The Scorpion's Sting: Antislavery and the Coming of the Civil War

by James Oakes

Surrounded by a ring of fire, the scorpion stings itself to death. The image, widespread among antislavery leaders before the Civil War, captures their long-standing strategy for peaceful abolition: they would surround the slave states with a cordon of freedom. They planned to use federal power wherever they could to establish freedom: the western territories, the District of Columbia, the high seas. By constricting slavery they would induce a crisis: slaves would escape in ever-greater numbers, the southern economy would falter, and finally the southern states would abolish the institution themselves. For their part the southern states fully understood this antislavery strategy. They cited it repeatedly as they adopted secession ordinances in response to Lincoln's election. The scorpion's sting is the centerpiece of this fresh, incisive exploration of slavery and the Civil War: Was there a peaceful route to abolition? Was Lincoln late to emancipation? What role did race play in the politics of slavery? With stunning insight James Oakes moves us ever closer to a new understanding of the most momentous events in our history.

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

208 pages, Paperback

First published May 19, 2014

About the author

James Oakes is the author of several acclaimed books on slavery and the Civil War. His most recent book, Freedom National, won the Lincoln Prize and was a long-list selection for the National Book Award. He lives in New York City.

Reviews

[Jay Perkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book describing the anti slavery policies of the republican party prior to the Civil War. Clears up a lot of confusion about slavery's place in the conflict between North and South. Before war was inevitable, republicans wanted to surround the southern states with a "cordon of freedom" The image they most often used was of a scorpion being surrounded by fire. The scorpion would sting himself to avoid dying by the flames. To hasten this end, republicans promoted anti-slavery policies that would undermine slavery (like banning the institution from the territories and undermining the fugitive slave law, just to name a couple). Eventually, with no room to expand, and their slaves fleeing to free soil, southerners would have to destroy the institution themselves to be saved from economic and domestic ruin. It was extremely important that southerners end slavery themselves because most Americans believed, including many abolitionists, that the Constitution protected slavery where it existed. Republicans and democrats, north and south, agreed that the federal government could not abolish slavery in the southern states. It could only be abolished by state law. However, republicans sought to do everything permitted by the Constitution to build this ring of fire/freedom.
What instead happened was secession and civil war. The south was very aware of the republicans policies and believed separating was the best way to protect their "property". Eventually, the republicans had to consider a different antislavery method allowed by the constitution: military abolition.

Short and concise book. Along with "Freedom National", James Oakes presents the clearest presentation of Republican politics in the Civil War era.

[Steve Smits · Rating 4 out of 5]

The South's secession from the union has always puzzled me; how was this drastic action not contrary to the interests of the eleven slaveholding states? The incoming Republican administration had vowed not to allow expansion of slavery in territories and newly forming states, but Lincoln and others explicitly averred that his administration had no intention of interfering with slavery where it existed. Lincoln believed that the Constitution gave no sanction for such action. If southernors wanted slavery's expansion across the country, leaving the union would completely foreclose this. Further, Lincoln went to far as to state that the federal government was obligated to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act in the northern states, forcibly returning escaped slaves to bondage. In the longer term, why did the South not see that presidents with particular platforms will eventually be replaced by others who may hold opposite views. Granted, the abolitionists and anti-slavery activists were irksome to the slaveholders, but that was nothing new in 1860-61; the South had tolerated such perceived insults for decades. By far, the most significant downside for the South in seceding from the union was the threat of severing economic ties with the North. The agrarian nature of the South's economy was inextricably intertwined with the North's financial and manufacturing resources.

"The Scorpian's Sting", a collection of essays by James Oakes, clarifies how antislavery sentiments, both practical and philosophical, led to the destruction of slavery. The scorpian's sting referred to a metataphor in wide use that if encircled by a ring of fire, a scorpian will ultimately sting itself to death. Its meaning was not lost on Southern leaders. They well understood that if slavery was cordoned within its existing boundaries it could not survive, and they saw a new national political regime detemined to fence in slavery. Many thought that, even if not in the United States, slavery could expand southward to Cuba, the Caribeean, and Latin America.

Much was made in the South of the inviolability of property rights, widely held a Constitutional guarantee. Slaveholders maintained that slaves were property like any other form of property. Thus, a man could do with his human property what he could do with any fungible property, including removing it to anywhere in the country. Countering this, a powerful strain of thought among anti-slavery thinkers stemmed from a conception of an overarching higher natural law, that the most sacred and fundamental right of property was the property inherent in oneself. Depriving one of the right to his or her inherent property was inimical to this natural law. The Constitution did not specify "property"; it did not explicitly address slavery as a category of guaranteed property. That the South was aware of this potential threat to human property is evidenced by the inclusion of guaranteed slavery in the Confederate's constitution.

