Newest Born of Nations: European Nationalist Movements and the Making of the Confederacy (A Nation Divided: Studies in the Civil War Era)

From the earliest stirrings of southern nationalism to the defeat of the Confederacy, analysis of European nationalisms played a critical role in southern thought about the new southern nation. After secession, southern thinkers sought to legitimize the new southern nation by comparing it to contemporary European nationalist movements. Because the Confederate nation was cast in the same mold as European counterparts, southerners argued, it deserved independence. While popular at home, such claims failed to resonate with Europeans and northerners, who viewed slavery as incompatible with liberal nationalism. Forced to re-evaluate their claims about the international place of southern nationalism, some Confederates redoubled their attempts to place the Confederacy within the broader trends of nineteenth century nationalism. More conservative southerners took a different tack. They emphasized the distinctiveness of southern nationalism, claiming that the Confederacy actually purified nationalism through slavery--

• | Author: Ann L. Tucker
• | Publisher: University of Virginia Press
• | Publication Date: June 29, 2020
• | Number of Pages: 272 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Hardcover
• | ISBN-10: 0813944287
• | ISBN-13: 9780813944289