A Contest of Civilizations: Exposing the Crisis of American Exceptionalism in the Civil War Era (Andrew F. Lang - CH) campfire photographs

photographs

its effectiveness in freeing the slaves has been dismissed as a legal illusion

“…an empty stone house and fenceless yard were all that was left the widow of seventy years

Worthington Matravers and brother Kingston answered the call when the Confederacy moved against the North

A Contest of Civilizations: Exposing the Crisis of American Exceptionalism in the Civil War Era (Andrew F. Lang - CH) campfire photographsby Andrew F. Lang Most mid nineteenth century Americans regarded the United States as an exceptional democratic republic that stood apart from a world seemingly riddled with revolutionary turmoil and aristocratic consolidation. Viewing themselves as distinct from and even superior to other societies, Americans considered their nation an unprecedented experiment in political moderation and constitutional democracy. But as abolitionism in England,