Decade of Disunion: How Massachusetts and South Carolina Led the Way to Civil War, 1849-1861

by Robert W. Merry

Exploring a critical lesson about our nation that is as timely today as ever, Decade of Disunion shows how the country came apart during the enveloping slavery crisis of the 1850s.

The Mexican War brought vast new territories to the United States, which precipitated a growing crisis over slavery. The new territories seemed unsuitable for the type of agriculture that depended on slave labor, but they lay south of the line where slavery was permitted by the 1820 Missouri Compromise. The subject of expanding slavery to the new territories became a flash point between North and South.

First came the 1850 compromise legislation, which strengthened the fugitive slave law and outraged the North. Then in 1854, Congress repealed the Missouri Compromise altogether, unleashing a violent conflict in “Bleeding Kansas” over whether that territory would become free or slave. The 1857 Dred Scott decision—abrogating any rights of African Americans, enslaved or free—further outraged the North. And John Brown’s ill-planned 1859 attack at the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry stirred anger and fear throughout the South.

Through a decade, South Carolina, whose economy depended heavily on slave labor, struggled over whether to secede in a stand-alone act of defiance or to do so only in conjunction with other states. Meanwhile, Massachusetts became the country’s antislavery epicenter but debated whether the Constitution was worth saving in the effort to abolish bondage. Both states widened the divide between North and South until disunion became inevitable. Then, in December 1860, in the wake of the Lincoln election, South Carolina finally seceded, leading the South out of the Union.

Beginning with the deaths of the great second-generation figures of American history—Calhoun, Webster, and Clay— Decade of Disunion tells the story of this great American struggle through the aims, fears, and maneuvers of the subsequent prominent figures at the center of the drama, with particular attention to the key players from Massachusetts and South Carolina.

This history is a sobering reminder that democracy is not self-sustaining—it must be constantly and carefully tended.

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

528 pages, Hardcover

First published July 23, 2024

About the author

Robert W. Merry is an American journalist, publishing executive, commentator, and author. He is the editor of The American Conservative.

Robert W. Merry was born in 1946 in Tacoma, WA. He served three years in the U.S. Army, including two years as a counterintelligence special agent in West Germany. He graduated from the University of Washington with a bachelor's degree in journalism in 1968 and earned a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1972.

Merry started his career as a reporter for The Denver Post and became a Washington-based political reporter in 1974 when he joined the staff of the National Observer, a Dow Jones weekly newspaper. When the Observer folded in 1977, he became a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, and spent twelve years there covering Congress, national politics, and the White House, among other beats. In 1987 Merry became managing editor of Congressional Quarterly. He was promoted to Executive Editor in 1990 and became President and Editor-in-Chief in 1997. He held that position for 12 years and led CQ into the digital age.

Reviews

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I do have to hand it to Robert Merry, in his choice of subjects for his works of popular history. He doesn’t go for the low-hanging fruit of marquee names, instead opting to introduce his readers to lesser-known figures in his President McKinley: Architect of the American Century and A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, The Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent. In this, his newest book, he introduces readers to a large group of even lesser-known characters in his effort to tell the story of the entire decade-plus leading up to the Civil War.

His premise is that South Carolina and Massachusetts represented the main agitators on opposite sides of the road to disunion. His storytelling approach is decidedly character-driven. These are what make his book stand out among many others that have covered this well-trodden ground. But there’s so much ground to cover, that it becomes difficult to keep up with the ever-growing cast of characters. And it becomes even more difficult for Merry to sustain the premise that South Carolina’s secessionism and Massachusetts’ abolitionism were the primary provocateurs in the deepening North-South divide, when there were so many other factors at play.

The book gets off to a promising start, juxtaposing Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster and South Carolina Senator John Calhoun and their contrasting views in the debates leading up to the contentious Compromise of 1850. Of course, Henry Clay must also be mentioned here, but he sticks out somewhat as the third wheel of this Great Triumvirate, foreshadowing many more non-Massachusetts, non-South Carolina third wheels to come in what is meant to be a Massachusetts- and South Carolina-focused narrative.

As the Triumvirate fades from the scene, the next generation of political leaders who began to turn away from compromise is introduced, including Massachusetts’ Charles Sumner and Charles Francis Adams, and South Carolina’s Robert Barnwell Rhett, James Henry Hammond and Andrew Pickens Butler. While at first it can be difficult for a layman to distinguish who’s who among some of these names, who’s important, and why, in time Merry allows us to get to know them all as individuals, as he covers everything from the dramatically-described caning of Sumner and his long road to recovery, to Rhett’s evolution from undistinguished Senator to firebrand newspaperman, to Hammond’s troubled personal life and sexual deviancy.

The majority of the narrative, however, is not personal, but political. While Merry is an excellent writer and his narrative is easy to follow, it’s difficult to make legislative debates particularly riveting.

