After the initial gratification at being invited to present a lecture series honoring a distinguished historian has subsided, a difficult question usually remains. What should the topic be? While working on a study of the Republican senators of the Civil War period, I was recurrently surprised at the number of important questions about the role of the United States Congress in that great conflict that either gave promise of rewarding further research or, indeed, had not been answered at all. The legislative history of the House of Representatives appeared to be particularly unclear. This is not, of course, meant to diminish the worth of that substantial and often distinguished body of scholarly research that several generations of historians of the Civil War have accumulated. But the members of each generation of scholars bring a different sense of what is interesting and important to their tasks. Perhaps an effort to view the war through the eyes of the members of the House of Representatives would be rewarding? I decided to try to find out by devoting the Carl Becker Lectures at Cornell University in April 1986 to an exploration of several themes in the history of the U.S. Congress during the Civil War and the years immediately preceding it.

Most Americans know something about the history of the Civil War. Few social studies or history teachers in the public schools either can or wish to avoid treating so dramatic and fateful a struggle.