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The Road to Disunion: Volume II: Secessionists Triumphant, 1854-1861
Here is history in the grand manner, a powerful narrative peopled with dozens of memorable portraits, telling this important story with skill and relish. Freehling highlights all the key moments on the road to war, including the violence in Bleeding Kansas, Preston Brooks's beating of Charles Sumner in the Senate chambers, the Dred Scott Decision, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, and much more. As Freehling shows, the election of Abraham Lincoln sparked a political crisis, but at first most Southerners took a cautious approach, willing to wait and see what Lincoln would do--especially, whether he would take any antagonistic measures against the South. But at this moment, the extreme fringe in the South took charge, first in South Carolina and Mississippi, but then throughout the lower South, sounding the drum roll for secession. Indeed, The Road to Disunion is the first book to fully document how this decided minority of Southern hotspurs took hold of the secessionist issue and, aided by a series of fortuitous events, drove the South out of the Union. Freehling provides compelling profiles of the leaders of this movement--many of them members of the South Carolina elite. Throughout the narrative, he evokes a world of fascinating characters and places as he captures the drama of one of America's most important--and least understood--stories. The long-awaited sequel to the award-winning Secessionists at Bay, which was hailed as "the most important history of the Old South ever published," this volume concludes a major contribution to our understanding of the Civil War. A compelling, vivid portrait of the final years of the antebellum South, The Road to Disunion will stand as an important history of its subject.
"This sure-to-be-lasting work--studded with pen portraits and consistently astute in its appraisal of the subtle cultural and geographic variations in the region--adds crucial layers to scholarship on the origins of America's bloodiest conflict."
--The Atlantic Monthly
"Splendid, painstaking account...and so a work of history reaches into the past to illuminate the present. It is light we need, and we owe Freehling a debt for shedding it."
--Washington Post
"A masterful, dramatic, breathtakingly detailed narrative."
--The Baltimore Sun
"This sure-to-be-lasting work--studded with pen portraits and consistently astute in its appraisal of the subtle cultural and geographic variations in the region--adds crucial layers to scholarship on the origins of America's bloodiest conflict."
--The Atlantic Monthly
"Splendid, painstaking account...and so a work of history reaches into the past to illuminate the present. It is light we need, and we owe Freehling a debt for shedding it."
--Washington Post
"A masterful, dramatic, breathtakingly detailed narrative."
--The Baltimore Sun
624 pages, Paperback
First published April 7, 2007
30 people are currently reading
369 people want to read
About the author
William W. Freehling
19 books19 followersWilliam W. Freehling is Singletary Professor of the Humanities Emeritus at the University of Kentucky
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
June 5, 2014
This book is pointlessly difficult to read. The author uses multiple, non-intuitive, overly-creative phrases to refer to a previous noun or pronoun. His overuse of active verbs makes his descriptions difficult to follow and almost bizarre. When recounting a particular event, he spends many pages talking about the event without telling you what actually happened. He mixes overly formal language with strikingly informal language.
It is hard to follow the substance due to the poor writing, but the basic mistakes that I could catch (calling Supreme Court justices "judges") suggest a lack of care elsewhere.
If you expect people to take the time to read your long book, you need to write more clearly. It's a pity because this is one of the most fascinating periods of American history. Much better accounts of roughly the same period are A Coming Fury by Bruce Catton and The Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson.
It is hard to follow the substance due to the poor writing, but the basic mistakes that I could catch (calling Supreme Court justices "judges") suggest a lack of care elsewhere.
If you expect people to take the time to read your long book, you need to write more clearly. It's a pity because this is one of the most fascinating periods of American history. Much better accounts of roughly the same period are A Coming Fury by Bruce Catton and The Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson.
February 11, 2020
Rich comprehensive study of the politics that led to the Civil War. Much original material quoted.
October 23, 2020
This volume follows up on Freehling's The Road to Disunion, Vol. 1: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854.