Neither side saw civil war as the inevitable result of secession, but thoughtful men must have surmised that a war once unleashed could result in dramatic and sweeping consequences. One such possible consequence was military confiscation of property under the laws of war. Taking property that impinged on the enemy's capacity to conduct war was entirely acceptable as a practical military measure. The application of this principle logically adhered to slaves whose services deprived to their owners certainly hindered the South's war effort. One must remember that the Emancipation Proclamation was justified on the military necessity for emancipating slaves in states in rebellion. Slaves in union states or regions controlled by the union were not emancipated as military necessity did not obtain. The key question about confiscated property was what was the obligation of the holders of confiscated property to return it after the conflict ceased? Contentious as it may have been, there was precedent from the Revolutionary War and War of 1812 that slaves under the control of a combatant need not be returned to their owners. Beyond the realm of international law, it was on moral grounds unquestionably inconceivable to reenslave confiscated persons at the war's conclusion.

There was a distinction, more in mid-19th century minds than in modern thinking, between emancipation and equality. If enslaving humans is immoral does their emancipation convey equality? If so, what sort of equality? The Declaration of Independence stated that all men held natural rights to life, liberty and property. Lincoln and the Republicans felt that slavery deprived blacks of the right to the products of their own labors, but does restoring this right necessarily confer political equality? Do free blacks become citizens? What does freedom mean for social equality? It is clear that Lincoln's views on racial equality were far distant from today's views. Not only did he persist in the prospect of colonization of blacks until quite late, he consistently posited a circumscribed view of the extent of political and civic rights that ensued from emancipation. A more expansive conception of the fruits of equality emerged from the radical Reconstructionist wing of the Republican party, but whether Lincoln would have moved this far cannot be known.

[Trenten Mueller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative.

[Nadya Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

really surprised me

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Scorpion’s Sting is a concise and careful analysis of the Republican strategy to end slavery. Oakes moves readers beyond the traditional argument that the Civil War was a product of Southern Democrat’s desire for slavery to expand into the West. Instead, he argues, anti-slavery Republicans and abolitionists sought to suffocate slave states and force them to abolish slavery on their own by pairing personal liberty laws that challenged the reach of slaveholders in northern states with legislation that blocked the expansion of slavery into new territories. Military emancipation was seen as both unlikely and unwelcome. Perhaps the most interesting chapter comes at the end when Oakes analyzes different instances of military emancipation in the United States leading up to the Civil War. The Scorpion's Sting is highly recommended for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of the Civil War.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Twenty-five years after the end of the American Civil War, small groups of Southerners arose to rewrite its story. Led--but in no way started--by organizations like the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the United Confederate Veterans, the movement's goal was simple: scrutinize school textbooks and demand a more sympathetic view of the South, its attitudes toward slavery, and its reasons for fighting the Civil War. This was an almost direct extension of the pro-slavery propaganda promulgated by elected Southern officials during the war, who had depicted Union soldiers as elements of an unwarranted full-scale invasion and the emancipation of their slaves as the theft of lawfully-protected and God-given property. Unlike this propaganda, however, the crusade to indoctrinate children through revisionism was done to justify and expunge the sins that had led to war in the first place, and to make sure that false information was passed down as fact in the generations to come.

As recounted by historian James McPherson, some of the most overt examples of revisionism from the post-war South could be found in textbooks and the recommendations of grassroots committees. There was Susan Pendleton Lee, whose history of the United States included a justification of not only slavery--after all, she said, "hundreds of thousands of African savages had been Christianized under its influence"--but the Ku Klux Klan, which she claimed to be necessary "for protection against...outrages committed by misguided negroes.” There was also Mildred R. Rutherford, whose criteria for the instant rejection of a textbook, according to McPherson, included any book asserting that "the South fought to hold her slaves," that "speaks of the slaveholders of the South as cruel and unjust to his slaves," or that "glorifies Abraham Lincoln and vilifies Jefferson Davis." (Even more ridiculous, the recommended corrections for these alleged errors included an attempt to depict the Southern slave-owners as victims: "Southern men were anxious for the slaves to be free. They were studying earnestly the problem of freedom, when Northern fanatical Abolitionists took matters into their own hands.")*

This kind of revisionism, now referred to as "neoconfederate," has remained strong in the 150 years since the war ended, and in many cases the lies have remained exactly the same: that the North was the aggressor and the South was simply exercising "state's rights," which was guaranteed by the Constitution; that secession was about taxes instead of slavery, and that the South was embracing the same civil disobedience of the Founding Fathers when they broke away from England; that slavery was already a waning institution, one that should have been "allowed" to die a natural, free-market death; and that Lincoln could have bought Southern slaves their freedom with federal money, sparing the nation the great costs of the Civil War.

