The Loyal Republic: Traitors, Slaves, and the Remaking of Citizenship in Civil War America by Erik Mathisen (review)

American citizenship lacked clear definition until the mid-nineteenth century. Citizenship in the early republic was plagued by generalizations, questions of obligation, and issues regarding its origins. In The Loyal Republic: Traitors, Slaves, and the Remaking of Citizenship in Civil War America, Erik Mathisen explores how this dynamic evolved as the Civil War era redefined what it meant to be an American citizen. Mathisen illuminates in new and valuable ways how “loyalty . . . became part of a larger attempt to redefine citizenship and reckon with the power of nation-states” (p. 2). Through both rhetoric and politics, he argues, “loyalty . . . clarified . . . for the first time, the obligations of American citizenship” (p. 173). Although it became a necessary marker of allegiance during the war, loyalty faded from political discourse by the mid-1870s with disastrous consequences for African Americans. Using Mississippi as a case study, Mathisen examines the interplay between loyalty and citizenship through local and national lenses by weaving together events from the Deep South with those occurring at the national level. He ultimately argues that, while antebellum Americans understood the rights guaranteed to them as citizens, they were less clear on their own obligations to the national government. The Civil War clarified the issue, if only briefly, and left a lasting impact on how Americans remember the war and how they still think about national loyalty.

Mathisen shows that, despite its best efforts, the Mississippi state government was subsumed by the more powerful Confederate state. Although both Mississippi and the Confederate States of America ultimately failed, white southerners who remained loyal to both gained a new understanding of citizenship obligations. Continuing this theme, Mathisen contends that the Confederate army became the main vehicle by which soldiers were turned into loyal citizens, and the army created a bond between white southerners and the Confederacy that can be traced to the formation of the Lost Cause. But even this connection was not without its struggles, as Mathisen notes, because the Confederate government and the state governments were often at odds as to who should be in charge, especially when it came to the command of local militias.

In the second half of the book, Mathisen gets to the strongest part of his argument. Here he examines the role loyalty played in defining citizenship for both the Union and the Confederacy. Loyalty had assumed a new level of importance by mid-war as emancipation enabled freedmen to seize loyalty to the Union as an integral step toward gaining full citizenship rights. The loyalty of enslaved men and women, as well as African American soldiers, served as a sharp contrast to the absence of white southern loyalty. Mathisen makes clear that loyalty was hard to define, however. President Andrew Johnson’s required loyalty oaths, for example, made a mockery of his desire to force former slaveholders to repent for their sins. But after Congress took control of Reconstruction, the Union’s focus and energy shifted toward African American protection. Mathisen shows that in this period action, not rhetoric, meant more when proving allegiance. Ultimately, the march toward unification ensured the separation of loyalty from citizenship obligations—a move that unduly benefited white southerners. While Mathisen admits that loyalty’s prominence as a part of citizenship ebbed, he effectively contends that it remains both in Civil War memory and as an important part of American patriotism.

The Loyal Republic is a well-researched and thoughtful study that adds much to our understanding of the complex evolving concepts of American citizenship. Mathisen’s focus on the ways the Civil War altered Americans’ understanding of the obligations of citizenship and the role loyalty played in that understanding makes this book a welcome addition to any Civil War scholar’s library.