The book builds for the reader the picture of how profoundly slavery effected every aspect of the lives of Southerners, from local and national politics, to the administration of justice, to economics, to the structure of their society, and how these effects varied from region to region, depending on how intensively slavery was practiced. These effects were much more profound than most modern readers appreciate.
Modern readers will be surprised to learn the many ways the maintenance of slavery required the restriction of the rights of free speech, political organization, freedom of movement, of *white citizens*, of how supporters of slavery actually insisted on undermining the states rights of Northern states and of non-slave territories. These anti-democratic restrictions on whites gave rise to deep resentment by non-slaveholding Southern whites of those much more wealthy slaveholders on whose behalf these restrictions were imposed.
Wherever in the South - county by county - slaves constituted the majority of the population, there we see the greatest support for immediate secession upon Lincoln's election. This support declines in line with that slavery percentage, from the 85 to 95% support for secession in South Carolina's most enslaved low country, to the 13% support for secession in Maryland, where 50% of all black people were already free in 1860, and to similarly low levels of support for immediate secession in lightly enslaved Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri. (This support is measured in the book not by polls, but is based for each state on the outcomes of elections, measured by legislative district, to state secession conventions, state legislatures, direct popular referendums on secession in Texas and elsewhere, etc., at the time).
In fact, advocates of secession and of the maintenance of slavery at all costs were in the distinct minority in the South itself, as the majority of white voters in the South lived in more northerly Southern states, outside the Cotton Belt, where slavery was much less intensively practiced.
So how did this minority of secessionists with a section of the country that was itself in the minority, achieve secession (only to lose the war for it)?
This is the story Freehling thoroughly documents.
The more enslaved a region, the more deeply feared were Lincoln and the Republicans. The less enslaved, so were Republicans the less feared, and the greater was the support for the South staying in the Union.
These divisions of Southern interests - an example of which was the immediate vote, upon the decision of Virginia to secede, taken by the low-to-no slavery northwestern 33 counties of Virginia, to split from Virginia, stay in the Union, and form the state of West Virginia - ultimately contribute to the South's defeat in the subsequent Civil War.
The book does a terrific job of blending into this broad trend analysis of many Southern regions, over decades, details of how South Carolina secessionists overcame their minority status to first fracture the National Democratic Party at their national convention in Charleston in 1860 (a fracture that led to Lincoln's election victory), and how secessionists took advantage of a series of events to gain their needed political leverage, in the rush to secession votes following Lincoln's election, and ultimately to then lead the South into secession.
Freehling's writing style often comes in for criticism. A few words about that.
Freehling builds through these two volumes his own shorthand reference language for describing the regions, the political divisions, the social worlds, and the economics and class characteristics of the South, and how all of these changed over the time periods discussed.
Readers of historical fiction are familiar with this process of world-building - of bringing the modern reader into a well-realized past world very much different from their own - through language.
It takes no more effort, in my view, to read and understand Freehling than it does to understand Tolkein. But this effort is required.
Start with the Road to Disunion Volume 1. Then come to this volume.
If you do that, you won't have any trouble following Freehling's narrative, and seeing how incredibly and weirdly *different* from modern day perceptions and understandings of politics, morality, society, and history, were the perceptions of those participants and wayfarers way back then, as they travelled from 1856 to 1861 the Road to Disunion.
The book builds for the reader the picture of how profoundly slavery effected every aspect of the lives of Southerners, from local and national politics, to the administration of justice, to economics, to the structure of their society, and how these effects varied from region to region, depending on how intensively slavery was practiced. These effects were much more profound than most modern readers appreciate.
Modern readers will be surprised to learn the many ways the maintenance of slavery required the restriction of the rights of free speech, political organization, freedom of movement, of *white citizens*, of how supporters of slavery actually insisted on undermining the states rights of Northern states and of non-slave territories. These anti-democratic restrictions on whites gave rise to deep resentment by non-slaveholding Southern whites of those much more wealthy slaveholders on whose behalf these restrictions were imposed.
