New Book "Disunion!"

[ironfoot]

"In this bracing reinterpretation of the origins of the Civil War, Varon blends political history with intellectual and cultural history to show how Americans, as far back as the earliest days of the republic, agonized and strategized over disunion. She focuses not only on politicians but also on a wide range of reformers, editors, writers, and commentators. Included here are the voices of fugitive slaves, white Southern dissenters, free black activists, abolitionist women, and other outsiders to the halls of power. In a new and expanding nation still learning how to meld disparate and powerful interests, the rhetoric of disunion proved pervasive--and volatile. As the word was marshaled by competing sectional interests in the tumultuous 1840s and 1850s, the politics of compromise grew more remote and an epic collision between the free North and slaveholding South seemed the only way to resolve, once and for all, whether the struggling republic would survive."




http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=disunion&tag=googhydr-20&index=stripbooks&hvadid=2408126981&ref=pd_sl_165gpdnm4w_b

[Ga.windbreak]

I think in all of the different books/opinions/blogs/other media I have seen/read the following most fits the bill of what happened during that time period.

the rhetoric of disunion proved pervasive--and volatile.

This is not to say your book doesn't have merit but I really would like to see at least one person go beyond the slave question and look into the total picture of the North versus South power struggle (1789 - 1860) that lead up to this conflict. It was not all one sided and slavery, as such, doesn't even enter into it until about 1820 or so when "Uncle Toms Cabin" was published.

Have you read this book yet, ironfoot? If so what is your impression of it?

You know, of course, that secession first came up during the Hartford convention and was brought about because the North (Mass.) thought that the South had to much power and they had not enough.

[ironfoot]

The Hartford Convention did not lead to secession.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartford_Convention

Slavery was one of the issues in the Hartford Convention, which was held in 1814-1815, before Uncle Tom's Cabin.
The convention opposed the 3/5 rule regarding slaves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_fifths_clause

It was when Lincoln was elected on an anti slavery Republican platform that the south seceded, in order to continue with slavery, and in an effort to expand slavery into the territorries.

[Ga.windbreak]

The Hartford Convention did not lead to secession.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartford_Convention

Slavery was one of the issues in the Hartford Convention, which was held in 1814-1815, before Uncle Tom's Cabin.
The convention opposed the 3/5 rule regarding slaves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_fifths_clause

It was when Lincoln was elected on an anti slavery Republican platform that the south seceded, in order to continue with slavery, and in an effort to expand slavery into the territories.

The Hartford Convention did not lead to secession.

No, I didn't say it did, but it was threatened for the first time and it was the first in a long line of moves in the in the struggle for power of Congress.

It's funny when you consider the fact that Mass. was the originator of the 3/4ths compromise, to begin with, in the Constitution. It was put there in hopes that in the future slavery would be abolished because then a free black man could vote. Which is even funnier because in Mass. there was a law that denied that very freedom to the said black man. Another showing of the harshness of the puritan past coming from that area and the womb of  religious fanatics to this day IMHO.

I had to come back and RE-ask, have you read this book? You didn't say, so?

I don't know why you would argue against "Uncle Tom's Cabin" not playing a MAJOR part in this whole mess. Even Lincoln, himself, admits the same. So why wouldn't you?