Ebook: From oligarchy to republicanism: the great task of reconstruction

Introduction : The meaning of the new birth of freedom -- Part I. Republican argument. What were they reconstructing ; The relationship of slavery to Southern oligarchy ; The origin of Southern oligarchy ; The oligarchy rises ; American Republicanism regroups -- Part II. Test and implications. The evidence ; The burial of the New Birth of Freedom.;"The key to understanding the antebellum South and the Civil War is not slavery per se, but the anti-republican ethos that permeated the beliefs, habits, and way of life of the Southern Oligarchy and set them at odds with not only Northerners, but middle class, poor, and enslaved Southerners as well."