It’s also difficult to keep the focus on the book’s two titular states. Covering the decade or so leading up to the Civil War means covering the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Bleeding Kansas, Dred Scott, John Brown’s raid, the election of 1860, the rise of newly-prominent political figures like Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, and the entirety of the Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce and Buchanan administrations. Any prominence that Massachusetts and South Carolina are meant to be assigned gets buried under the weight of everything and everyone else that needs to be covered, and the narrative begins to feel very familiar to anyone who may have read other recent books like Elizabeth Varon’s Disunion!: The Coming of the American Civil War, 1789-1859 or Sidney Blumenthal’s Wrestling With His Angel: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. II, 1849-1856 and All the Powers of Earth: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. III, 1856-1860.

Merry, though, seems content to keep his focus on the political, without delving too deeply into the cultural, economic and demographic reasons for why exactly antislavery sentiment became so strong in the North, why the South was increasingly willing to secede to protect the institution, and why compromise was progressively rejected by both sides.

Toward the end of the book, Merry begins to zero in on South Carolina’s Rhett, the Fire-Eater newspaperman, and his abolitionist Massachusetts counterpart William Lloyd Garrison, as the leading Southern and Northern voices on opposite extremes of the growing divide. But the story by this point has long since gotten away from its Massachusetts and South Carolina focus.

The emphasis on personalities, and on the outsized importance of two states, is what promised to make this book unique among others that have covered the same time period. But too much of the book strays from those focuses, so it ends up reading like a well-written textbook of the era, without thoughtful analysis or a greater point to make. I came away knowing more about some individuals I didn’t know much about, and got a refresher on a lot of facts and events about which I’ve previously read, but I can’t say I gained any great new insights from Merry’s take on this tumultuous time. As a book that attempted to reframe the era as a struggle personified by political leaders in two key states, I don’t think it fully succeeded. If, however, you approach the book as a personality-driven refresher to what you've read before or what you learned in school, and set the Massachusetts/South Carolina divide aside, I think you’d find some value here, as another of Merry’s imperfect but readable histories of consequential times.

Thanks to NetGalley and publisher Simon & Schuster for providing an advance copy of this book for review, ahead of its July 23rd release.

[Julian Douglass · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to thank Simon and Shuster and NetGalley for giving me a ARC to read and review.

This is a well-researched and well written book. Unlike other books of the era that focus on two or three national figures, this book tells the story of other people and politicians that played a huge role in the coming of the Civil War. Mr. Merry weaves this history like a narrative, you know what's coming, but you still want to read just to make sure. The book seems even balanced, I feel that Mr. Merry places a pox on both houses for the inability to figure out a solution to the slavery issue, even if there really wasn't one.

I feel the biggest issue of the book was that it kind of strayed from it central thesis. Mr. Merry starts off the book with a tale of two cities kind of vibe with Massachusetts and South Carolina, but then he kind of combines the north into Massachusetts cause, with Boston being the epicenter so to speak. For South Carolina, there is no doubt that they had a go it alone attitude but rallied the rest of the south to join them, but the case for Massachusetts being the other state solely responsible, or the leader, to leading the country to the civil war is thin.

Great read and I like the end where he does a wrap up of what happened to the main characters. I would go out and either buy it or check it out from your local library. A good book about the tumultuous 1850's

[John Yingling · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars
A solid, very readable account of a period in American history that served as a prelude to the Civil War, despite, or because of, the efforts of many uncompromising men.

[Stan Prager · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review of: Decade of Disunion: How Massachusetts and South Carolina
Led the Way to Civil War, 1849-1861, by Robert W. Merry
by Stan Prager (2-26-25)

