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mpejkrm's review
5.0
Volume IV of Allan Nevin's Civil War era series is entitled "Prologue to Civil War", and takes us from the midpoint of the James Buchanan administration up to and including Lincoln's inauguration (but *not* Fort Sumter). Where we left off at the end of Volume III, the last vestiges of fruitless attempts throughout the 1850s to end debates over slavery by compromising words and legislation were fading away and the southern fire-eaters were beginning to gain ground amongst their initially skeptical southern brethren.
One of, if not the, biggest worries of Southerners all throughout the 19th century was that of slave revolts - the menacing photo painted both before and after the war of the "dangerous" slaves uprising to attack and murder their owners and wives and children, a threat that was dangerously overstated (as most slaves were better off trying to earn their freedom than try a normally fruitless revolt). But right at the start of this volume we have John Brown, the martyr who put his body on the line to end slavery, knowing precociously that the controversy could not be ended by anything other than violence. Brown showed up earlier in the series when he was part of a controversy in Kansas, and the first third of this book covers him, his co-conspirators, his plans and the failure of his raid on Harpers Ferry in fascinating detail. Brown's raid has been written about an innumerable amount of times but I still found plenty of new detail in here, and of course Nevins' writing is always easy to parse and well-done.
Brown's failed uprising was *the* event that many Southerners had seemingly been waiting for to make their dreams of a Southern republic come true. Hanged for treason, it set off a tense year-plus of political battles leading up to the start of the war. Although earlier volumes dove deep into socioeconomic conditions and American life in the fifties, this volume focuses strictly on the political developments and the major battles within and between the political parties. While those sections in prior volumes were occasionally fascinating, Nevins is at his best writing about politics and the narratives of the Republican compromise to get Lincoln nominated, as well as the split of the Democrats between north and south, is riveting.
Perhaps the best chapter of the entire series to date, though, is a penetrating insight on the future of slavery from the view of the Southerners in the year 1860, and a comparison of American slavery to that of other nations in the western hemisphere (of which only Brazil really had major slave populations left by the time of the Civil War). Even though the Republicans were insistent on not interfering with slavery in the states, Southerners knew that slavery would die if it was not allowed to expand, especially southward. But why did slavery fade more easily in South America? One hypothesis that Nevins gives is that the slaves, similar to that of the early Romans, were not subjugated to the same status that black Americans were. In particular, the large number of mixed-race and free black populations in Central America and the Caribbean made "race-adjustment", as Nevins calls it, much easier than it would have been in the US.
This plays into a major point that Nevins clarifies later in the volume - that, in his view, slavery alone was not the main cause of the civil war, but rather both slavery and abolition and its corollary - that millions of black Americans would become free without any dedicated effort to "educate" them. While there is some truth to this argument, Nevins, in my view, heavily overplays it to the point of some bias trickling in that he himself may have believed that freedmen would have needed years of training before being able to "assimilate". Had Nevins lived to write about Reconstruction, he may well have pointed to some of its failures to justify his argument. I took issue with his characterization of slavery in Volume I, and it reappears here, although not nearly as crass, and in support of a much stronger overall thesis. Nevins, to his credit, recognizes slavery as the main cause of a very significant and complex group of issues. But his consistent contempt for abolition weakens some of his claims towards race-adjustment.
Overall, though, I found this to be the best volume of the series to date. Ending with a series of chapters on the failure of compromise attempts in Congress, the transition of the Buchanan administration in its lame duck period (in which it faced as much pressure as any lame duck administration ever will), and the fight for space in the Lincoln cabinet reads like a political thriller at points. I also really liked how we end this volume before getting into Sumter itself. It leaves off at a point where Lincoln and the Republicans still have some hope for a peaceful settlement, but reality is quickly settling in. As I read on into the war itself, I'm excited to see the home front profiled in detail, as I'm led to believe Nevins does, as I've never been big into military history.
One of, if not the, biggest worries of Southerners all throughout the 19th century was that of slave revolts - the menacing photo painted both before and after the war of the "dangerous" slaves uprising to attack and murder their owners and wives and children, a threat that was dangerously overstated (as most slaves were better off trying to earn their freedom than try a normally fruitless revolt). But right at the start of this volume we have John Brown, the martyr who put his body on the line to end slavery, knowing precociously that the controversy could not be ended by anything other than violence. Brown showed up earlier in the series when he was part of a controversy in Kansas, and the first third of this book covers him, his co-conspirators, his plans and the failure of his raid on Harpers Ferry in fascinating detail. Brown's raid has been written about an innumerable amount of times but I still found plenty of new detail in here, and of course Nevins' writing is always easy to parse and well-done.
Brown's failed uprising was *the* event that many Southerners had seemingly been waiting for to make their dreams of a Southern republic come true. Hanged for treason, it set off a tense year-plus of political battles leading up to the start of the war. Although earlier volumes dove deep into socioeconomic conditions and American life in the fifties, this volume focuses strictly on the political developments and the major battles within and between the political parties. While those sections in prior volumes were occasionally fascinating, Nevins is at his best writing about politics and the narratives of the Republican compromise to get Lincoln nominated, as well as the split of the Democrats between north and south, is riveting.
Perhaps the best chapter of the entire series to date, though, is a penetrating insight on the future of slavery from the view of the Southerners in the year 1860, and a comparison of American slavery to that of other nations in the western hemisphere (of which only Brazil really had major slave populations left by the time of the Civil War). Even though the Republicans were insistent on not interfering with slavery in the states, Southerners knew that slavery would die if it was not allowed to expand, especially southward. But why did slavery fade more easily in South America? One hypothesis that Nevins gives is that the slaves, similar to that of the early Romans, were not subjugated to the same status that black Americans were. In particular, the large number of mixed-race and free black populations in Central America and the Caribbean made "race-adjustment", as Nevins calls it, much easier than it would have been in the US.
This plays into a major point that Nevins clarifies later in the volume - that, in his view, slavery alone was not the main cause of the civil war, but rather both slavery and abolition and its corollary - that millions of black Americans would become free without any dedicated effort to "educate" them. While there is some truth to this argument, Nevins, in my view, heavily overplays it to the point of some bias trickling in that he himself may have believed that freedmen would have needed years of training before being able to "assimilate". Had Nevins lived to write about Reconstruction, he may well have pointed to some of its failures to justify his argument. I took issue with his characterization of slavery in Volume I, and it reappears here, although not nearly as crass, and in support of a much stronger overall thesis. Nevins, to his credit, recognizes slavery as the main cause of a very significant and complex group of issues. But his consistent contempt for abolition weakens some of his claims towards race-adjustment.
Overall, though, I found this to be the best volume of the series to date. Ending with a series of chapters on the failure of compromise attempts in Congress, the transition of the Buchanan administration in its lame duck period (in which it faced as much pressure as any lame duck administration ever will), and the fight for space in the Lincoln cabinet reads like a political thriller at points. I also really liked how we end this volume before getting into Sumter itself. It leaves off at a point where Lincoln and the Republicans still have some hope for a peaceful settlement, but reality is quickly settling in. As I read on into the war itself, I'm excited to see the home front profiled in detail, as I'm led to believe Nevins does, as I've never been big into military history.
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