Leonard P. Curry (1939–2013)

Currey details the work of the 37th (first civil war) congress. His thesis is that the decisions made by this congress in the realms of private property, race, the use of public land, taxation, banking and currency, transportation and railroads, and congressional authority more generally set the stage for the approach of the federal government over rest of the 19th century. Given that this is the congress responsible for the Homestead Act, the Pacific Railroad act and major overhauls of taxation and banking rules this is a convincing argument.
The problem with this work is that the main evidence presented, a detailed examination of the congressional record on each of these issues, is only tangentially related to the thesis. The sections on emancipation do serve to confirm the fact that only a small minority of even northern Republicans believed in racial equality and that even full emancipation was controversial. The economic legislation seems to have been more stumbled into than it resulted from a coherent political philosophy. Currey would have been better off taking a wider view. But having spent the considerable effort in reading the minutia of congressional record he was bent on presenting it.
If you are interested in the topic, I would recommend getting the book from the library and reading the concluding chapter.… (more)