It is these last two ideas--that the Civil War could have been prevented with proactive measures--that historian James Oakes hopes to debunk with his own short study of the subject, which traces the political and social discourse leading up to the Civil War. In 180 pages, Oakes demonstrates just how immovable the two opposing sides were when it came to slavery, with abolitionists arguing for full emancipation and the pro-slavery factions basing their arguments on a misreading of the Constitution, passages cherry-picked from the Bible, and bigoted ideas about the inferiority of other races. (Oakes makes sure to points out that many Northerners held these same despicable views on racial superiority, though these attitudes were much more widespread in the slave states.) Believing that a compromise could have been reached to avert the war, even after so many previous compromises had only exacerbated the issue, is foolish; after all, if you believe that your ideas are ethically and Constitutionally correct, why would your side bargain them away?

Oakes further discusses the long history of emancipation through military intervention--that is to say, during war--as a viable military and humanitarian strategy and not the "theft of property," thereby disproving the idea that slaves were anything other than subjugated human beings. Even during the Revolutionary War, before our nation's misguided belief in slavery was enshrined into law, military leaders on both sides understood the importance of slaves to achieving decisive victories, and promises of freedom were extended in order to gain loyalty and manpower in the fight over colonial control. (In the end, slaves who fought for the British were taken back to England by the thousands, where they could live in a society that had already abolished the practice.) Because the Confederacy was so devoted to the idea that slaves were property, they did not follow suit and offer freedom in exchange for military service, even though, as Oakes points out, a quarter-million conscripted slaves could easily have changed the dynamic of the war for the South; and counting as only six percent of the overall slave population, their freedom after the war would have had a negligible effect on the South. (This is an admittedly perverse way to think about history, but it's also factually sound and demonstrates once again the severity of the Confederacy's racism. What's more, a thought experiment, especially when supported with statistics and used only to highlight an important point, is still far more acceptable than revisionism.)

Oakes' book is in no way a comprehensive refutation of Civil War revisionism, and at times his research suffers from a narrowness that takes the speeches and writings of a few and applies them broadly across both sides. This is a worrisome, albeit editorially sound, practice only because it mirrors the very same strategy of neoconfederates when they take the words of a half-dozen minor historical figures and conflate them to give the appearance of a majority viewpoint. That's not to say Oakes should have quoted or cited as many politicians as possible, and the people he does cite are some of the most important from that era--Lincoln, Stephen Douglas, Jefferson Davis, Thaddeus Stephens, and so on. But this book--based, Oakes states at the end, on a series of lectures he delivered--could and should have been much longer. A cursory look online reveals that Civil War revisionism has not been given the due scrutiny it deserves, at least not in book form. (Even the McPherson text I quoted before is derived from an essay about the Civil War rather than a fully realized book all its own.) Neoconfederate writings and viewpoints have not lessened with the passage of time, and they will not lessen in the years to come; someone needs to debunk as much of the mythologized South as possible, and Oakes comes awfully close. Where history is concerned, however, close is not good enough.


*All of the information on post-war revisionism and textbook committees comes from the work of James McPherson, a portion of which can be read at the blog of Kevin Levin. The information I have presented herein is either quoted directly from McPherson's work or are summaries and paraphrases presented by Levin.


This review was originally published at There Will Be Books Galore.

[Ali · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this book up because I rather foolishly thought it might look at the movements against slavery - both the Northern anti-abolitionist movements, and the activities and actions of slaves themselves, the latter of which was decisive in defeating slavery, and yet, somehow, never seems to warrant serious consideration. Rather, this is a tightly written analysis of the writings of major Republicans and Democrats - mostly Lincoln - in the lead up to the war. Cause heaven knows, the world needs another look at that. The author is seeking to argue that the Republicans believed slavery could be dispensed with by making it untenable, without ever having to centrally abolish it; and then; in a final chapter the length of the rest of the book, argues that wartime emancipation was well-recognised as a legitimate war time tactic. I can only assume that this book was written to refute a Confederate view that the war was all about states rights, and that emancipating a man's slaves was downright unfair tactically. I shudder to think such an argument is needed, but that doesn't mean it isn't.
Having said that, I just end up finding this approach, like most civil war scholarship, so dismissive it is offensive. The reason that emancipating slaves is an *effective* war time tactic is that it provides a scant increase in hope to slaves. African-American slaves who fought back, who ran, who joined the Union Armies in staggering numbers, who sabotaged and destroyed equipment, are not just a white man's tactic. They were men and women who fought for and won an end to enslavement. So why is it so hard to find their stories?

