The Fate of Their Country: Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War

by Michael F. Holt

How partisan politics lead to the Civil War

What brought about the Civil War? Leading historian Michael F. Holt convincingly offers a disturbingly contemporary partisan politics. In this brilliant and succinct book, Holt distills a lifetime of scholarship to demonstrate that secession and war did not arise from two irreconcilable economies any more than from moral objections to slavery. Short-sighted politicians were to blame. Rarely looking beyond the next election, the two dominant political parties used the emotionally charged and largely chimerical issue of slavery's extension westward to pursue reelection and settle political scores, all the while inexorably dragging the nation towards disunion.

Despite the majority opinion (held in both the North and South) that slavery could never flourish in the areas that sparked the most contention from 1845 to 1861-the Mexican Cession, Oregon, and Kansas-politicians in Washington, especially members of Congress, realized the partisan value of the issue and acted on short-term political calculations with minimal regard for sectional comity. War was the result.

Including select speeches by Lincoln and others, The Fate of Their Country openly challenges us to rethink a seminal moment in America's history.

Genres: History, Civil War, Nonfiction, American History, Politics, School, American Civil War

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Michael F. Holt is Langbourne M. Williams Professor of American History Emeritus at the University of Virginia. He earned his B.A. from Princeton in 1962 and his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins in 1967.

Reviews

[Jes Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another one of those eye-opening, but very dry history books. Good to know; hard to read.

See full review on my blog: https://agencyofbooksandspies.blogspo...

[Cindi Love-Westberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a detailed account of how the political parties formed the eventual road to the Civil War.
This book will also highlight how our political system today is still dividing its citizens to choose between being a free country or one in which the people in charge get to dictate what is “best” for us.

[Miles Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good short scholarly synthesis of the sectional crisis that avoids the rancorous tone that typifies much of the current academic research on the era.

[David R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surprisingly robust account of the lead up to the War Between the States. Holt does a splendid job recounting and interpreting the political movements from the 1840s through 1860 and in so doing makes clear the explanations for the destruction of the Whigs and the decimation of the Democrats. There is one glaring weakness. Holt suggests in his introduction that he means for the work to serve as a warning to contemporary politicians, but never makes clear why, nor does he offer any explanation of how the conflict of the 19th century could have been avoided. Sorry, but "don't go purist" doesn't quite do it for me. That said, it's still well worth the read for serious students.

[Hillary Borders · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read for Jacksonian America.

[Tommy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read more like a long essay than a book.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bleeding Kansas:
house of distrust,
plain of battle,
reed shaken in the wind.

"This government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. . . Either the opponents of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new- North as well as South." -Lincoln

Biggest points from this book:

1. The need for evil to justify itself increases with time until it threatens to swallow everything around it. At the beginning of this book, around the 1840's, "Southern Honor" was still being used to justify slavery's existence against the threats of the North's disregard. By 1860, it was being used to justify the extension of slavery into new territories in order to protect itself from the North. Why not just defend slavery in the places it already was? Answer: because Southerners were afraid.

2. A dearth of self-justification results in cynical power grabs. Stephen Douglas wrote the Kansas-Nebraska Act mainly in order to foment unity in his North/South-straddling party against the also North/South-straddling Whig party. Douglas wasn't exactly a pro-slavery man, but he clearly didn't care whether slavery increased or decreased as much as he cared about his party's continued strategic advantage. By the time the consequences of this little political gambit were through, the Whig party did not exist.

3. Abraham Lincoln and the nakedly anti-slavery message of the Republican party really do stand out like a sore thumb in comparison to the politicians and parties before their time.

4. This quote: "[Whigs] were bereft of economic issues because the prosperity ignited by the California gold rush and heavy foreign investment in rapidly expanding American railroads had rendered Whig calls for positive governmental promotion of economic growth obsolete." (page 89) These were certainly different times.

5. AD ASTRA PER ASPERA

[Bryan Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

This provides fantastic historical context of the run-up to the Civil War and how Congress pushed America down that path. As others have mentioned, it is a dry read. That’s ok with me because it was context I never received in school. It emphasizes a main point that tends to get white-washed in history: Many in the north were worried about the south having too much power and their cheap slave labor hurting their way of life - not necessarily slavery itself. Yes, there were some who outright opposed slavery. Also, Lincoln was more concerned about the extension of slavery into new territories/states than the existence of slavery in southern states.

[Keegan McMenamin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've realized that I am beginning to lose some of the historical knowledge that I built up over middle school/high school, so I grabbed this at the library to refresh myself on the politics of the pre-Antebellum United States. Learned all about the demise of the Whig party and how slavery was used as a political tool more than a simple support/abolition issue. There are some interesting things in here about how partisanship and regionalism merged into one big "us vs them" in a way that didn't exist at the beginning of this era of history. Probably some parallels to the present day if you want to look at it that way :/

[Delaney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall very good and detailed, however as a reader I found it hard to follow at times due to the wordy and extensive sentences. I found it hard to comprehend. I read this for a class, so as someone who is not a history major I struggled to follow the thought or got lost halfway through a paragraph as they ran on a bit. However, the author would try to summarize it at times which helped.

[J. Browning · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a brief political narrative that challenges the traditional "the civil war was inevitable" thesis, by arguing that politicians made decisions for local reasons, and that they could have made different decisions and avoided the war.

[Jeffrey Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good trade paperback review. Well written but short on references other than a suggested readings essay in the back. Contains some abbreviated important documents well worth reading for tone and context.

