The Loyal Republic: Traitors, Slaves, and the Remaking of Citizenship in Civil War America

Abstract

The Loyal Republic is a meditation on how Americans understood the notion of loyalty and how it related to that of citizenship during the Civil War era. Erik Mathisen argues that the war was a crucial turning point in these understandings. Before the Civil War, Americans had only the vaguest notion of citizenship and no real understanding of what duties toward the nation-state were associated with being a citizen. Because of the increased power of central governments during the war and the need to define the position of disloyal white southerners and loyal African Americans within the American nation following the war, he argues, Americans began to consider more clearly not just what rights should be associated with citizenship but also what obligations it should entail. As a result, the obligation of loyalty became more explicitly tied to the notion of national citizenship. Mathisen makes his point in somewhat disparate chapters that hang together through their emphasis on the growth of the nation-state and the debates that emerged concerning loyalty during the sectional struggle. He essentially begins and ends his argument in Mississippi. An early chapter relates the story of the struggle of Mississippi governor John Pettus (1859–1863) to assert his authority after secession to shed light on the shift in loyalties in that region from local authorities to the Republic of Mississippi and finally to the Confederate States of America. Mathisen also looks at the occupation of the Mississippi Valley and the increasingly evident contrast between disloyal whites and loyal African Americans. Mathisen returns to Mississippi at the end of the book to look at how conflicts over black and white disputes over land claims and apprenticeship law hinged on debates about the national government's obligation to protect loyal citizens. In between these Mississippi stories, Mathisen discusses the way military service in the Confederate army helped encourage loyalty to the rebellious nation during the war, and he dedicates a chapter to a discussion of Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction policies through the lens of the president's obsession with expressions of loyalty as a requirement for the reestablishment of southern claims of citizenship in the United States.