[Leah Unverferth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This will be one of my go to recommendations for understanding the Civil War. It's short, easy to understand, and incredibly insightful. Slavery is an accurate one word cause of the Civil War which can be discussed from many perspectives. Have you ever considered it from the anti-slavery perspective? The Republican party took an uncompromising stance against expanding slavery into territories. But what about slavery on federal property (like forts) or slavery in Washington D.C. or other places where Congress, not the states, had the responsibility of government? Yes, the federal government under Republican rule was committed to abolishing slavery over all areas it had jurisdiction outside of the states where slavery was established by positive law. This would eventually surround the slave states with a "cordon of freedom" like a fire surrounding a scorpion that would be forced to sting itself to death (hence the title of the book). The ultimate justifications for this were mostly philosophical: (1) slavery was not the natural state of man but was only established by positive law and (2) the Constitution never recognized property in man but always calls slaves "persons" adopting the language of the Somerset case This in turn is supported by the historical actions of Congress in wars and treaties where Congress did legislate over the disagreements about slaves that fled to enemy lines for freedom.

Point one includes a helpful discussion about the definition of slavery relevant to US history. The term was used in many contexts. For instance, it was argued that taxation without representation was equivalent to being a slave. But if everything is slavery nothing is slavery right? So what was it precisely that Republicans objected to regarding racial slavery? It wasn't the inequality of blacks and whites (many were white supremacists themselves) but specifically the right to the fruit of one's own labor. Every man and woman has this right naturally and hence slavery can only exist by positive law. This is why there was such controversy surrounding fugitive slaves, for instance. Weren't these slaves free when they were no longer under the positive law that made them slaves?

This discussion in the book is also extremely helpful to tie together the slavery and racial issues. So Republicans were still largely white supremacists yet they were called the "Black Republicans" and it was argued they would bring about racial equality. Why? Think about free blacks. Some states allowed them to be citizens such as in Massachusetts. Therefore these blacks were citizens of the US and entitled to the rights and privileges of citizenship. This, it was argued, was impeded by states that excluded free blacks in their state constitution. Some bad reasoning entered in here on the pro-slavery side: If blacks were citizens then they must vote. Of course, it had never been true up to that point in US History that every citizen had the right to vote. But every citizen did have to right and liberty to travel freely through the states and blacks were owed this as citizens.

All of this discussion also helps to expose the fact that slavery could never really be limited to a "states' rights" issue: the disagreement was always national. The pot could never not boil over. Slavery depended on national recognition in many ways and that recognition was never going to happen.

Point 2 explains the constitutional disagreement between North and South. Did the Constitution reject property in man or did it implicitly (or "expressly" in the terms of Chief Justice Roger Taney in the Dres Scott decision) uphold property in man? Southern states adopted the right of property as the most fundamental natural right. Hence the right of property in slaves was a "higher law" and assumed in the Constitution. Slavery, in this view, could exist without law. But these views were beginning to be rejected more broadly in England and the North. The right to property was rooted in the right of self-ownership hence freedom is the most basic natural right and slavery can only exist by positive law. Hence you get the rejection of slaves as property in the Somerset case in favor of slaves being "persons held to service" - the exact language adopted by the Constitution. The North rightly interpreted this as a rejection of property in man. (For an excellent in-depth treatment of this exact point, see the book No Property in Man by Sean Wilentz.)

Chapter 4 details the history of wartime emancipation in the US. This chapter is excellent. You might wonder why it gives such great detail about how runaway slaves to the enemy in times of war were negotiated. The climax makes all that history worth it. First it shows military emancipation was a readily acknowledged right of war. This was not generally seen (even by slaveholders) as incitement to service insurrection. But secondly, and more importantly, it opens up the arguments from John Quincey Adams who adamantly rejected the statement "Congress possesses no constitutional authority to interfere in any way with the institution of slavery in any of the States of this Confederacy." His reasoning: "In effect the Treat of Ghent required the federal government to 'interfere' with slavery in the southern states to protect it against British depredations. If the federal government had no power to interfere with slavery in the southern states, Adams argued, it could never have negotiated such a stipulation. Treaties were powerful legal instruments, he noted. They could reenslave people who had freed themselves during the war, but they could also emancipate slaves within the southern states, and either way there was nothing the state could do about it" (p. 152). Hence the federal government could, under war time powers, be within its power to free slaves in the southern states by means of a treaty. (It's not stated explicitly in the book, but I think this implies we could look at the reconstruction amendments as terms of a peace treaty.)

