Slavery and the American West: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the Civil War (review)

BOOK REVIEWS7I However, the book suffers from a narrative so poorly written as to be distracting . There are numerous small errors relating to general Civil War history. The photographs of gravemarkers reproduced in the book are often fuzzy and hard to read, and printed transcriptions are frequently not given. Behind this book (andWolf's as well) is the problem ofhow to establish the Jewish identity of CivilWar-era individuals, civilian or military. In spite ofthese flaws,Young's contribution to the literature of Jewish military participation in the Civil War is a valuable one. Growing from his military background (West Point class of 1 952), strong Jewish identification, and proximity to the burial sites of Civil War Jewish dead in and near Chattanooga, Young's focus on those Jews who made the ultimate sacrifice in the Civil War is constant throughout the book and unique in the literature. He gives us their names, tells some of their stories, and urges us to remember them and their deeds. Allan D. Satin Hebrew Union College Slavery and the American West: The Eclipse ofManifest Destiny and the Coming ofthe Civil War. By MichaelA. Morrison. (Chapel Hill: University ofNorth Carolina Press, 1997. Pp. 396. $49.95.) It is impossible for a short review to dojustice to a study of this size and complexity ; but, to be succinct, this book is a masterpiece. As with the best recent scholarship on the late antebellum period, Michael A. Morrison's magisterial study defies easy categorization; although predominantly political, this vast survey also draws heavily from intellectual and cultural studies. No historian who pretends to understand the sixteen-year countdown to Civil War will be able to ignore it. Morrison has little sympathy with ethnocultural or revisionist approaches to the war's origin. The cause of the conflict, he bluntly observes, was slavery. The appalling prospect of unfree labor in the western territories began the transition from a healthy interparty discussion over the economic wisdom of manifest destiny to a sectionalized argument over slavery extension. Put simply, restrictionists claimed to be upholding the legacy of the Revolution by attacking a governmental conspiracy determined to crush majority rule and the democratic process, while proslavery advocates replied that the break with Britain was to be understood as a defense of minority rights and the sanctity of property in the face of a despotic power. Even before the Mexican War, Morrison demonstrates , Southern politicians of both parties defined the territorial question in terms oftheir equal rights in the republic. Resolved to uphold their Revolutionary heritage, statesmen of both sections increasingly came to regard each other as a reactionary threat to the Union as it was framed by the patriot elite. By focusing on this shared political heritage, as well as on commonalities of language and religion, Morrison depreciates cultural differences between the 72CIVIL WAR HISTORY sections. In the process, he perhaps underestimates the extent to which unwaged labor fastened a fundamentally nonmarket society upon the Old South. Northern activists and Southern politicians, in his view, shared a collective—not disparate —Revolutionary heritage. Many specialists in the Revolutionary era may disagree. But one of the many virtues of Morrison's sophisticated theme is its adaptability; historians who suspect that the South always had interpreted the meaning of 1776 differently from the North precisely because of their peculiar institution can concur with the theory that both sides marched into battle secure in the belief that they were throwing off a tyrannical yoke. Given the imposing size and scope of this study, it seems downright churlish to suggest that Morrison should have included the voices ofwomen in his work. The use of recent studies on political rallies staged by Whig women on behalf ofparty candidates, forexample, would only have strengthened Morrison's theory of a thoroughly politicized citizenry. The author also overstates the extent to which the South industrialized in the years before the war. These are quibbles. Morrison's research is stunning. His footnotes—unfortunately placed at the end of the text and regrettably devoid of historiographical discussion—reveal research conducted in 405 collections in forty repositories and in 149 newspapers and magazines. Elegant, witty (mystery fans will note a good number of...