The Triumph of Sectionalism: The Transformation of Ohio Politics, 1844-1856 (review)

274CIVIL WAR HISTORY along these lines would be desirable to construct a more differentiated picture of German responses to the crisis of the Union. Indeed, no better evidence than the two works under review could be offered for Rowan's assertion, "What is most pressingly needed is . . . an increasingnumber of bilingual historians of America" (p. ix) . Walter D. Kamphoefner University of Miami The Triumph of Sectionalism: The Transformation of Ohio Politics, 1844-1856. By Stephen E. Maizlich. (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1983. Pp. xiv, 310. Appendix, bibliography, and index. $25.00.) Stephen E. Maizlich's study of antebellum Ohio politics has provided a valuable addition to our knowledge of the two-party system in the period between the presidency of Andrew Jackson and the Civil War. He argues effectively that state parties "acted as a mediator, explaining the positions of the national organizations" and interpreting regional concerns (p. xi). Ohio's diversity gave it a significance far beyond its numbers. The state included a large immigrant population, and extensive antislavery interest along with sympathy for the slave South. It produced many of the nation's prominent political leaders of the period including Salmon P. Chase, Joshua Giddings, Benjamin Wade, Thomas Corwin, John McLean, and Clement Vallandigham. This study is totally political, concentrating on how Ohio's divergent beliefs and interests were reconciled, and the period under study encompasses the dissolving of the second party system, the rise of nativism, and concludes with sectional concerns again dominant by 1856. Before 1844 Ohio politics had been characterized by sharp economic division between Whigs and Democrats especially due to the Whig desire to expand banking and the Democratic concern for drastically curtailing its influence. With Democrats themselves divided over how much to limit banking, the issue began to lose its viability with the rise of the territorial question in the early 1840s. Here Maizlich reviews in excessive detail the already familiar issues relating to expansion, the WiImot Proviso, and popular sovereignty, showing the Democratic support of territorial expansion and the Whig resistance to it. What Charles Sellers and Chaplain Morrison and others have already covered is applied to Ohio politics, focusing on the well-known role played by Senator Corwin. Maizlich is more effective in his appreciative interpretation of the Free Soilers' role in Ohio politics. While describingtheir factionalism, he emphasizes their influence in 1848and 1849 with their success in placing Salmon Chase in the Senate. Most important perhaps is the application to Ohio of Michael Holt's thesis in national politics concerning the rise of the Know-Nothing movement with the decline of the Whigs and the BOOK REVIEWS275 instability in party politics between 1850 and 1853. Only when the new Republican party finally emerged as a viable major party in 1855 with Chase's election as governor did the nativist movement decline and stability return to the two-party system. With that sectional issues again dominated Ohio as they did national politics. Those seeking a detailed study of the politics of a key northern state will be well rewarded by a close reading of Maizlich's important monograph. Frederick J. Blue Youngstown State University The Road to Redemption: Southern Politics, 1869-1879. By Michael Perman. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984. Pp. xiv, 353. $32.00.) With the publication of this book, Michael Perman has completed a masterful interpretative history of southern politics in the Reconstruction era. In addition to its ambitious scope, the book demonstrates how Reconstruction was a continuation of southern political history and how both Republicans and Democrats tried to capture the political center. This emphasis on continuity and consensus sets Perman's work apart from that of other historians who have stressed the upheaval and conflict of the period. The author gives careful attention for the first time to the tactical shift of southern Democrats from all-out opposition to Reconstruction to the seemingly more flexible New Departure policy. Though covering the entire South, Perman takes into account variations among the states in drawing general conclusions about southern politics. In contrast, the treatment of Republican factionalism is not as sophisticated except for the categorization of centrists, regulars, and radicals. Perman wisely resurrects the...