..., Republicans believed that wise land management was inseparable from the ideal society. Republicans believed that tilling the soil for multiple generations on small farms produced a strong nation. In contrast, the use of slave labor promoted waste, barbarism, and disunion. By necessity, this book focuses...

...The familiar story of the Civil War tells of a predominately agricultural South pitted against a rapidly industrializing North. However, this book argues that the Republican Party’s political ideology was fundamentally agrarian. Believing that small farms owned by families for generations led...