We begin our survey of Secession comes to Virginia with three books related to the American mind as the crisis of secession and civil war approached. “The Slave Power” describes Southern state domination of U.S. national government first in the Congressional Caucus system, and then in the Second Party System of nominating conventions and nationalized campaigns. “North Over South” explores the development of a Northern sectional nationalism, “Idea of a Southern Nation” describes the growth of a Southern sectional nationalism.
“The Impending Crisis” focuses on the commonalities between North and South, but noting a rising resentment in the South and disintegrating forces in the North. “The Shattering of the Union” alternatively addresses the clear social and cultural distinctions between North and South. Important critical events leading to animosity between the sections are discussed in “Storm over Texas” and its annexation, along with “The Dred Scott Case” centering around the Virginian slave. Out of print books also look at John Brown’s Harpers Ferry Raid in Virginia, and the return of runaway Anthony Burns from Boston to Virginia.
These books are all used in bibliographies found in peer-reviewed surveys of Virginia history of scholarly merit. Additional insights are used from articles in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, the Journal of Southern History and the Journal of American History.
For book reviews at The Virginia Historian.com in this historical period addressing other topics, see the webpage for Antebellum, Civil War, Reconstruction. General surveys of Virginia History can be found at Virginia History Surveys. Other Virginia history divided by topics and time periods can be found at the webpage Books and Reviews.
The Slave Power
Leonard L. Richards wrote The Slave Power: The Free North and Southern Domination, 1789-1860 in 2000. It is now available in paperback. The three-fifths rule of Congressional apportionment awarding seats to slave-holding states influenced presidential elections and national policy through the Congressional Caucus. Just at the caucus system died, the Jacksonian Democrats emerged to dominate with southern leaders and northern candidates submissive to the “slave power”.
Late antebellum Southern victories included annexing Texas, the Fugitive Slave Law and Dred Scott. Presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court were anti-white majoritarian, and northerners resented it, and Lincoln’s Republican Party benefitted in 1960. Learn more to buy “The Slave Power” here for your bookshelf.
North Over South
Susan-Mary Grant wrote North over South: Northern Nationalism and American Identity in the Antebellum Era in 2000. It is now available in paperback. The South as a region changed the least in the antebellum period, while the North was transformed. Amidst Northern insecurities from urbanization, immigration and industrialization, the South was represented by northern thinkers as a blight to Northern progress and a threat to the republic. A truly national outlook became impossible in the face of aggressive Northern sectionalism.
The North was energetic, entrepreneurial, free and virtuously republican, while the South was lazy, caste-ridden, slave-holding and run by petty despots. Learn more to buy “North over South” here for your bookshelf.
Idea of a Southern Nation
John McCardell wrote The Idea of a Southern Nation: Southern Nationalists and Southern Nationalism, 1830-1860 in 1979. It is now available in paperback. The Southern sectionalist believed distinctive values and interests could be preserved in the Union in a loose but very real American nationalism. A southern nationalist by contrast saw sectional interests and values incompatible with continued Union.
Southern nationalists used the systematic defense of slavery to attack southern Unionists on every front, from commercial self-sufficiency, distinctive southern literature, separatist religion and education, and advocating southern territorial expansion including a Caribbean empire. Learn more to buy “The Idea of a Southern Nation” here for your bookshelf.
Fate of Their Country
Michael F. Holt wrote The Fate of the Country: Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War in 2004. It is now available in paperback. It is a rehearsal of government intrigue, conflicting sectional interests, personal ambition and unstable expedient compromises made from short term calculations. These were maneuvered without any concern for the long term health or survival of the Union.
All the major political actors, Whigs, Democrats and Free-Soilers all stirred up sectional debates about slavery expansion on the hustings in spite of the Compromise of 1850. Holt sees no “compelling issue” at the time to take to the electorate among them. Learn more to buy “Fate of the Country” here for your bookshelf.
The Impending Crisis
David M. Potter wrote and Don E. Fehrenbacher edited The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861 in 1976. It is now available in paperback. The period between the Mexican War and the Civil War has a history of its own where the separate cultural differences among the sections were subservient to an American nation. Potter sees no distinct civilization between the sections despite protestations of exteme advocates; southern nationalism broadly was born of resentment.
The great compromises of 1850 were meant to be an “armistice” on the slavery question in the territories, but provisions for territorial government were ambiguous. Old parties crumbled, and in the North, nativism was a powerful disintegrating force, almost as much as slavery in the South. Learn more to buy “Impending Crisis” here for your bookshelf.
The Shattering of the Union
Eric H. Walther wrote The Shattering of the Union: America in the 1850s in 2004. It is now available in paperback. National and international politics in the 1850s was an interplay between political elites and their contending policies on the one hand, and “ordinary people” on the other. By mid century there were clear social and cultural distinctions between the sections North and South.
Northern abolitionists motivated opinion leaders by novels, sociological tracts, magazines and speeches. Yet northerners generally remained simultaneously racist, anti-slavery and opposed to abolition. Southerners saw slavery as a part of the compact of U.S. government. There was a steady rise in violence throughout the decade; the sectional crisis came from value conflicts among many actors. Learn more to buy “Shattering of the Union” here for your bookshelf.
Storm over Texas
Joel H. Silbey wrote Storm over Texas: The Annexation Controversy and the Road to Civil War in 2005. Texas Annexation began the shift away from partisan divisions related to “republican liberty” toward sectional divisions related to slavery. The ascendance of the James K. Polk faction in the Democratic Party dissolved sectional reciprocity. Many northern Democrats adopted the abolitionist view that there was a slave power conspiracy to control the country.
The Kansas Nebraska Act completed the loss of sectional comity that the national parties once provided, and the nation’s politics devolved into sectional animosity. Learn more to buy “Storm Over Texas” here for your bookshelf.
The Dred Scott Case
Don E. Fehrenbacher wrote The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics in 1978. It is now available in paperback. In this Constitutional-legal history, Fehrenbacher analyses the enmeshed elements that became the Dred Scott case in its political, social and economic context. The actual litigation is parsed focusing on Chief Justice Roger B. Taney’s distortions, exaggerations and misconstructions of American Constitutional and legal history. Lastly it considers the effects of the decision from the 1860s forward.
Taney sought to expand federal judicial power and influence in order to support slavery, expand it in the territories, and limit black citizenship. The Dred Scott case was the first judicial invalidation of a major federal statute, but it was flawed in its law, logic, history and factual accuracy. Learn more to buy “The Dred Scott Case” here for your bookshelf.
Books Out of Print
Paul Finkelman wrote His Soul Goes Marching On: Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid in 1995. It is out of print but available online new and used. Learn more to buy “His Soul Goes Marching On” here for your bookshelf.
Peggy A. Russo and Paul Finkelman edited Terrible Swift Sword: The Legacy of John Brown in 2005. It is out of print but available online new and used. Learn more to buy “Terrible Swift Sword” here for your bookshelf.
Jane H Pease and William H. Pease wrote The Fugitive Slave Law and Anthony Burns: A problem in Law Enforcement in 1975. It is out of print but available online new and used. Learn more to buy “Fugitive Slave Law” here for your bookshelf.
Albert j. Von Frank wrote The Trials of Anthony Burns: Freedom and Slavery in Emerson’s Boston in 1998. It is out of print but available online new and used. Learn more to buy “Trials of Anthony Burns” here for your bookshelf.
For book reviews at The Virginia Historian.com in this historical period addressing other topics, see the webpage for Antebellum, Civil War, Reconstruction. General surveys of Virginia History can be found at Virginia History Surveys. Other Virginia history divided by topics and time periods can be found at the webpage Books and Reviews.