All the points in this book are extremely important since many Southern complaints of Northern "tyranny" rest on assumptions for things like "property in man." It shows how irreconcilable the anti-slavery and pro-slavery views were - they fundamentally and philosophically opposed each other. No compromise between the two was possible. One was right and one was wrong and it would take a Civil War to end the debate.

[Naomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is takes an excellent microscopic look at how the abolition/antislavery movement that attempted but failed to lead to the Civil War and the environment that led to this failure. It is only 170 some odd pages, but INCREDIBLY well researched. I would recommend this book for students of the Civil War, who have at least a basic knowledge of the cultural and political environment of the United States before wading into this book. The author goes deeper into some critical occurrences that made the war inevitable.

[Allie Rocheleau · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picture him sitting in an academic library finding references to the scorpion and then including them all, regardless of relevance or repetition.

[Dennis Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Scorpion's Sting: Antislavery and the Coming Civil War by James Oakes is enlightening from its first few pages. Oakes aims to re-contextualize our understanding of Southern Secession and Northern Abolitionist efforts. Some of the enterprise is tedious, especially in Chapter 4, but the enterprise itself is worth celebrating.

Perhaps the most startling revelation had to do with the fundamental breach between the North and the South was not preventing slavery's expansion west, but rather on preventing slavery from having access to federal properties in DC and Southern States on government and military facilities. The idea that congress could actually force a southern state to give up slavery was wholly alien to the conscious of the people, and thus was not even thought of. The aim was instead to corner slavery so that those who practiced it would become like a scorpion surrounded by fire, and sting itself into oblivion.

Numerous primary sources are cited to support this, and the book came recommended by Foreign Affairs, so I'm inclined to trust the scholarship.

Chapter 4, which takes up about a third of the entire book, is in dire need of some trimming. However, I can tell why Oaks kept it at such a monolithic length. The ideas, once properly abstracted, are rather profound. The use of war to emancipate slaves was a well known and accepted practice, even among the South. An early treaty with Great Britain regarding the slaves who defected to the British army showed this to be abundantly clear, as did the controversy it sparked when the British refused to return slaves that remained in America after the war ended and the British emancipated them. The British were willing to leave behind those that defected after the peace treaty was signed, but not those that came to them during a time of war. To them, once they were emancipated, they were free regardless of whether or not they were still in the American landmass.

The southerners accepted that those who were emancipated and left America could leave, as this was the right of natural conduct in war, as property could be disposed of however a belligerent wished, but if the property remained on the land in good shape, and the peace treaty said the British would return seized property in their possession in the holdings of the US, then the British had to return the freed men. The Federalists and the Democratic Republicans have a rather fierce fight over this. It was never about whether or not the British could free slaves in a time of war, only that the terms of the peace treaty compelled them to return those slaves that remained in the US when peace was signed.

Another case study to support this had to do with the Seminole Indians in Florida and the Freed Slaves who allied with them. War could legitimate and emancipate the freed slaves, who could then under terms of a peace treaty be left free - even if their masters wanted them back. That war was a legitimate and accepted tool to free slaves was important for the US, as Lincoln cited both the Seminole and the British examples to justify his own emancipation actions later.

This, and a few other bits of information changed my understanding of the time leading up to the Civil War. When it comes to the book itself, ultimately the narrow focus and the narrative style proves its undoing. The book is short, a collection of essays focusing on macro-topics. Some of it is needlessly tedious. The narrative flows are self-contained, and you don't quite feel like you're learning about Antislavery in general, but rather the sub-set being discussed in this section of that chapter. Plenty of room for expansion exists, and the book itself feels like a very incomplete window into what it aspires to present.

I recommend the book, but I advise you to bear that it is more flawed than it might first appear.

89/100 / B+

[JRT · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Scorpion’s Sting does a number of things well. First, it firmly dispenses with the ahistorical notion that the Civil War was fought over anything other than the institution of slavery. There can be no doubt that when judging the actions of the Confederacy and the Union, slavery was at the core of the irreconcilable differences between North and South.

