Advice and Consent in the American Civil War: Voting on Military Nominations

• In Event: Presidential Appointments

Abstract

Why do some nominations succeed and others fail? Previous research on this topic has focused on either executive and/or judicial nominations, and has generally ignored the role of military appointments. Here, we exploit temporal and geographic variation during the American Civil War to examine how Senators’ votes on general and flag officer nominations were affected by nominees’ personal characteristics as well as national- and local-level political contexts. Our results contribute to an understanding of both bureaucratic appointments and the American Civil War.

Authors

• Gary E. Hollibaugh, University of Pittsburgh

• Tyson Chatagnier, University of Houston