“Bothsidesism” is a contemporary colloquialism that points to a frustrating trend in journalism to promote false balance. Hypotheticals might include reporting the blatantly false statement by one political candidate while in the same breath recycling allegations of college-era plagiarism against their opponent, a matter both asymmetrical and unrelated. The mainstream media is rife with this practice.
Now, author, journalist, and former editor of The American Conservative Robert W. Merry brings bothsidesism into the past with a vengeance in his Decade of Disunion: How Massachusetts and South Carolina Led the Way to Civil War, 1849-1861 [2024], a well-written if deeply flawed account of the antebellum that cherry-picks data in support of his questionable thesis that Massachusetts and South Carolina were equally responsible for the course of events that led to secession and war. That, in fact, without agitations from Charleston and Boston, there might not even have been a Civil War. There are so many things wrong with these contentions that it is difficult to know exactly where to start.
So let’s start with a Reader’s Digest version of the actual events. From the dawn of the Republic, the slave south had dominated the national government, not least through the Constitution’s infamous three-fifths clause that for purposes of representation counted the enslaved as fractional (if disenfranchised) human beings, granting slave states outsize political power in Congress and tipping the scales for electoral votes. There was also the successive string of Virginia aristocrats who (other than in John Adams’ single term) served as Chief Executive for the nation’s first three and a half decades. Then, with rare exception, the antebellum presidents who followed were either slaveowners or so-called “doughface” northern men of southern sympathies. The rudder of the Republic was steered from due south. Yet, despite that commanding role, the slave power elite ever insisted upon more: eschewing compromise, wielding political brinksmanship, forcing concessions to meet their demands. Their nearly unbroken record of success was interrupted by Lincoln’s 1860 election, which promised the vast territories seized in the Mexican War to antislavery free soil advocates rather than to those determined to transplant plantation slavery to new environs. The slave south could not abide that verdict. Over a matter of months, eleven southern states seceded and formed the Confederacy. South Carolina was the first.
Merry, a gifted writer, is at his best as he takes a deep dive into the arcane avenues of politics in the Palmetto State, which had long led the vanguard for secession, defining and shaping the very concept of such a thing philosophically and ideologically—even actively promoting what we would today tag the “vibe” for it in popular culture. South Carolinian John C. Calhoun was the most prominent voice below the Mason-Dixon extolling white supremacy, championing slavery as an institution both essential and positive, and defending state’s rights. These positions were always linked and often interchangeable. Many trace Calhoun’s clash with Andrew Jackson over tariffs in the “nullification crisis”—when Calhoun himself was serving as Jackson’s vice president—to the moment that notions of secession gained currency and legitimacy. Calhoun never wavered from his conviction in absolute state sovereignty, as well as the right to own human property, stances he considered nonnegotiable. Calhoun opposed the Compromise of 1850, although he died before its eventual passage. But his ideals lived on.
With a talented pen, Merry brings focus upon three characters who were heirs to Calhoun’s legacy—Robert Barnwell Rhett, James Henry Hammond, and Andrew Pickens Butler—whom he identifies as central to what he terms the states’ “struggles against northern antislavery pressures.” We know today, of course, that much of the fears that drove these so-called struggles—here and across the slave south—could be said to be hyperbolic at best, perhaps even paranoid, as the belief grew that the north was hell bent for abolition, a fringe movement too often confused with the politics of antislavery. But no matter. It was, as Civil War historian Gary Gallagher has underscored, the perception that mattered. And perhaps it mattered most in South Carolina. In his careful analysis, Merry reveals that the two chief political factions in South Carolina at the time, the secessionists and the cooperationists, while sometimes mischaracterized from afar, actually shared the same goal of separation; the only difference was that the latter would hold off until the move could be made in tandem with other southern states, while the former lobbied for going it alone. When the time came, secession was controversial across the south, but not here, where it enjoyed near unanimity.
But why? This is a component to a fascinating backstory the author fails to explore. South Carolina was remarkably unlike every other state, south and north, and that merits some discussion. Perhaps not quite as different as, say, Sparta was to the other poleis in fifth century Greece, but that could serve as a useful analogy, because while there was a shared culture, there was also a distinct peculiarity. The roots of “the why” lay centuries earlier; South Carolina’s founders did not hail from Europe proper, as those in the other colonies, but were expatriates from Barbados: wealthy Anglo Barbadian planters who—pressured by land scarcity on the island and chasing new opportunities—transplanted the brutal Caribbean slave plantation model to the continent. Sugar plantations in Barbados were notoriously inhumane, with mortality rates that approached one hundred percent! During settlement, the Barbadians brought the enslaved along with them, as well a lack of empathy for their human property.
South Carolina remained among the worst places in the south to be enslaved, with whites generally indifferent to the suffering of blacks. In 1858, British consul Robert Bunch reported with a mix of horror and incredulity that locals, largely unfazed by the pitiable appearance of the skeletal human cargo that was offloaded in Charlston harbor from an illegal slave ship interdicted by the Navy, were instead outraged that the vessel’s captain and crew were paraded through town upon their capture! The moral dilemma over slavery that informed ethical discussion beyond its borders, even in states where the practice was deeply entrenched, was conspicuous in its absence there. Calhoun’s concept of slavery as a positive good—which stood at odds with the more widely accepted notion in the south of it as a “necessary evil”—deeply informed the zeitgeist. Later, elites even lobbied for reopening the African slave trade, which turned out to be less popular in other parts of the Confederacy—especially in the Chesapeake, where breeding was big business; new imports would likely drive prices downward.
But while South Carolina stood alone in much, it would be misleading to suggest that the deep grievances—imagined or not—that eventually united the south in embracing disunion would not have existed had Charleston not led the way to separation in 1860. No serious Civil War historian would advance that argument. Still, Merry tries to make it so. He mentions the “F Street Mess” in passing—the name attached to a cabal of lawmakers who helped rewrite the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which came to deepen the coming crisis—but does not dwell on the fact that only one of them, Pickens Butler, represented South Carolina. (The others were from Missouri and Virginia.) Another key player in antebellum politics, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, receives little attention. There were many more, also overlooked. And it is a much, much bigger story. A coalition of slave power interests across the lower and upper south came to collectively embrace secession. South Carolina may have been the loudest and most fervent, but, at the end of the day, it was only one of eleven to sever ties with the United States. The central cause of the Civil War was always slavery, and that cause existed well outside the boundaries of South Carolina. I would urge Merry—and others interested in the complexity and nuance in the road to secession—to read Sidney Blumenthal’s recent series on Abraham Lincoln (especially volumes two and three), which, far more than a traditional biography, renders a detailed, compelling narrative of the crosscurrents that would come to deliver disunion and war.
The author, as expected, also looks north in the title’s blame game. The case could be made that there were no two states more diametrically opposed in ideology and outlook than South Carolina and Massachusetts, but to suggest that Boston—which indeed played host to a vocal abolitionist sentiment, and openly resisted the Fugitive Slave Act—was somehow a prime mover in sparking the rebellion leaps beyond overstatement into the realm of distortion. Merry, like antebellum southerners perhaps, too often confuses abolition with antislavery. New England was in fact a hotbed of abolition, but that still represented a tiny minority. It was even more minuscule elsewhere in the north. For the most part, northern free soil forces were no less champions of white supremacy than their southern kin. Rather than ideological zeal, their brand of antislavery was largely driven by a desire to exploit opportunities for settlement in the new territories for white men. This vision, by the way, did not include free blacks, Native Americans, or former Mexican nationals who resided there. It was not until much later, when emancipation became a Union war aim, that to be characterized as an “abolitionist” was no longer taken as a pejorative across most of the north.
That Merry never dwells on the foundation of cruelty that framed the institution of human bondage, nor the widespread sufferings of its victims, makes the reader wonder whether the author truly comprehends the inevitable polarization that came to define the core of the conflict. Lincoln was committed to noninterference with slavery where it existed, but southerners—per Dred Scott—demanded the right to transport their slave property anywhere, meaning that there simply would no longer be any such thing as a “free state.” Shelby Foote once simplistically styled the war as a “failure to compromise,” but by 1860 there simply were no concessions that would satisfy the south other than a complete capitulation of northern interests. While there is no doubt that South Carolina was a key instigator for secession, and the rhetoric of antislavery Massachusetts exacerbated sectional tensions, to hold each equally responsible for the outcome is a wildly inaccurate appraisal. Moreover, absent either state, civil war yet remained likely; it would have just looked a bit different.
In the end, despite extensive research and some truly fine writing, Merry’s work falls short, and that’s too bad. It could be because the author is a journalist rather than a trained historian, although there are plenty of non-historians who write outstanding works in the field, such as Candace Millard and Angela Saini. But certainly a deeper familiarity with Civil War historiography would have been helpful for him. As I read through his book, I kept wondering what could have inspired the author’s bizarre thesis. The answer awaited me at the end! I do not commonly read the “Acknowledgements” section, but this time I did, and there it was: Merry cites Paul Johnson in his A History of the American People asserting that “Only two states wanted a civil war—Massachusetts and South Carolina.” For those unfamiliar with Johnson, he was a British conservative popular historian whose politics at least occasionally compromised his scholarship. I would contend that Johnson was wrong, and so is Merry. While there are certain merits to his book, most notably his analysis of South Carolina’s politics, in general I would urge the student of this era to look elsewhere.