Wherever in the South - county by county - slaves constituted the majority of the population, there we see the greatest support for immediate secession upon Lincoln's election. This support declines in line with that slavery percentage, from the 85 to 95% support for secession in South Carolina's most enslaved low country, to the 13% support for secession in Maryland, where 50% of all black people were already free in 1860, and to similarly low levels of support for immediate secession in lightly enslaved Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri. (This support is measured in the book not by polls, but is based for each state on the outcomes of elections, measured by legislative district, to state secession conventions, state legislatures, direct popular referendums on secession in Texas and elsewhere, etc., at the time).
In fact, advocates of secession and of the maintenance of slavery at all costs were in the distinct minority in the South itself, as the majority of white voters in the South lived in more northerly Southern states, outside the Cotton Belt, where slavery was much less intensively practiced.
So how did this minority of secessionists with a section of the country that was itself in the minority, achieve secession (only to lose the war for it)?
This is the story Freehling thoroughly documents.
The more enslaved a region, the more deeply feared were Lincoln and the Republicans. The less enslaved, so were Republicans the less feared, and the greater was the support for the South staying in the Union.
These divisions of Southern interests - an example of which was the immediate vote, upon the decision of Virginia to secede, taken by the low-to-no slavery northwestern 33 counties of Virginia, to split from Virginia, stay in the Union, and form the state of West Virginia - ultimately contribute to the South's defeat in the subsequent Civil War.
The book does a terrific job of blending into this broad trend analysis of many Southern regions, over decades, details of how South Carolina secessionists overcame their minority status to first fracture the National Democratic Party at their national convention in Charleston in 1860 (a fracture that led to Lincoln's election victory), and how secessionists took advantage of a series of events to gain their needed political leverage, in the rush to secession votes following Lincoln's election, and ultimately to then lead the South into secession.
Freehling's writing style often comes in for criticism. A few words about that.
Freehling builds through these two volumes his own shorthand reference language for describing the regions, the political divisions, the social worlds, and the economics and class characteristics of the South, and how all of these changed over the time periods discussed.
Readers of historical fiction are familiar with this process of world-building - of bringing the modern reader into a well-realized past world very much different from their own - through language.
It takes no more effort, in my view, to read and understand Freehling than it does to understand Tolkein. But this effort is required.
Start with the Road to Disunion Volume 1. Then come to this volume.
If you do that, you won't have any trouble following Freehling's narrative, and seeing how incredibly and weirdly *different* from modern day perceptions and understandings of politics, morality, society, and history, were the perceptions of those participants and wayfarers way back then, as they travelled from 1856 to 1861 the Road to Disunion.
May 28, 2012
Freehling's premise is how the different opinions and thoughts by various power groups in the South united and prepared the way for secession. His set up is brilliant and his insights help me realize how divergent and opposite were the many views. It's still hardly believable that, with as many disparate opinions toward the next proper steps the South should take, civil war was the manipulated outcome by a tiny minority.
November 13, 2022
I read this book in small bites over a couple of months. It’s a fascinating story of how the South wound itself up to civil war and how both coincidence and the flow of events got things to that point. After a while, parts could get tedious but that, in many cases, was that the people themselves were pretty tedious. (Some of the leading Southern philosophers drank deep from the spring of sophistry).
I picked up this book in part to feel if this history could predict our current 2022 moment. There were a few bits that seemed relevant— the catastrophic politics around the Dread Scott decision, the way a loud minority can stampede a reluctant majority. But we voters aren’t quite as foolish as the antebellum south — I hope.
Very much worth an investment of time if you have an interest in how and why things fall apart. If you have a political agenda — you will find things to displease you and you probably should
Find another book.
