Bulletin n. 2-3/2012
October 2012-February 2013
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Stephen Engle
    “It is Time for the States to Speak to the Federal Government”: The Altoona Conference and Emancipation
    in Civil War History , Vol. 58, n°4 ,  2012
    The Union victory in the Civil War was a triumph of American federalism. Preservation of its political structure guaranteed the continuance of a national existence and established a blueprint for transforming the antebellum union of states into a powerful nation. It also led to a reappraisal of the presumption that a federal system ensured a weak central government. Preservation of the Union necessitated that citizens place a significant degree of importance on a group known as “War Governors.” As guardians of the states, governors were well positioned to negotiate struggles between the state house and the White House and made themselves vital cogs in the war effort and Union policies. By exercising unprecedented influence and administrative leadership, governors assumed “statesmen-like” prestige that accorded them new-found respect among their constituents. Yet for such an enormous subject, we know so little about governors and their significance during the war. Without the willingness of northern governors who independently agreed to uphold the Union, marshal their states’ resources, and cooperate in establishing a national army and support Lincoln’s initiatives, Lincoln would have been hard pressed to preserve the Union. The Altoona Conference of September 1862 provides a small, but significant window into how and why governors came to see themselves as the guardians of a reconstituted federal structure that allowed them the opportunity to weld the power they believed they had been entitled by their cooperation in preserving the Union.
    ©2001 - 2020 - Centro Studi sul Federalismo - P. IVA 94067130016