NOTE: I read an ARC edition of this book which I received as part of an Early Reviewer’s program


Recommended Reading

Blumenthal’s Lincoln … https://regarp.com/2023/04/15/review-...

More on Robert Bunch … https://regarp.com/2015/06/21/review-...


Other Authors Referenced in the Review


Candice Millard … https://regarp.com/2024/06/02/review-...

Angela Saini … https://regarp.com/2023/02/28/review-...



Latest book review & podcast review ... Review of: Decade of Disunion: How Massachusetts and South Carolina Led the Way to Civil War, 1849-1861, by Robert W. Merry – Regarp Book Blog https://regarp.com/2025/02/26/review-...

[David Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

The 1850s is arguably the most important decade in the history of the United States. Author Robert Merry captures the critical conflicts leading to increasing strife between the sections: the North with its growing abolitionist leanings after the Fugitive Slave Law; the South with its growing fear that the North was fomenting "aggression" by refusing to violate their own states' rights in order to protect slavery in Southern states. Add in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the caning of Charles Sumner, the Dred Scott Decision, and numerous other events, and it is no surprise the decade ended in civil war.

Merry brings all this conflict to light through the lens of two states who epitomize the increasingly different visions of the United States. Massachusetts, despite its inner tensions between Cotton and Conscience Whigs (mostly related to textile mills), becomes a center of radical abolitionism. South Carolina, the catalyst for conflicts over the protection of slavery for many decades, becoming more concerned that it was losing the power it held over the federal government and thus sought to pull itself away, preferably dragging other slave states with it. Merry highlights key people in both states as he shows how turmoil built over the decade.

Some reviewers think Merry "lost the narrative," i.e., that Massachusetts and South Carolina led the way to Civil War, by including the broader history involving other states (including Illinois' Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln). The criticism has some merit if you take the subtitle in its purist sense but given that the broader actors are necessarily part of the overall narrative of the decade, I take the two focal states as epitomes of the conflicting sections. I do think Merry is on firm ground as clearly those two states played outsized roles during the decade. In any case, the book is a worthy study of that critical decade and well worth the read.

