This book examines Southerners' claims to loyal citizenship in the reunited nation after the American Civil War. Southerners male and female; elite and non-elite; white, black, and American Indian disagreed with the federal government over the obligations citizens owed to their nation and the obligations the nation owed to its citizens. Susanna Michele Lee explores these clashes through the operations of the Southern Claims Commission, a federal body that rewarded compensation for wartime losses to Southerners who proved that they had been loyal citizens of the Union. Lee argues that Southerners forced the federal government to consider how white men who had not been soldiers and voters, and women and racial minorities who had not been allowed to serve in those capacities, could also qualify as loyal citizens. Postwar considerations of the former Confederacy potentially demanded a reconceptualization of citizenship that replaced exclusions by race and gender with inclusions according to loyalty."

In Claiming Union Widowhood, Brandi Clay Brimmer analyzes the US pension system from the perspective of poor black women during and after the Civil War. Reconstructing the grassroots pension network in New Bern, North Carolina, through a broad range of historical sources, she outlines how the mothers, wives, and widows of black Union soldiers struggled to claim pensions in the face of evidentiary obstacles and personal scrutiny. Brimmer exposes and examines the numerous attempts by the federal government to exclude black women from receiving the federal pensions that they had been promised. Her analyses illustrate the complexities of social policy and law administration and the interconnectedness of race, gender, and class formation. Expanding on previous analyses of pension records, Brimmer offers an interpretive framework of emancipation and the freedom narrative that places black women at the forefront of demands for black citizenship.

This book examines Southerners' claims to loyal citizenship in the reunited nation after the American Civil War. Southerners - male and female; elite and non-elite; white, black, and American Indian - disagreed with the federal government over the obligations citizens owed to their nation and the obligations the nation owed to its citizens. Susanna Michele Lee explores these clashes through the operations of the Southern Claims Commission, a federal body that rewarded compensation for wartime losses to Southerners who proved that they had been loyal citizens of the Union. Lee argues that Southerners forced the federal government to consider how white men who had not been soldiers and voters, and women and racial minorities who had not been allowed to serve in those capacities, could also qualify as loyal citizens. Postwar considerations of the former Confederacy potentially demanded a reconceptualization of citizenship that replaced exclusions by race and gender with inclusions according to loyalty.

"Habitually interpreted as the fundamental law of the American republic, the US Constitution was in fact designed as an instrument of union between thirteen American republics and as a form of government for their common central government. It offered an organizational solution to the security concerns of the newly independent American states. Confederation was an established means for weak states to maintain their independence by joining in union to manage relations with the outside world from a position of strength. Confederation also transformed the immediate international environment by turning neighboring states from potential enemies into sister states in a common union or peace pact. The US Constitution profoundly altered the structure of the American union and made the federal government more effective than under the defunct Articles of Confederation. But it did not transform the fundamental purpose of the federal union, which remained the management of relations between the American states, on the one hand, and between the American states and foreign powers, on the other hand. As had been the case under the articles, the states regulated the social, economic, and civic life of their citizens and inhabitants with only limited supervision and control from the federal government. Interpreting the Constitution as an instrument of union has important implications for our understanding of the American founding. The Constitution mattered much more to the international than to the domestic history of the United States. Its importance to the latter was dwarfed by that of state constitutions and legislation"--

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, bestselling historian, and author of Our First Civil War—a masterful biography of the Civil War general and two-term president who saved the Union twice, on the battlefield and in the White House. • “[A] splendidly written biography ... Brands does justice to one of America’s most underrated presidents.” —Dallas Morning News Ulysses Grant emerges in this masterful biography as a genius in battle and a driven president to a divided country, who remained fearlessly on the side of right. He was a beloved commander in the field who made the sacrifices necessary to win the war, even in the face of criticism. He worked valiantly to protect the rights of freed men in the South. He allowed the American Indians to shape their own fate even as the realities of Manifest Destiny meant the end of their way of life. In this sweeping and majestic narrative, bestselling author H.W. Brands now reconsiders Grant's legacy and provides an intimate portrait of a heroic man who saved the Union on the battlefield and consolidated that victory as a resolute and principled political leader. Look for H.W. Brands's other biographies: THE FIRST AMERICAN (Benjamin Franklin), ANDREW JACKSON, TRAITOR TO HIS CLASS (Franklin Roosevelt) and REAGAN.

In the late nineteenth century, Midwestern miners often had to decide if joining a union was in their interest. Arguing that these workers were neither pro-union nor anti-union, Dana M. Caldemeyer shows that they acted according to what they believed would benefit them and their families. As corporations moved to control coal markets and unions sought to centralize their organizations to check corporate control, workers were often caught between these institutions and sided with whichever one offered the best advantage in the moment. Workers chased profits while paying union dues, rejected national unions while forming local orders, and broke strikes while claiming to be union members. This pragmatic form of unionism differed from what union leaders expected of rank-and-file members, but for many workers the choice to follow or reject union orders was a path to better pay, stability, and independence in an otherwise unstable age. Nuanced and eye-opening, Union Renegades challenges popular notions of workers attitudes during the Gilded Age.