I picked up this book in part to feel if this history could predict our current 2022 moment. There were a few bits that seemed relevant— the catastrophic politics around the Dread Scott decision, the way a loud minority can stampede a reluctant majority. But we voters aren’t quite as foolish as the antebellum south — I hope.
Very much worth an investment of time if you have an interest in how and why things fall apart. If you have a political agenda — you will find things to displease you and you probably should
Find another book.
September 7, 2023
“Sometimes I think I will let them do as they please. I fear we are going to destruction anyhow.”
- Alexander Stephens, to his brother, Linton Stephens, 1860
Freehling's guided swamp march through a strange and mad land relates how slavery caused the American Civil War. The meandering pace of his account allows the insanity to unfold slowly, all while the reader understands the impending doom. In the author's telling, a minority portrayed the moderate triumph of the majority section as a threat to their states and way of life. Separatist initiatives, especially those of South Carolinians, outmaneuvered complacent moderates and Unionists through timing and loyalty tests, demonstrating the power of a motivated minority. The resulting schism could not be solved through democratic politics, and widened until the only remaining question for Americans was, in Freehling's words, "who they hated enough to kill."
- Alexander Stephens, to his brother, Linton Stephens, 1860
Freehling's guided swamp march through a strange and mad land relates how slavery caused the American Civil War. The meandering pace of his account allows the insanity to unfold slowly, all while the reader understands the impending doom. In the author's telling, a minority portrayed the moderate triumph of the majority section as a threat to their states and way of life. Separatist initiatives, especially those of South Carolinians, outmaneuvered complacent moderates and Unionists through timing and loyalty tests, demonstrating the power of a motivated minority. The resulting schism could not be solved through democratic politics, and widened until the only remaining question for Americans was, in Freehling's words, "who they hated enough to kill."
May 1, 2024
In Eric Foner's NYT review of this second volume in William Freehling's Road to Disunion history, he laments how some historians write with "one eye on the best-sellers list" while simultaneously denigrating historians who focus on more niche concepts. The irony that Foner points out, of course, is that, in this second volume, Freehling does this very thing while citing many of those more specified histories in this book! Not to mention, as covered in the first volume, Freehling's odd writing style and tendency to go off on wild tangents makes his books already inaccessible to any but the most dedicated of antebellum America history readers. But yet, in the introduction to this volume, Freehling makes the very claim that he has simplified his writing style, eliminating some of his most annoying colloquialisms ... and that just is not true. Why Freehling thinks he can market this book to a big audience, I have no idea. At the very least, he smartly leaves his smug attitude towards specialized historians (of which he is very much one at times! He wrote an entire book on nullification!) to the notes section. But rant aside, this is another worthwhile addition to his extremely detailed and extremely verbose history of the leadup to the civil war.
While I didn't like this volume as much as the first, that's not entirely Freehling's fault. The first volume stood out in its discussion of events and characters that, given their distance from the War itself, aren't often discussed in connection with the secession crisis. Volume two, on the other hand, covers many of the events anyone with a base understanding of the 1850s has read before (and done better in specialized books): the Dred Scott decision, Bleeding Kansas, John Brown's raid, the 1860 election, the lead-up to Fort Sumter, etc. These events are necessary for any discussion of the period, but at this point there really isn't much more to add in a chapter-length history. Luckily, Freehling returns to his strength early on in the book and towards the end - a deep dive into a cast of characters not frequently discussed in pre-war scholarship.
Early on, Freehling examines in-depth the various pro-slavery authors, preachers, and other writers that shaped the attitudes of slavery in South Carolina and other deep south states. Some of the anecdotes here are quite disturbing in the length that pro-slavery supporters twisted the words of science, the bible, and more to "prove" racial inferiority and the "necessity" of keeping black people in bondage. This is a difficult concept to discuss and I felt it was done well (and also introduced me to the greatest name of all time, "Thornton Stringfellow"). Later in the book, Freehling goes deep into the primary source pool to talk about some of the earliest architects of South Carolina's ordinance of secession, a group of names that I was not at all familiar with, and how their clandestine meetings laid the groundwork for convincing other states to join SC in seceding (or, in some cases, whether that was even necessary at all).