David J. Kent
Immediate Past-President, Lincoln Group of DC
Author, Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln's Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America

[Scott Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of many works addressing a divided US in the 1850s, this one primarily looks at the political figures that defined the turbulent decade. The primary areas of focus are on Massachusetts and South Carolina, perhaps the two states on the biggest extremes of the slavery issue (Massachusetts most against and South Carolina most for). It is a time of major transition, as the main powers in the US government (Clay, Calhoun and Webster) are dying off, and newer forces, mainly Sumner, Davis, Douglas and Lincoln, attempt to fill the void. They have varying degrees of success, but as the 1850s move on, it seems inevitable that civil war is in the cards. Throw in the chaos of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the severe ineffectiveness of Pierce and Buchanan, and you have a recipe for conflict.

The book, based as it is on the political, is as readable as it comes. Admittedly, it starts to lose the Massachusetts/South Carolina thread as other players from other states start to dominate the narrative, but it does help define the politics that bedeviled that part of US history. Rating is the same regardless of format.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, subtitled “How Massachusetts and South Carolina Led the Way to Civil War, 1849-1861, provides a detailed account of the ideological and political fractures that split apart the country prior to the outbreak of actual war in 1861.

At the center of the crisis was the issue of slavery, and how to deal with it, or not. The author selected two states as representing central arguments in the debate. Massachusetts was home to staunch abolitionists opposed to slavery, but complicating matters it was also a center of textile manufacturing, which was of course dependent on cotton from the South. White South Carolinians, on the other hand, thanks to the free labor of slaves, experienced, as historian Walter Edgar wrote, “unashamed pursuit of wealth and the open enjoyment of the pleasures it could buy.” They were loathe to give it up; Merry writes, “The greed factor was too strong for any such contemplation.”

Moreover, Southerners became defensive (to put it mildly) over criticisms of their slave economy, which they alleged was for the welfare of “everyone.” Abolishing slavery, as numerous Southerners, including the future Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, declared, would be fixing a “degradation” upon the South. [This remarkable upside-down assessment of reality prefigures the insistence on “alternative facts” of today’s far right party.] And as Merry observes, Southerners were not wrong in fearing that “the southern way of life” was doomed without slave labor. But like Massachusetts, they experienced complicating factors as well, such as the influx of poor white immigrants into the South, who wanted slaves barred from menial work in the cities so that they could get jobs to support themselves and their families. Paying wages, however, no matter how menial, was something the Southern aristocracy wanted to avoid.

America became split down the middle, but, in an attempt to frame the arguments in a more acceptable and indeed persuasive manner, the discussion did not center so much on the “degradation” of anyone concerned as it did on the meaning of the founding documents of the country: the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

In particular, as Lincoln pointed out, the Declaration held that “all men were created equal.” Stephen Douglas, on the other hand, contended (not unreasonably, to be fair), that the U.S. government was “founded on the white basis. It was made by the white man, for the benefit of the white man, to be administered by white men, in such manner as they should determine.”

Douglas pointed out, in his debate with Lincoln in Galesburg, Illinois in 1858:

“Let me remind [Lincoln] that when Thomas Jefferson wrote that document, he was the owner, and so continued until his death, of a large number of slaves. Did he intend to say in that Declaration, that his negro slaves, which he held and treated as property, were created his equals by Divine law, and that he was violating the law of God every day of his life by holding them as slaves? It must be borne in mind that when that Declaration was put forth, every one of the thirteen Colonies were slaveholding Colonies, and every man who signed that instrument represented a slave-holding constituency. Recollect, also, that no one of them emancipated his slaves, much less put them on an equality with himself, after he signed the Declaration. On the contrary, they all continued to hold their negroes as slaves during the revolutionary war."


Lincoln countered that the Founders “meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence. . . . ” In other words, according to Lincoln, the purpose of law was to establish normative standards, and act as a bridge from that which is, to that which ought to be. This philosophy was reified in the Declaration of Independence.

These are just isolated examples of concerns raised at the time. The author moves from the particulars, such as the situations in Massachusetts and South Carolina, to the more general political environment, as evidenced by Congressional proceedings, to the overarching ideological debate, as best articulated by Lincoln and Douglas.

Most of Merry’s focus, it should be noted, is on the economic aspects of slavery and how these issues played out in the political sphere. There is very little discussion of the psychological mechanisms or sexual benefits driving slavery. But the book is full of details about the political personalities and issues dominating the news at the time, providing insight into the “who” and “what” that rocked the country.

