights coexisted under the Confederate system of government, and how it handled constitutional disputes of its own.
There are merits to each of these sections, but after such a strong opening to the book, they are far less compelling. At best, they seem more like vaguely-related essays than a seamless continuation of a theme; at worst, they come across like a readout of raw material with no real attempt to craft any of it into a readable narrative. The first third of the book may have earned a four- or five-star review from me; the latter two-thirds unfortunately dragged down the rating for the book as a whole.
Written only a decade and a half ago, this book already seems a product of its time in some respects. Careful debates about the limits of executive authority seem somewhat quaint in this era of governing by executive order. But Neely portrays his work not as the final word on the subject, but as a launching point for further study. So what value the book may lack in readability and cohesiveness, perhaps it will prove to have as a resource for future authors aiming to turn this five-star research into more than a three-star read.
March 10, 2022
I appreciate the scholarship in this book, but I find the author's analysis lacking at times. Perhaps I disagree with it, which i suppose means the book has achieved its goal of causing me to think. I would read another by this author, but I did not love this book.
February 19, 2014
Neeley is not afraid to buck the popular trends in historiography.
July 28, 2014
Some really great thoughts packed up in a lot of case work. The amount of time I stretched this book over didn't help much, but man was it rough to get through.
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