Second, this book does a good job depicting the lack of inevitability of universal abolition. As the author describes, the “radical Republicans” preferred gradual, state-by-state abolition of slavery, and sought to compel the states to do so by creating “cordons of freedom" around the slave south. The North knew that the institution of slavery would die if it could not expand, so it sought to cut off any hope of expansion by (1) banning slavery from the territories, (2) banning the entrance of new slave states to the union, (3) refusing to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, (4) abolishing slavery in Washington D.C., and (5) enforcing anti-slavery on the high seas. These actions forced the slave South into a state of desperation, leading the slave states to conclude that the only way to preserve their peculiar institution was succession and war. However, the North was eventually forced to speed up abolition (via military emancipation and the passage of the 13th Amendment), due to the actions of the Confederacy and the brave, rebellious nature of the enslaved.

Third, the author does a good job getting to the root of the fight over slavery. The South and the North had fundamentally different beliefs on the nature of African people, and thus the viability of enslavement. The South believed that Africans were slaves by nature, an inferior race that was only suitable for enslavement. This dovetailed with the South’s belief that the Constitution protected private property (in this case, slaves) above all other things. In contrast, the North believed that all men by nature were free, and that Africans were not by-nature commodities. As such, the North contended that the Constitution protected human freedom above all.

Finally, the book does a good job explaining the entanglement of racial equality and abolition, although it could have spent more time demonstrating the hypocrisy of the North in espousing the rhetoric of equality but not living up to it in practice. Notwithstanding these strengths, the author could have done a better job centering African people in the struggle for emancipation. It was African people running to Union lines that made the Emancipation Proclamation (i.e. “military emancipation”) possible, and it was African people’s continued resistance that signaled the demise of slavery if it did not expand. Further, this book is ultimately about the "how" of abolition, not the "why." A more well-rounded book would have included an analysis of why the North wanted to abolish slavery, and where they viewed African people and "racial equality" in their state-building efforts post-emancipation.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something strange is happening in the history profession. The claim that the 13th Amendment didn't actually end slavery but instead re-enslaved Blacks in a system of unpaid convict labor is now ubiquitous. It is called "Thirteentherism" by its critics. The notion that nothing has really changed, that all of American history can be explained by an unbroken line of white supremacy, remains trendy. It gained popularity because of The 1619 Project, which was a pseudo-historical, tendentious hustle. It erased conflict from American history (how can there be any conflict when everyone agreed on white supremacy?), which is why it could not explain how there was a Civil War.

James Oakes, a cutting-edge scholar of the antebellum U.S. and slavery, is having none of this stuff. In "The Scorpion's Sting" Oakes explains the nature of the irreconcilable conflict over slavery, over the place of Black people in America, over the very meaning of the American project. The Republican Party sought to place slavery on the course of ultimate extinction by surrounding the South with a "cordon of freedom," but once the nation began hurtling toward war, Republicans openly, publicly warned that military emancipation would follow. But whereas past military emancipations were not aimed at destroying the institution itself, the Republicans radicalized military emancipation after 1861 by taking aim at the entirety of the South's "peculiar institution." Yes, Lincoln was primarily interested in restoring the Union -- but what kind of Union? One without the evil of human chattel slavery. How? By prosecuting a war to destroy the South while emancipating all slaves everywhere the Union army reached -- although military emancipation would not enough, as everyone knew. Simultaneously Lincoln pressured the border states to voluntarily abolish slavery or risk losing their chattels without compensation, while also pushing for the passage of the 13th Amendment to prevent the re-enslavement of the emancipated after the war ended.

To the claim that without the civil war, there wouldn't have been military emancipation and therefore slavery would have persisted for generations... maybe 100 years, Lincoln once mused... well, there would have been no civil war had it not been for the conflict over slavery. The two are related.

This slim volume can be read in one or two sittings.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating look at a common metaphor of the abolition period about how slavery might have self-destructed, but didn't, along with some history of the method that really did end slavery, military emancipation.

Before the Civil War, few in the North imagined that it would take a shooting war to end slavery. Instead, even most abolitionists imagined that, if the federal government enforced a "cordon of freedom" encircling the slave states, that eventually those states would feel an economic squeeze so damaging to their profits in slavery that the southern states themselves would abolish the peculiar institution. Once contained, it was thought the scorpion of slavery would sting itself to death.

It might take 5 years or 50 years for this gradual, voluntary abolition to occur, depending on who you asked. But if the federal government could keep slavery out of the territories, out of new states and off the high seas all while handicapping slave catchers in northern states via exceptions to the strict 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, then eventually, like a scorpion surrounded by a ring of fire, slavery would sting itself to death.

This ring of fire/scorpion self-stinging death was apparently a widely used image at the time, understood by friends and foes of slavery alike across the North and the South. Almost nobody in any part of the U.S. thought that the federal government could or should try to override the sovereignty of states to abolish slavery from the top. But everybody knew that slavery's opponents -- Abolitionists, Free Soilers and northerners who just hated arrogant Georgia planters -- hoped that, by containing the spread of slavery, they could eventually cause the institution to kill itself.

