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The Republican House Divided: Civil War Memory, Civil Rights, and the Transformation of the GOP
How the Republican Party transformed from the Party of Lincoln to the Party of Lee
The Republican House Divided is the first comprehensive study of the relationships between the Republican Party and Civil War memory in the twentieth century. Tim Galsworthy reveals how rival Republicans deployed Civil War memory to support, oppose, and ultimately shape the GOP's transformation, during the civil rights era, into a racially conservative party. Drawing on extensive archival research, Galsworthy underlines how references to the past were vitally important to Republican Party politicians as they negotiated their party's positions toward African American civil rights and attempted to appeal to erstwhile white Southern Democrats. The Republican House Divided is a timely work, offering insight into how the "Party of Lincoln" started on the road to becoming the GOP of today.
The Republican House Divided is the first comprehensive study of the relationships between the Republican Party and Civil War memory in the twentieth century. Tim Galsworthy reveals how rival Republicans deployed Civil War memory to support, oppose, and ultimately shape the GOP's transformation, during the civil rights era, into a racially conservative party. Drawing on extensive archival research, Galsworthy underlines how references to the past were vitally important to Republican Party politicians as they negotiated their party's positions toward African American civil rights and attempted to appeal to erstwhile white Southern Democrats. The Republican House Divided is a timely work, offering insight into how the "Party of Lincoln" started on the road to becoming the GOP of today.
300 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 20, 2025
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January 1, 2026
This is a non-fiction book about how the USA Republican party shifted from a plurality of positions to strong conservatism during the 1960s. The change was investigated chiefly on the basis of the presidential elections of 1960, 1964 and 1968. Recently, I read and was impressed by Playing with Fire: The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics. This book, while formally broader in its time frame, is actually much narrower, connecting everything to the US Civil War and its aftermath.
In 1960, there were 100 years since the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War. Lincoln was a Republican (a good biography of him is A. Lincoln: A Biography) and Democrats back then had a significant pro-slavery faction. After the war, Republicans in the South were seen as Yankees, and supported by the Blacks, while Whites backed Democrats. Even by the 1960s, among members of the Democratic Party from the South were a lot of segregationists. So, when the movements against segregation got a new impetus in the 1960s, a lot of people thought that the party of Lincoln would be at the forefront. And there were several prominent liberal republicans, e.g. Nelson Rockefeller, a member of the wealthy Rockefeller family and the 49th governor of New York from 1959 to 1973. He was actively anti-segregationist and pro civil rights. His main opponent was not Richard Nixon, but Barry Goldwater, whose very idea was to get the support of the segregationist whites in the south, showing them that republicans are closer to the post-Civil war southern democrats than modern democrats. Nixon actually vacillated between these two extremes, moving to the conservative only by the 1968 election, where he said that ‘true’ Lincoln’s idea was a right to live safely, so all these protests and civil rights campaigns create unsafe spaces (in modern terminology) and therefore are against Lincolnian ideas.
This book very narrowly looks at the conservative shift, only on the basis of attitudes toward the US Civil War, with no mention of other 60s issues, chiefly of the draft and the Vietnam War. And I guess that most voters were more motivated by the present, not the past.
In 1960, there were 100 years since the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War. Lincoln was a Republican (a good biography of him is A. Lincoln: A Biography) and Democrats back then had a significant pro-slavery faction. After the war, Republicans in the South were seen as Yankees, and supported by the Blacks, while Whites backed Democrats. Even by the 1960s, among members of the Democratic Party from the South were a lot of segregationists. So, when the movements against segregation got a new impetus in the 1960s, a lot of people thought that the party of Lincoln would be at the forefront. And there were several prominent liberal republicans, e.g. Nelson Rockefeller, a member of the wealthy Rockefeller family and the 49th governor of New York from 1959 to 1973. He was actively anti-segregationist and pro civil rights. His main opponent was not Richard Nixon, but Barry Goldwater, whose very idea was to get the support of the segregationist whites in the south, showing them that republicans are closer to the post-Civil war southern democrats than modern democrats. Nixon actually vacillated between these two extremes, moving to the conservative only by the 1968 election, where he said that ‘true’ Lincoln’s idea was a right to live safely, so all these protests and civil rights campaigns create unsafe spaces (in modern terminology) and therefore are against Lincolnian ideas.
This book very narrowly looks at the conservative shift, only on the basis of attitudes toward the US Civil War, with no mention of other 60s issues, chiefly of the draft and the Vietnam War. And I guess that most voters were more motivated by the present, not the past.
Displaying 1 of 1 review