Evaluation: This book will please Civil War Era historians, as well as those who love to read about the nitty gritty of politics in our country. Frankly, if you follow current political events closely, it will be hard to tell the difference between our current fractured era and the one leading up to the Civil War. Slavery is not the main issue now, but one can see many parallels in the present in the conflict between liberal values and the racist, atavistic attitudes sanctioned and even promulgated by MAGA. Thus this book will be of value both to those who want to understand the past, and those who want insights into current affairs.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting History That Doesn't Really Fulfill Its Premise. As a general history of the titular "Decade of Disunion", this is actually a reasonably well written and documented look at the overall political situation in the US in the decade (and then some) just before the onset of the American Civil War, including solid biographical overviews of several of the key players- both the actual key players and the ones Merry chooses to try to focus on, namely those from South Carolina and Massachusetts.

But that is actually where the book fails to really drive home its purported premise, that these leaders from these two States in particular played particularly important/ oversized roles in the events of the decade, in the events that lead to war. There really is just *so much* that happened in that decade that lead to disunion, and so much of it happened outside the States of South Carolina and Massachusetts - and even outside the District of Columbia - that it really was quite a stretch to claim that *any* two States could have played outsized roles in all of it, though in picking States that did in fact lead in the opposing ideals, Merry perhaps at least came closer than other potential selections.

Truly an excellent primer on the decade, with 18% of the text being bilbiography and thus a solid set of documentation/ further reading, this book even includes several examples of what made that particular decade so turbulent throughout the nation - including both the caning of a sitting Congressman *inside Capitol Hill* and the resultant comment from a Congressman - also quoted in James A. Morone's 2020 book Republic Of Wrath - that if a Congressman didn't have two pistols on his person *on Capitol Hill*, it was because he had a pistol and a knife.

I read this book in the days before the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, and I'm writing this review on the day this book releases, less than 48 hours after President Biden's announcement that he would not seek a second term - and while President Biden hasn't been seen in public in days now, somehow the Director of the US Secret Service still has her job. In other words, quite turbulent times indeed in this country.

But as Merry points out early, often, and frequently throughout this text - as turbulent as these times are, there have indeed been much, much worse. So pick up this book - and the aforementioned Morone text - and learn a degree of historical perspective that is desperately needed in these times.

Very much recommended.

[Dr. Alan Albarran · Rating 5 out of 5]

What caused the Civil War in the United States? Most of us learned in school it was slavery, and that is correct. But what were the circumstances that led to the War between the States? If you are interested in history and want to know more, Decade of Disunion by Robert W. Merry will give you a detailed timeline of the key events that occurred between 1850-1860 that forever changed the United States.

This is a rich, detailed volume without any bias towards either side. Merry is an excellent historian, and his writing almost reads like a work of fiction. The disunion was simmering for a long time in both the South and the North.

Merry introduces the reader to many political statemen of the area, some well-known, others lost to history. The book begins with the final years of three of the leaders in the Senate, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay and John Calhoun. After these leaders passed away new leaders emerged, some bent on Southern succession, others trying to hold the Union together. Of course, well known people of history are prominent in the book as well: Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and Jefferson Davis. We also learn of others who played a formidable role in the time period that were not politicians like the abolitionist John Brown.

We also learn about many pivotal events that transpired during the decade of disunion. The Missouri Compromise and its eventual demise, the Dred Scott decision, the Kansas-Nebraska, Act, the siege of Fort Sumpter, and the eventual nominations of Lincoln and Douglas by the two principal parties for President (there were actually four candidates for President in total).

The book offers a lot of information, and is highly recommended if you want to know more about the events leading to the Civil War.

I want to thank the author, publisher and NetGallery for providing an ARC of this new book. I attest my review is my own unbiased work.

[Mr. Book · Rating 2 out of 5]

You can also see this review, along with others I have written, at my blog, Mr. Book's Book Reviews.

Mr. Book just finished Decade Of Disunion: How Massachusetts And South Carolina Led The Way To Civil War, 1849-1861, by Robert W. Merry.

The author’s theses was Massachusetts and South Carolina were the leading states in the dozen years leading up to the Civil War. But, while this book was interesting and had some good information in it, the author failed to prove that case. The case seems to be based on the fact that John C. Calhoun and Daniel Webster, who died in 1850 and 1852, respectively, were from those states. Also, South Carolina was the first to decide to secede from the union.

The highlight of this book was a look at the election for Speaker of the House in December 1849, which took 63 ballots before Howell Cobb was eventually elected after the House abandoned the requirement of majority vote and selected him by plurality. Cobb would eventually become one of the founders of the Confederacy. And, for the record, Cobb was from Georgia. Now, I’m really bad at geography, but even I know that Georgia is neither Massachusetts nor South Carolina.

I’d be willing to overlook the lack of proving his theses if the book was interesting enough. I could just reclassify this as an interesting book on the years leading up to the Civil War rather than one on why those two states led the way. But, in terms of how interesting it was, this would deserve a B. I’ll drop it a grade for failing to prove his case on those two states, leaving it with a C.

Goodreads requires grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, a C equates to 2 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).

This review has been posted at my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews, and Goodreads.

Mr. Book originally finished reading this on July 30, 2024.