Some of the names brought up in this book in depth are familiar and some are not, but I gained a greater appreciation for the lives of two men in particular. John G. Fee, an abolitionist and minister in Kentucky, has a great mini-biography in a chapter on his work fighting against the pro-slavery forces in perhaps the most crucial border state in the country, a strong contrast to the pro-slavery preachers identified earlier in the book. The other is a name most are likely familiar with, William Lowndes Yancey. Most of the time, he is depicted like the aggressive Robert Barnwell Rhett (who comes off quite bumbling in this volume, even for a fire-eater), but Freehling's more sympathetic portrayal paints Yancey as an intelligent, deeply theoretical figure with a surprisingly interesting backstory (he was raised in New York to an abolitionist stepfather, an experience that shaped his entire view on the world going forward). Far from a Rhett-like fire-breather who wanted to get his pro-slavery views out at all costs, Yancey was a political genius who, unfortunately, used his brains for an evil purpose.
After a lot of interesting stuff on the split of the Democratic party and the formation of the secession ordinance, Freehling comes towards the end with a point he had hinted at for the most of the book, a coincidence that supposedly "changed history". His baffling claim, not supported nearly enough by the evidence he provides, is that an entirely unrelated celebration of a railroad line connecting Savannah and Charleston was the spark that suddenly convinced Georgia delegates to jump on board with secession. You could potentially make an argument that this had some small effect, but Freehling tries to argue (poorly) that it was a history-changing moment, as if the events of the 80-plus years he just spend almost 1,000 pages discussing were of less importance to the breakout of the American Civil War than the celebration of a railroad opening. It's a bad way to end an otherwise solid volume.
Overall, though, for those interested in the leadup to the war, this is a good conclusion to the two-volume set. It could be read on its own, but since the first volume is better anyway I'd recommend reading them in tandem. As Foner wrote in his review, more of the discussion could have come from the point of the salves - it's not like there's any dearth of slave narratives and other primary sources here, but I've yet to find a really good source on these events from the slave side. For a general history, it's better to start with David Potter's Impending Crisis, but this is a nice supplement, and I do want to read more of what Freehling has written in the future.
While I didn't like this volume as much as the first, that's not entirely Freehling's fault. The first volume stood out in its discussion of events and characters that, given their distance from the War itself, aren't often discussed in connection with the secession crisis. Volume two, on the other hand, covers many of the events anyone with a base understanding of the 1850s has read before (and done better in specialized books): the Dred Scott decision, Bleeding Kansas, John Brown's raid, the 1860 election, the lead-up to Fort Sumter, etc. These events are necessary for any discussion of the period, but at this point there really isn't much more to add in a chapter-length history. Luckily, Freehling returns to his strength early on in the book and towards the end - a deep dive into a cast of characters not frequently discussed in pre-war scholarship.
Early on, Freehling examines in-depth the various pro-slavery authors, preachers, and other writers that shaped the attitudes of slavery in South Carolina and other deep south states. Some of the anecdotes here are quite disturbing in the length that pro-slavery supporters twisted the words of science, the bible, and more to "prove" racial inferiority and the "necessity" of keeping black people in bondage. This is a difficult concept to discuss and I felt it was done well (and also introduced me to the greatest name of all time, "Thornton Stringfellow"). Later in the book, Freehling goes deep into the primary source pool to talk about some of the earliest architects of South Carolina's ordinance of secession, a group of names that I was not at all familiar with, and how their clandestine meetings laid the groundwork for convincing other states to join SC in seceding (or, in some cases, whether that was even necessary at all).
