"Something Worth Fighting For"

"Before the war, slavery powerfully affected the concept of self-government. Large numbers of Americans identified democratic citizenship as a privilege of whites alone—a position embraced by the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision of 1857. Which is why the transformation wrought by the Civil War was so remarkable. As George William Curtis, the editor of Harper’s Weekly, observed in 1865, the war transformed a government 'for white men' into one 'for mankind.'"

Eric Foner in The New York Times reviews Gary W. Gallagher The Union War.