[E · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book mostly because of my high respect for Robert Merry. He certainly does not disappoint here, though he is mostly treading ground well-covered elsewhere. The subtitle is mostly true. There's focus on MA and SC--but the scope is certainly wider as well. Plenty of Stephen Douglas, for instance, in addition to the 14th and 15th presidents, the rise of the GOP and the downfall of the Whigs, the Dred Scott decision, etc.

I enjoyed seeing how Merry treated a narrative that is quite dramatic—and yet one about which everyone knows the result. He handled that well, allowing the history to unfold without a bunch of "what ifs" or faux naivete.

Perhaps most interesting to me were the portions regarding James Buchanan. He has a poor reputation, and rightfully so. But sometimes we get the impression that we was just sitting around smoking cigars in the White House all day and not doing much else. But that wasn't true. He had political values and commitments. He had goals. He had decisions to make. And yet he did his four years in the Executive Mansion did little to avert the war, all told. In that sense he was a failure.

Speaking of which, I do wish Merry has spent more time on this question--why was the election of Lincoln the breaking point for the South? I know the easy answer, but feel that more could be explored. After all, nothing had changed yet when SC seceded in December 1860. Was it in some sense premature? What would have happened if they stuck around for any of the Lincoln administration? I know I poo-pooed "what ifs" earlier, but that's one that got me thinking.

[robin friedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Divided America Of The 1850s

Historians often have the two-fold goal of increasing understanding about the past, and showing the relevance of aspects of the past to the present. Robert W. Merry’s recent book, Decade of Disunion: How Massachusetts and South Carolina Led the Way to Civil War, 1849-1861, fulfills both these objectives. Merry, the author of five earlier books on American history, worked for many years as a journalist in Washington D.C. and is a political commentator from a conservative perspective.

In "Decade of Disunion", Merry tells the complex history of a complicated era in an engaging and thorough manner. With the broad events and movements of the 1850s, his book focuses on individuals, familiar and unfamiliar, who played critical roles. Merry introduces each of the many characters in the book with succinct, telling descriptions while following their activities through the course of the momentous decade. A short Epilogue takes the story of some of the profiled individuals to the years beyond the 1850s.

The book has three inter-related themes. First, the book studies the 1850s, the “Decade of Disunion,” and shows how the events of those ten years cascaded into civil war. The book begins, where an earlier book by Merry, A Country of Vast Designs[1], left off, with the acquisition of large amounts of territory in the war with Mexico during President James K. Polk’s administration. Issues arose immediately about whether slavery would be allowed in the territories. The United States teetered on the brink of disunion until the Compromise of 1850, brokered by Henry Clay and Stephen A. Douglas, seemingly saved the day. However, the Fugitive Slave Act proved unpopular in the North, and Southerners despised the portion of the Compromise ending the slave trade in Washington DC. No one was satisfied but the Compromise seemed to hold. Then, with the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, the compromise began to unravel. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, based on the idea of popular sovereignty, led to violence in Kansas between pro and anti-slavery factions, including violence and voter fraud by the pro-slavery faction and a massacre committed by militant abolitionist John Brown and his followers. Subsequent events included the caning of Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner by South Carolina congressman Preston Brooks on May 22, 1856; the notorious March 6, 1857, Dred Scott Decision by the Supreme Court; and John Brown’s October 16-18, 1859, raid on Harpers Ferry. The traditional political alignments of the day broke down and the sectional Republican Party emerged leading to the election of Abraham Lincoln as president with a minority of the popular vote and Electoral College votes only from Northern states. This history has certainly been told before, but Merry tells it convincingly and well.

Merry’s book adds to the historical account of this period by his focus on the prominent roles that Massachusetts and South Carolina played in the drama. The two states differed from the earliest days of settlement, with Massachusetts founded by Puritans and South Carolina by aristocratic Cavaliers. They were similar, Merry finds, in fostering extremism, meaning a willingness to dissolve the Union and the Constitution for an end rather than working within the system and toward true compromise. He discusses the strong secessionist movement in South Carolina from the early 1850s exemplified in figures such as Robert Barnwell Rhett. He also points to voices of moderation and union which struggled to prevail in South Carolina politics until near the end of the decade. In Massachusetts, Merry discusses the abolitionist movement of William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison believed the Constitution was “a covenant with death and agreement with Hell” for countenancing slavery and advocated for disunion from the slave states. Garrison was well outside the political mainstream in Massachusetts even for strong opponents of slavery such as Charles Sumner, who battled against the institution within American constitutionalism. Other radical elements in Massachusetts included the “Secret Six,” a group of intellectuals and industrialists who surreptitiously financed and assisted John Brown’s Harpers Ferry raid. Merry takes the reader through the intricacies of state politics and works to tie the South Carolina and Massachusetts histories to the broader history of the decade.

