Sectional Crisis and Southern Constitutionalism

by Don E. Fehrenbacher

Sectional Crisis and Southern Constitutionalism is a single volume comprising of two short studies of major aspects of antebellum southern history. The South and Three Sectional Crisis, is a commentary on the crises of 1819-1821, 1846-1850, and 1854-1861, shows how the South-especially the lower South-contributed decisively to the sectional conflict that exploded at last into the civil war. Constitutions and Constitutionalism in the Slaveholding South finds that southern state constitutional development generally paralleled that of northern states, but an increasingly distinctive and dangerous southern interpretation of the United States Constitution finally spawned the short-lived wartime Confederate Constitution. The two studies together outline the South's determination to maintain political power and equality against the northern majority, and explains how this determination led to southern nationalism, disunion, and the Civil War.

200 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1995

About the author

Don E. Fehrenbacher was William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies at Stanford University, where he taught form 1953 until his retirement in 1984. Fehrenbacher earned his BA from Cornell College in 1946, his master's and doctorate from the University of Chicago and a second master's from the University of Oxford.