Bipartisan politics full of cutthroat politicians are often considered to be relatively new additions to the American political system. It is not uncommon for people to decry the current state of American politics, thinking about to a time when there was a kinder, more forward-thinking brand of politician in America. However, according to Michael Holt, this idea that there was once a type of American politician unconcerned with bipartisan politics is as much a fictionalization of the past as the narrative that slavery caused the American Civil War (Holt).
Holt argues that partisan politics played a fundamentally important role in the Civil War, and that economic discontinuity between the North and the South in the United States did not single-handedly cause the Civil War any more than the threat of the abolition of slavery did. Instead, he argues, slavery and economic discontinuity were merely symptoms of the larger problem of unwillingness on many politicians’ part to look past the next election to see the potential impacts of their decisions. Holt’s function in writing this text is to examine what he considers to be the most direct and absolute causes of the American Civil War; unfortunately, he comes to the conclusion that good, old-fashioned hubris and greed on the part of American politicians played a large role in starting a war that was largely avoidable (Holt).
At the beginning of the text, Holt discusses what he sees as potential problems with the currently-accepted historical narrative surrounding the American Civil War; notably, Holt implies heavily that the current acceptance of politicians treatment of the expansion of slavery as the driving cause for the American Civil War is illogical and somewhat ill-founded. However, as a historian, Holt seems unwilling to truly speak out against alternative theories; unlike Jared Diamond, who is willing to discuss theories directly and then accept or dismiss certain premises out of hand, Holt relies on a much more roundabout approach. Never does Holt deconstruct an argument made by his fellow historian; rather, he presents an argument such as the idea that the expansion of slavery is what triggered the Civil War, and then addresses in a sideways manner why his research has led him to dismiss this current theory (Holt).
While this is a kinder and gentler approach to writing and deconstructing alternative theories on historical issues, for readers who are not well-versed in the current scholarship on the American Civil War, there might be problems grasping brief or esoteric allusions to other bodies of work; however, Holt does manage to write a text that allows for the layperson to understand his argument without worrying about the deconstruction of alternative arguments and without having to understand the current discussions among scholars in regards to the causes of the American Civil War.
Holt addresses the issues of American politicians and their participation in partisan politics directly in his text. American politicians during the years leading up to the American Civil War, he postulates, did not do enough to alleviate the growing tension in the country. There is no denying that slavery was a hot-button issue for the time period, and there is also no denying that the expansion of slavery into the southwestern states was a serious problem between the American North and the American South in the pre-Civil War years-- however, Holt argues that politicians during this time exacerbated the problem rather than solving it in any coherent manner. Politicians acted, according to Holt, with “shortsighted calculations of partisan advantage,” meaning that they were calculating which action would most likely lead to their re-election rather than which would help them avoid a potentially bloody civil war.
The person who Holt places the most blame upon when constructing this new narrative of the American Civil War is, unsurprisingly, the most powerful politician of the day: James Polk, the President. Polk was, according to Holt, an expansionist, and was completely unwilling to consider the potential effects of his expansionist policies. Because he was unwilling to compromise or reconsider, Polk essentially lit the match that would ignite the American Civil War-- his unwillingness to see anything except his own desire to possess California and the current American Southwest led directly to political infighting over slavery and the expansion of slavery in the United States.
Today’s infighting between Democrats and Republicans is not unlike what happened in America in the years leading up to the Civil War, according to Holt. Democrats during the years prior to the Civil War supported and denied support for slavery seemingly on a whim; their support changed and evolved based on the political needs of the individual politicians at the time. One of the most notable examples of this is examined during his discussion of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, where Democrats from New York retracted their support of slavery expansion to punish their rivals within the party, rather than for any discernable, logical politically-responsible reason.
Despite all the discussion on how partisan politics led to the American Civil War, Holt does acknowledge that certain groups and certain individual politicians made distinct efforts to avoid what they saw as the incoming storm. However, Holt’s central argument is not lessened by this admission; instead, he notes that these politicians also lacked the ability to work cohesively, and thus were unable to affect any real changes in the American political system during the years prior to the Civil War.
There is no denying that the American Civil War had a multitude of causes, and that there is plenty of blame to be parceled out to the individuals in power in the years leading up to the war. Holt does an excellent job selling the argument that partisan politics played a large role in setting the American Civil War in motion.
Works cited
Holt, Michael F. The fate of their country. New York: Hill and Wang, 2005. Print.