Imagine all the ways this strategy could be applied today. For example, could climate change activists create a ring of fire of clean energy around the fossil fuel industry that would cut off financing to dirty energy, turn drilling and mining companies into social pariahs and cause oil and coal companies to self-destruct?

The second part of this book offers a history of legal arguments over whether belligerent powers were justified freeing slaves during and after wartime, whether it was the British in the American Revolution and War of 1812 or the Americans in the Seminole War of the 1830s. Of course, that's all a set up for the Union army freeing slaves in the Civil War.

It's a fascinating story about how enslaved people morphed from property to human status through the intermediate stage of "contraband." I would've appreciated more discussion of the different Union generals who freed large numbers of enslaved people under the pretense of confiscating enemy property, especially whether lawyer-turned-general Benjamin Butler deserves the credit he's often given for coming up with the "contraband" designation to justify military emancipation.

[Aidan]

Read for my course on the American Radical Tradition

It was interesting, but my one problem Prof. Oakes' book is that he constantly refers to Radical Republicans and Radical antislavery Politicians, but never really explains why they were radical. Here is a quote that made me realize this, "But for Giddings and most antislavery politicians including radicals like Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens" pg. 155. Throughout the book Oakes says something along the lines "radicals like so-and-so and Thaddeus Stevens" or "radicals like Thaddeus Stevens and so-and-so" but he never explains who Stevens is or what makes him a radical compared to Lincoln. I may have missed something, but I find it weird that Oakes does not state this or even state who Thaddeus Stevens was, even though he quotes him in the first chapter. This book is definitely meant for people that are familiar with the time period and the History of American political antislavery. I know who Thaddeus Stevens is because he was the congressman for my home of Lancaster, I've visited his house, know people that went/go to Thaddeus Stevens College as well as visited the campus, and watched Tommy Lee-Jones portray him in Lincoln, but if you don't have the connection to Stevens then the constant reference to "the radical Thaddeus Stevens" would be confusing. Thaddeus Stevens is just one example of a multitude of names that appear throughout the book with no context.

I guess I'm somewhat bugged by this because my professors would definitely take points off for not giving context to a name I just randomly throw in. I was in class discussing Eugene Debs and other prominent Socialist and Union activists and was stopped in the middle of my sentence by my professor telling me to explain who Eugene Debs was.

I will just say though that this book was extremely informative and interesting, and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in Civil War history or pre-Civil War history. I was just bugged by the constant name drop and never the context.

[Gregory Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Oakes is a great writer and it shows on The Scorpion's Sting. This is a succinct yet impactful book that helps readers understand the significance of abolition to the cause of the Civil War. Essentially, the book argues that southern firebrands were right to fear the Republican antislavery movement; the goal of that movement was always to find an end to slavery.

By way of positive critique, I like the brevity and precision of the book. It doesn't try to bite off more than it can chew. It hits right at the meaning of the war. It's got a thoughtful analysis of a topic that has been addressed many times over. It is a rhetorical argument, utilizing political papers and often familiar documents to reinforce a point that many historians would take as historical fact.

By way of negative critique, I was not a fan of the way the chapter on emancipation through war took shape. The opening of the book is very rooted in the mid-19th century, then later it shifts backward to the Revolution and the 18th century. A passing reference to the Revolution would have been fine, but the book spends a considerable amount of pages in an era that seems disconnected from the main argument. If this was central to the thesis of the book, I would have liked to see it develop more chronologically. In fact, it almost seemed like the chapters were written at different times or for different contexts altogether.

That said, I spent the first half of this book thinking, "this is great! I would assign this to an undergrad class for a single volume on causes of the Civil War." I would certainly still consider excerpting the first three chapters for teaching purposes. I do not know that I would assign this for a graduate seminar; in that context I would assign Oakes' Lincoln Prize-winning book *Freedom National* instead.

[Jim Gulley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oakes’ argument is that the antebellum Abolitionist movement was not considering a military emancipation of slavery in the South but developed a strategy of surrounding the South with non-slave states and using the power of the federal government to squeeze the region into voluntarily ending the peculiar institution. The metaphor often used is the legend that when a scorpion is encircled by fire it will sting itself to death rather than succumb to the flames .

The book is a concise and well-written account of the arguments concerning slavery in the antebellum period and the twin pillars of wartime emancipation and the encirclement of freedom that doomed slavery and the confederacy. It draws on a solid, if not exhaustive, bibliography of primary and secondary sources in supporting its assertions and conclusions.