Some of the names brought up in this book in depth are familiar and some are not, but I gained a greater appreciation for the lives of two men in particular. John G. Fee, an abolitionist and minister in Kentucky, has a great mini-biography in a chapter on his work fighting against the pro-slavery forces in perhaps the most crucial border state in the country, a strong contrast to the pro-slavery preachers identified earlier in the book. The other is a name most are likely familiar with, William Lowndes Yancey. Most of the time, he is depicted like the aggressive Robert Barnwell Rhett (who comes off quite bumbling in this volume, even for a fire-eater), but Freehling's more sympathetic portrayal paints Yancey as an intelligent, deeply theoretical figure with a surprisingly interesting backstory (he was raised in New York to an abolitionist stepfather, an experience that shaped his entire view on the world going forward). Far from a Rhett-like fire-breather who wanted to get his pro-slavery views out at all costs, Yancey was a political genius who, unfortunately, used his brains for an evil purpose.
After a lot of interesting stuff on the split of the Democratic party and the formation of the secession ordinance, Freehling comes towards the end with a point he had hinted at for the most of the book, a coincidence that supposedly "changed history". His baffling claim, not supported nearly enough by the evidence he provides, is that an entirely unrelated celebration of a railroad line connecting Savannah and Charleston was the spark that suddenly convinced Georgia delegates to jump on board with secession. You could potentially make an argument that this had some small effect, but Freehling tries to argue (poorly) that it was a history-changing moment, as if the events of the 80-plus years he just spend almost 1,000 pages discussing were of less importance to the breakout of the American Civil War than the celebration of a railroad opening. It's a bad way to end an otherwise solid volume.
Overall, though, for those interested in the leadup to the war, this is a good conclusion to the two-volume set. It could be read on its own, but since the first volume is better anyway I'd recommend reading them in tandem. As Foner wrote in his review, more of the discussion could have come from the point of the salves - it's not like there's any dearth of slave narratives and other primary sources here, but I've yet to find a really good source on these events from the slave side. For a general history, it's better to start with David Potter's Impending Crisis, but this is a nice supplement, and I do want to read more of what Freehling has written in the future.
August 3, 2020
Top notch
In 2020, this engrossing and detailed examination of the politics of secession reads like a family history of the modern and ironically named Republican Party and its opposition to modernity, truth and the U.S. Constitution. Is there a peaceful resolution within our democracy to the red-blue divide that currently exists. Freehling’s two volumes would suggest likely not. For those who think that the south did not go to war to preserve slavery, this is not your book.
In 2020, this engrossing and detailed examination of the politics of secession reads like a family history of the modern and ironically named Republican Party and its opposition to modernity, truth and the U.S. Constitution. Is there a peaceful resolution within our democracy to the red-blue divide that currently exists. Freehling’s two volumes would suggest likely not. For those who think that the south did not go to war to preserve slavery, this is not your book.
July 18, 2022
Found this work more enlightening than I expected. Does a good job of going into detail as to the actions and players that drove the US towards secession and the emergence of the Civil War. While not wanting to be alarmist, there is something to be said for reviewing the 1850s, to figure out how things went down, and what we could do to start it. Will now have to look for Part I to get that perspective.
August 4, 2018
Why explain something in a paragraph when you use 100? This author loved the minutia details—one would think more happened in each day of the mid 1800s than an entire modern year. Way too much, get to the point. I don’t need to know what some obscure local person had for lunch that made him vote differently.
April 18, 2020
An excellent deep-dive on how both secession and the civil war very gradually came about and how no one really wanted it (except for a vocal minority within South Carolina). Very enlightening. The last two parts of the book are especially recommended.
July 23, 2019
Excellent and important work on the politics and culture of secession before The Civil War. A must read in understanding antebellum America and what war was about.
April 21, 2021
Another masterpiece by Freehling.
July 9, 2025
The single best book I've ever read on the lead-up to the US Civil War. A must-read if you're interested in the subject.