The third theme of Merry’s book combines the earlier themes and is the most provocative. Merry is critical of those, North and South, who supported their positions by appealing to a “Higher Law,” moral or religious, separate from constitutionalism, finding that it was critical to the polarization and divisiveness that led to the Civil War. While taking this position, Merry also recognizes the moral evil of slavery. His hero in the book is Abraham Lincoln, who, prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, stressed the moral evil of slavery and strongly opposed its extension to the territories while trying to respect the Constitutional protections given to slavery in the states where it already existed. Merry does not, in the final analysis find compromise on the slavery issue possible and he sees the Civil War as the probably unavoidable result of a Union trying to be half slave and half free.

In an article published at the time of the publication of this book[2], Merry warns of what he sees as the polarization and divisiveness of current American politics on several issues, none of which, in his view, have the moral imperative of the issue of slavery. The article draws parallels between the United States of the 1850s and what Merry sees as the United States of the present. Merry urges Americans to tone down the search for moral absolutes and certitudes and to work toward compromise and cooperation within the framework of American constitutionalism.

With Decade of Disunion, Merry has written a thoughtful book that will interest serious students of the Civil War and American history.

This review was published by Emerging Civil War on October 3, 2024, and is used here with permission.

[1] A Country of Vast Designs, James K. Polk, the Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent. Robert W. Merry, author. New York, Simon & Schuster, 2010.

[2] “Are We Living Through Another 1850s?” Robert W. Merry, author, “The American Conservative”, July 22, 2024.

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book, providing a political history of the 1850s, with a concentration on the politicians from Massachusetts and South Carolina. The author, journalist Robert Merry, explains the steady march from compromise to conflict through the eyes of the participants. The book starts with the Compromise of 1850, explaining how it prevented immediate conflict but was not intended to bring about a path to a long term peace. Merry then shows the steady march towards the Civil War, through the attempts at state popular sovereignty, the sudden growth of the Republican Party, and the election of Lincoln. The book’s concentration on the politicians of the two states allows the reader to see the local evolution of once fringe ideas, abolition and secession, to mainstream positions. Merry makes it clear that slavery was the sole cause for the Civil War, with states’ rights and economic expansion being contributors to the overall slavery question, not adjacent issues. A good book for understanding the legislative events leading to the Civil War and the relations between the major political figures of both North and South.

[Robert Sparrenberger · Rating 3 out of 5]

South Carolina I can agree with in the title of this book but Massachusetts is a bit over stated. Basically a look at the country the decade before the civil war. Most of the book focuses on presidents and congressional members that most Americans won’t have a strong knowledge of. Because of that, this book can be a bit dry at times but the information and events are very important to the lead up to the civil war.
The presidents before the civil war(Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan) are consistently rated some of the worst in our history and this book reminds me why.
Big honking typo at the very end of the this book. William Seward was attacked and Lincoln assassinated on April 15, 1865 not 1861.

[JW · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good popular history of how the sectional quarrel over slavery accelerated during the 1850s. Robert Merry’s background as a reporter is evident in this journalistic account. He concentrates on Massachusetts and South Carolina as the leading states in their respective regions. Their divergent backgrounds, origins, social structures and economies produced the politics that fueled the crisis that led to war. The book’s strength is in how Merry makes the political personalities his focus. The era’s social forces are personified through the historical actors, both well and lesser known, that he describes.

[Daniel Byrd · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book to be very well researched; however, I also found it to be laborious to get through. It was at times dry and often times dragged on for pages when there were instances it could have been much more concise. Additionally, I’m not sure Merry spends enough time on the idea of South Carolina and Massachusetts leading the way in this decade of disunion. The book starts off fascinating with its description of both colonies; however, the author losses the thread at times when he dives into John Brown, Bleeding Kansas, and Abraham Lincoln’s political ascension.

[Timothy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Covering familiar ground, the authors does it well in a digestible manner. The stories and events are well known but the authors shapes the narrative to indicate how the leaders of Massachusetts, the progressives of their time, and the leases of South Carolina, the reactionaries of their time, drove the country to civil war.

[Lou Chodosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book, well presented , about a very difficult time in our history. I definitely know much more about the time leading to the civil war because of this book. Any student of history should read this book. Thanks to the author .

[Joe McMahon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent narrative of the presidents of the 1850's. Emphasis on South Carolina and Massachusetts. Zachary Taylor, who died in office 1850. Millard Fillmore 1850-1853. Franklin Pierce 1853-1857. James Buchanan 1857-1861.

[chris McNamara · Rating 3 out of 5]

was very slow reading…

[Ralphz · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting way to frame the run up to the Civil War: Abolitionist Massachusetts vs. slave-holding South Carolina. Unfortunately, it doesn't hold that focus for the entire book.

It begins well, with all the political and personal intrigue of the time, the struggles between the slave holders, largely led by South Carolina, and the abolitionists, led by Massachusetts. Colorful characters abound on both sides, moderates and extremists.

Eventually, though, the story necessarily moves to Kansas and John Brown, and then Illinois politicians Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. It wraps up with Lincoln's election and secessionist South Carolinians about to attack Fort Sumter.

It's an original way to look at the history of the time, but ultimately comes up short for me.

I won this book from @goodreads.

#DecadeOfDisunion @SimonBooks