The American Civil War as a social revolution: the Enlightenment, providential consciousness and changes in moral perception
The American Civil War as a social revolution: the Enlightenment, providential consciousness and changes in moral perception

Summary/Abstract: This article analyses Enlightenment ideas and nation-making practices in the American Civil War and pre-War civil societies. It analyses African American mobilization and the abolitionist movement, and Lincoln’s role in war, reconciliation and development. The international context is investigated in a case for relational nation making. The role of non-violent mobilization is assessed. It examines the war’s social revolutionary implications. The war’s unprecedented violence anticipated 20th century total war, fundamentally deciding the republic’s future. State/civil society interactions, and changes in public moral perception, reshape longstanding institutional arrangements, and decide core ethical issues including the meaning of humanity.

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