June 13, 2012
The Road to Disunion by William W. Freehling Volume II: Secessionists Triumphant 1854-1861 is a very lengthy book on the final stages of the Southern political process that led to Disunion, Secession and the Civil War.
I picked up this book for three reasons. First, because I am interested in American history. Second, because I was curious how our democracy failed and the United States ended up in the bloodiest war in its history. Third and finally, because I am curious if there is anything I can draw from history to provide insight into current American political and social debate. The fact that it and its companion volume were on sale at the late and lamented local Borders Bookstore also helped.
This book is the second volume of two in a series by Freehling on the political and social process that led to the South attempting to separate from the United States.
Freehling mostly concentrates on the South. He seems to only touch on the North in order to provide context. Such focus gave this reader the feeling that much of the development of disunion was done in isolation in the South, for Southern rather than national reasons. And that the rest of the country was more reacting than pushing the South in the direction of disunion.
Freehling also provides a depth that I do not often find in history books. Either the book is a short all encompassing summary or it deals at length with some small part of the whole. Trying to cover 4 or 5 decades of American history and Political Science across a huge and diverse region can be quite daunting. In this series Freehling seems to allow himself sufficient number of pages to cover the entire process in the depth that he wishes. And to have pared the subject material in such a way to allow him to focus on the core of most important issues. I find these two issues point to a great maturity and understanding of the topic.
Freehling also covers the topic in a depth that I did not expect. Reviewing his footnotes I see that he has read, understood and come to thoughtful conclusions on many different sides to the many issues he is covering. Again this shows a tremendous expertise, passion, and maturity, on the period.
Freehling's voice in the book did not strike me as that of a neutral academician. He glories in all the diversity and complexity of the South. He also expresses a consistent, editorial position. While clearly one who loves the South, he is not a partisan member of the "Lost Cause" school. He detests slavery, and with the benefit of hindsight, is scathing regarding the efforts of many Southern leaders to push disunion and to silence and intimidate it's many local opponents.
The reader truly benefits from the obvious "passion" (to use a phrase currently in vogue) for this period. It is a tremendous strength. But for those just peripherally interested, this book may be too detailed and large. And the strong viewpoints expressed by the author do take some getting used to. Even with my interest I needed 4 months to fully read the volume.
I picked up this book for three reasons. First, because I am interested in American history. Second, because I was curious how our democracy failed and the United States ended up in the bloodiest war in its history. Third and finally, because I am curious if there is anything I can draw from history to provide insight into current American political and social debate. The fact that it and its companion volume were on sale at the late and lamented local Borders Bookstore also helped.
This book is the second volume of two in a series by Freehling on the political and social process that led to the South attempting to separate from the United States.
Freehling mostly concentrates on the South. He seems to only touch on the North in order to provide context. Such focus gave this reader the feeling that much of the development of disunion was done in isolation in the South, for Southern rather than national reasons. And that the rest of the country was more reacting than pushing the South in the direction of disunion.
Freehling also provides a depth that I do not often find in history books. Either the book is a short all encompassing summary or it deals at length with some small part of the whole. Trying to cover 4 or 5 decades of American history and Political Science across a huge and diverse region can be quite daunting. In this series Freehling seems to allow himself sufficient number of pages to cover the entire process in the depth that he wishes. And to have pared the subject material in such a way to allow him to focus on the core of most important issues. I find these two issues point to a great maturity and understanding of the topic.
Freehling also covers the topic in a depth that I did not expect. Reviewing his footnotes I see that he has read, understood and come to thoughtful conclusions on many different sides to the many issues he is covering. Again this shows a tremendous expertise, passion, and maturity, on the period.
Freehling's voice in the book did not strike me as that of a neutral academician. He glories in all the diversity and complexity of the South. He also expresses a consistent, editorial position. While clearly one who loves the South, he is not a partisan member of the "Lost Cause" school. He detests slavery, and with the benefit of hindsight, is scathing regarding the efforts of many Southern leaders to push disunion and to silence and intimidate it's many local opponents.
