ABSTRACT
The Civil War was the bloodiest war in U.S. history; it challenged the notion that member states could leave the Union in opposition to federal policy, and was fought over the future of the immensely profitable but morally indefensible system of enslaved labor. Since the Civil War, a complex and often contentious historiography with parallel and mutually influential academic and popular accounts (Blight, 2001; Cobb, 2005) has developed. Such accounts have sought to justify positions (see Rüsen, 2005) that reflect contested visions of what the United States is and/or should be, particularly with regard to identity, race, equality, liberty, economic policy, and federalism (Blight, 2001; Cobb, 2005).