[Jay Rivera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Said something questionable in the preface; the rest of the book was great though. It was a sort of miniature textbook bc so much information is given. Plus, it was a mini gossip session too at times.

[J. Tayler Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

A required book for me to read for school. It was honestly very forgettable compared to the other books I read.

[Matthew William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great introduction to a complex topic. Easy readable.

[Stuart]

An excellent, lucid explanation of these critical decades.

[David Nichols · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Holt's stated purpose in writing this book – really a long essay with appended documents – is to remind modern Americans that the decisions their lawmakers make, be they ever so petty or venial, have much greater consequences than they realize, or than social historians are willing to admit. Taking as his subject the approach of the American Civil War in the 1840s and '50s, Holt observes that several of the most important causes of that war were legislative and political acts, whose authors frequently acted from base motives. The Wilmot Proviso of 1846, which made the no-slavery-in-the-territories (or free soil) movement a Northern cause celebre, originated with Northern Democrats' desire to embarrass President James Polk after he reneged on his promise to annex all of the Oregon Country. Popular sovereignty, the controversial policy that allowed the citizen inhabitants of a territory to decide on the status of slavery there, advanced to legislative reality courtesy of an alliance between Democrats and Northern Whigs, the latter of whom wanted help opposing Whig President Zachary Taylor's unpopular political appointments. The fateful Kansas-Nebraska Act, which extended popular sovereignty into the previously free-soil central Plains and touched off a civil war in Kansas, was introduced by Senator Stephen Douglas to improve the value of his own land holdings, and won key support from a faction within the New York Democratic Party (the “Hardshell Hunkers”) who used it to bludgeon rival factions of NY Democrats. Finally, the new Republican Party kept flogging the slavery-in-the-territories issue, even after it became clear that Kansas would never become a slave state (says Holt), to rally voters behind them for the 1858 and 1860 elections.

FATE OF THEIR COUNTRY is short, clearly written, and makes intriguing observations about some of the most famous signposts on the path to the American Civil War. However, it delves a bit too deeply into the arcana of nineteenth-century lawmaking for most lay readers, and I think it neglects one important question about the decision-makers who are Holt's principal subjects: were these venial and vindictive demogogues aware of the likely long-term consequences of their actions? Did the authors of the Wilmot Proviso know that it would win the enthusiastic approval of most Northern state legislatures, and become the rallying point for a new political movement? Did Stephen Douglas and the Hunkers understand that the Kansas-Nebraska Act was going to start a shooting war in Kansas and make a general civil war much likelier? Here I think the answer is probably “no.” Few of these politicos had anything to gain from a general dissolution of the Union, which would have deprived them of the resources (federal patronage appointments, railroad money, tariff protection) they needed to advance their constituents' interests and their own political fortunes. There were certainly politicians in the 1840s and '50s who wanted the United States to break up, but as Holt observes they were a minority. The people who ultimately started the Civil War were “the people,” or more precisely the Northern voters who took a chance on a Republican presidency in 1860 and the Southern white secessionists who took a chance on separate nationhood, even if that meant war. Politicians helped them focus their antipathies, but what ultimately caused the conflict, I think, was the two sections' realization that their labor systems and sustaining ideologies were incompatible, coupled with their peoples' belief that nationhood of one kind or another was something worth fighting over. Neither David Wilmot, nor Stephen Douglas, nor the Hardshell Hunkers realized this until it was too late.

[William Kerrigan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written, brief political history of the coming of the Civil War. One of the long debates among historians of the Civil War has been the question, "Was the Civil War an inevitable/irrepressible conflict, or might it have been avoided. Holt sides with those who see the war as avoidable, and lays the blame at the feet of a generation of incompetent and/or self-serving politicians. While he does an effective job noting the ways in which political leaders intentionally or unintentionally fanned the flames, I was not completely convinced by the argument. At best, I think, the actions of political leaders determined when, not whether the conflict would occur. But I remain open to additional argument on this interesting question.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally got around to reading this short book, which was a nice overview of the politics of my old area of American history. Nothing here was too groundbreaking, though I thought he did a very solid job of explaining the importance of the short-lived Know Nothings, who really did have a major impact in the way things shook out in the mid-1850s.

The major question, which this book really does not answer, is the counterfactual. Would a more responsible leadership class have prevented the war and resolved the slavery question peacefully? My instincts tell me no, and that few politicians would have done what was needed to keep the United States as one country while eliminating the evil of slavery. Thankfully, we had Lincoln.

[Denise Kettering · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an introduction only to the political issues and conflicts leading up to the Civil War. It does not attempt to be a comprehensive history. If you are interested in a more detailed treatment, read Holt's tome, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party. However, as a quick introduction, this book will acquaint readers with the key tensions that developed over time. Persons interested in 19th century American history will find this an interesting and relatively easy and quick read.

[Sean Chick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basically an advanced textbook on the slave controversy's most salient point: expansion. Holt rarely gives us a feel for the men involved (a failing of his and other "bloodless" historians) but the events are described fairly, accurately, and without undue verbiage.

[Fred R · Rating 2 out of 5]

An able summary of the period, but it would require a more serious and in-depth work to make a convincing argument for the author's theory (with which I have some sympathy) that the Civil War was more contingent, and less inevitable, than is commonly assumed.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a bitch to read, mostly because it was packed with so much detail and this is an especially complex period in history. But Holt makes a powerful argument that the politics leading up to the war contributed to its outbreak.

[Thomas Mackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very short treatment of his huge Whig history

[David Withun · Rating 4 out of 5]

-

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little biased, but whateves.
He used to teach at UVA.