The reader truly benefits from the obvious "passion" (to use a phrase currently in vogue) for this period. It is a tremendous strength. But for those just peripherally interested, this book may be too detailed and large. And the strong viewpoints expressed by the author do take some getting used to. Even with my interest I needed 4 months to fully read the volume.
April 17, 2016
This is a brilliantly researched and detailed book that documents the events leading to the Secession of the Southern states. Freehling shows clearly that a small minority of the ruling class precipitated the secession of South Carolina and then Mississippi immediately after the election of Lincoln despite the wait-and-see approach shared by most Southerners. The reason for this action, of course, was to protect the institution of Slavery, both in the existing Slave States and in the territories. The book also investigates how the "Fire-eaters" or "Ultras" as they were known, convinced the vast majority of white non-slave owners to support their position. The actions of these Plutocrats hastened the demise of the society that they lead. The extraordinary wealth of the South [concentrated in the 25-30% of the population that were slave-owners], particularly in the decade of the 1850's when Cotton became King, may have clouded their judgement: the Industrial Revolution that helped increase the demand for Southern commodities also sowed the seeds of change: great numbers of white immigrants were coming to the United States and choosing free-soil states and territories over slave states. Time was not on the side of a rigid society based on slavery.
There is one serious flaw with this book: the author's style of writing is very difficult to read. Sentences and paragraphs are excessively complicated and require two or three readings to figure out the message! It is certainly worth getting through, but it is a difficult journey.
There is one serious flaw with this book: the author's style of writing is very difficult to read. Sentences and paragraphs are excessively complicated and require two or three readings to figure out the message! It is certainly worth getting through, but it is a difficult journey.
October 4, 2013
Most significantly to me was the intense labor the author goes through to not only understand the times, but the psychology of the participants at this point (pre-antebellum) in history. I read quite a few history works but it is extremely rare for me to encounter a book that explains the WHY of the event. I learned so much about the Southern mindset that before had been quite a fog to me. As a bonus, understanding what happened before this war opens the door to understanding modern Tea Party motivations. Indeed, I felt often the author were writing a contemporary history. Motivations and underlying philosophical groundings for the following topics(among others) were invaluable to me: states' rights, slavery, societal organization, and dynamic population theory. I define dynamic population theory as how a particular government creates and/or responds to changing concentrations of people (the people varying both numerically and qualitatively) in a rapidly expanding or contracting (in the case of South Carolina) economic environment.
In short, this book is well worth the time one invests.
In short, this book is well worth the time one invests.
January 28, 2013
Much improved in mix of content from volume 1. Freehling returns to more informaiton on culture and economics, as well as politics but in a better complete covering of all these topics, whereas vol 1 was overly focused on politics. The amount of research conducted for these books is phenomenal, where Freehling breaks down votes statistically by his Border South, Upper South and Lower South groupings. This theme of a disparate South culturally and politically continues here, and is phenomenally expanded upon as tensions grew higher and polarization of more people increased with each vote and each election.
April 11, 2010
Long time before the volume and this one. 534pp of text - he covered things I'd never heard of, in what is in some ways a summary. He gives great context and clearly gives his idea of what the downstream impacts were. I was especially interested in what the South did to the Democrats in the party conventions of 1860. EXCEPTIONAL!
October 18, 2013
In this book Freehling's quirky style fails him. The book is rambling and incoherent, its best passages deal with personalities rather than ideas, economics, politics, etc. His other books are superior.
April 8, 2009
No nearly as well-written as vol. 1. Mr. Freehling wrote as if he were in a hurry or simply went through the motions.
October 27, 2016
Vol 2 of Wm Freehling's Road to Disunion cover pre-civil war tumult 1854-1861. Cogent and fascinating analysis of rise of Southern (and Northern) extremism. Lessons for today
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