James Oakes holds MA and PhD degrees from the University of California-Berkeley and is the Distinguished Professor of Humanities Chair at City University of New York. He has authored five other histories of slavery and the Civil War in addition to The Scorpion’s Sting. The book deepened my understanding of the irreconcilable issues causing the Civil War and I highly recommend it to anyone in this field of study.

[Kevin Oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really good, short book that is actually a section taken out of Oakes' other book on the subject, "Freedom National." Oakes presents his arguments clearly and concisely, even if that argument is not especially convincing it does present facts and strains of thought regarding emancipation through warfare of which I was unaware. It has been awhile since I read this book for class but I believe he makes the argument that America's history (up to the Civil War) and actions during war (especially forced emancipation by the British during the Revolution) set the stage for Lincoln's using the army to emancipate Southern slaves. In my opinion, Britain's creeping willingness for recognition played a larger role, but I think that Oakes' thesis cannot be discounted in the least. On the contrary, it is an interesting and thoughtful argument. Skip this book and read "Freedom National," which contains this book within it and is more robust. I do love the cover art for this book, which is a little hardcover, smaller than the average paperback.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

A series of lectures on antislavery before and through the Civil War, put together as a monograph. Torturous legal arguments by the various lawyers, oops, I mean Americans back in the day. Humans are not and should never have been considered as property by anyone. The Civil War was all about the elimination or continuation of slavery. The Confederate Vice President declared it the cornerstone of his “new nation” and every single state that illegally seceded declared that they were doing it to protect slavery. We Americans still suffer the long term effects of having ever allowed such a despicable institution to have existed here.

[Emily Agnello · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a very informative and exciting book! Oakes does a wonderful job explaining different slavery aspects of the Civil War and issues prior. This book was very insightful on elements I had never thought of or begun to think of. The Scorpion's Sting was an easy read but with heavy information that was easy to understand.

I would recommend this book to those who are looking to learn and read about the Civil War in an exciting and compelling way.

[JC]

While the final few chapters were in service to the thesis, I thought they dragged on a bit. Going through the intricacies of historic treaties, while relevant and true, felt dense and frankly unnecessary - I got the picture by then. I thought the book was a bite sized gem, chock full of interesting tidbits/trivia about arguments folks were making before the civil war. I thought it could have made connections to present day a bit more clear.

[Johnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was a lot of good information I wasn't aware about in relation to slavery in the U.S. before the Civil War and on the question of wartime emancipation. The book definitely stayed a bit and failed to touch on a lot of key events especially those that would in some eyes disrupt the scorpion sting narrative like John Brown's intended slave revolt. But overall a good read for the real history buffs.

[Geicodave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book explains the inevitability of both the Civil war and the destruction of slavery

The book explains in detail how the different and irreconcilable views of the North and South regarding the legal foundations of slavery, the applicability of America's founding documents to peoples of different races, and the extent of the powers of warring governments to end slavery, led to the Civil War and made the destruction of slavery inevitable once the war had begun.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for any living historian/reenactor of the American Civil War. Oakes presents a synopsis of the evolving debate over slavery in the USA between abolitionists, slave owners, and others over the several decades leading up to the outbreak of the war. Tracing the intellectual links and twists and turns of the debate from the Founding Fathers to the political elites of the two combatants.

[Alex Abboud · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting context for the Civil War. While most books focus on the war itself, this book looks at the philosophical ideas and legal precedent that drove the union's approach. A good complement to most of the literature on the subject.

[Peter C Lyon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent for American historians who want to go really deep into the era and the subject. I thought it was somewhat academic and top heavy, especially regarding the military precedents for emancipation, though the discourse on Hamilton was quite revealing.

[Stephen Burridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting subject. Book is clearly written, not too long, and credible academically as far as I can tell. The long chapter on “Wartime Emancipation”, somewhat legalistic in character, was to me a little dull.

[Mike Ely · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written and thoroughly researched book about the years leading up to the Civil War. It's pretty dense in parts and a slow read but provides the story and political ideals and deals that led to secession. A really good book that is both informative and insightful.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a concise account of Republican policies leading up to and through the Civil War, and how that ultimately led to the abolishment of slavery. It’s a bit dry at times, and reads a little more like a dissertation than an actual book, but it is an excellent primer on the complex subject.

[Ben Raterman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the myth that a scorpion would sting itself if it could find no escape from a surrounding fire is just that, Oakes tells the story of how the North hoped to encircle the South (read it) and snuff out slavery.