The Road to Disunion: Volume I: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854

by William W. Freehling

Far from a monolithic block of diehard slave states, the South in the eight decades before the Civil War was, in William Freehling's words, "a world so lushly various as to be a storyteller's dream." It was a world where Deep South cotton planters clashed with South Carolina rice growers, where the egalitarian spirit sweeping the North seeped down through border states already uncertain about slavery, where even sections of the same state (for instance, coastal and mountain Virginia) divided bitterly on key issues. It was the world of Jefferson Davis, John C. Calhoun, Andrew Jackson, and Thomas Jefferson, and also of Gullah Jack, Nat Turner, and Frederick Douglass.
Now, in the first volume of his long awaited, monumental study of the South's road to disunion, historian William Freehling offers a sweeping political and social history of the antebellum South from 1776 to 1854. All the dramatic events leading to secession are here: the Missouri Compromise, the Nullification Controversy, the Gag Rule ("the Pearl Harbor of the slavery controversy"), the Annexation of Texas, the Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Freehling vividly recounts each crisis, illuminating complex issues and sketching colorful portraits of major figures. Along the way, he reveals the surprising extent to which slavery influenced national politics before 1850, and he provides important reinterpretations of American republicanism, Jeffersonian states' rights, Jacksonian democracy, and the causes of the American Civil War.
But for all Freehling's brilliant insight into American antebellum politics, Secessionists at Bay is at bottom the saga of the rich social tapestry of the pre-war South. He takes us to old Charleston, Natchez, and Nashville, to the big house of a typical plantation, and we feel anew the tensions between the slaveowner and his family, the poor whites and the planters, the established South and the newer South, and especially between the slave and his master, "Cuffee" and "Massa." Freehling brings the Old South back to life in all its color, cruelty, and diversity. It is a memorable portrait, certain to be a key analysis of this crucial era in American history.

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

656 pages, Paperback

First published September 6, 1990

About the author

William W. Freehling is Singletary Professor of the Humanities Emeritus at the University of Kentucky

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

PROCTOR: All right, here's your last question. What was the cause of the Civil War?
APU: Actually, there were numerous causes. Aside from the obvious schism between the abolitionists and the anti-abolitionists, there were economic factors, both domestic and inter...
PROCTOR: Wait, wait. Just say slavery.
APU: Slavery it is, sir.
-- The Simpsons, Episode 3F20, "Much Apu About Nothing"

This is the first of two hefty volumes about the coming of the American Civil War. It's not an easy book to read, but I finished it, because I think it's a valuable corrective to the current state of Civil War scholarship.

As the writers of The Simpsons shrewdly noted, it's somehow become the mark of a serious Civil War scholar to try to point out all the complexities and nuances leading to secession and war. Ask a Civil War buff about why South Carolina seceded and dragged the rest of the South with them, and you'll likely get an exegesis on state's rights and economic modalities reminiscent of the famous Harvard Bar scene from Good Will Hunting.

Since roughly 1877, the Civil War has been viewed through the lense of a certain moral equivalence. This equivalence has come from the South, and a generation of "Lost Cause" historians and writers who have reframed the fundamental narrative. According to the lost causers, the Union wasn't fighting to end slavery (Lincoln supported black colonization, don't ya know?) and the South was actually protecting its "way of life" from an overreaching Federal government.

This way of viewing the Civil War has, over the years, become standard (thanks in no small part to Ken Burns and Shelby Foote). The South is now seen as honorable-if-misguided "freedom" figthers bravely facing impossible odds. William Sherman is judged as a war criminal for burning his way through Georgia. Somehow, we've reached a consensus that since everyone was fighting for what they believed in, we are not fit to judge their motives or actions. Odd. The Constitution explicitly defines the actions of Robert Lee, Jeff Davis, and all their buddies as treason ("shall consist only of levying War against" the United States). By rights they should have been stood against the wall. Instead, they're national heroes. Robin Hoods who killed for the rich, so the rich could keep their slaves.

I don't know who's more to blame: Rutherford B. Hayes or Michael Shaara.

I'm starting to pontificate, but this is a serious thing. The way we view history shapes how we make history. That is, in my opinion, the way we look at the Civil War and its aftermath dictates, to a large extent, our present-day racial politics.

My mom works at a school. One night I got home and she was watching the news with some friends. They show me a report in which a student had been expelled for bringing a Confederate flag to school. My mom couldn't believe it; neither could her friend. She said to me: "Since when did the Confederate flag become a symbol of slavery?" This wasn't a rhetorical question. She was serious. She knew it was the Confederate flag; she just didn't know what that meant.

I didn't know how to answer. I guess the only way you can say the Confederate flag isn't a symbol of slavery is to also accept that the swastika is a 20-sided polygon that derives from a word in sanskrit meaning a lucky object.

In such a world, it rains gumdrops and you can eat the rainbows.

I know a lot of thoughtful and intelligent people that adhere to the old line: that the Civil War boiled down to any number of dichotomies: industrial verses agricultural; federal government verses state's rights. William Freehling's poorly written, incredibly-researched book makes clear that such arguments are facile slogans masquerading as nuance. It's the slavery, stupid. Front to back, top to bottom, the Civil War was caused by slavery. This is not a simple answer; rather, it is enormously complex; its roots reach beyond the quantifiable into the dark places of human pathology. Without slavery, no agricultural verses industrial debate would ever had engendered war (the old northwest and the middle west were - and are - based in agriculture, yet Iowa never seceded). Without slavery, the state's rights question disappears, because the South was fighting for the right to keep slaves above all else (Freehling does a good job of showing how the nullification controversy, putatively about tariffs, was actually cover for the South to protest any potential federal law against slavery).

The best part of the book is the way it presents slavery as inseparable from the issues of the day. I recently saw a documentary on Fox News about textbooks, and one of their "experts" said that American textbooks were too politically correct because they focused on slavery. As though slavery were a footnote! As though the kidnapping of hundreds of thousands and the enslavement of millions is somehow secondary to America's otherwise-sterling reputation. Please. It's two-hundred plus years of genocide, murder, and the foulest insult to Christian morality devised by man, yet we want to pretend it's a sideshow.

The problem with Freehling's book is that it makes a complex story even more complex.

Freehling's main thesis is that secession was fomented by a small coterie of South Carolinians. These were the radicals of the Slaveocracy. It's hard to accept this thesis, even after reading the book, simply because it's too easy to cherry-pick facts in support (that is, he quotes a lot of letters between South Carolinians, but it's debatable how much influence these had). Freehling's sub-thesis, which he proves in support of his main argument, is that secession was ultimately a function of a disorganized and fractured South becoming a unified South.

This is the better and more interesting discussion. Freehling starts the book with a tour of the South, where he aptly shows how different each section was. Broadly speaking, he divides the South into Aristocratic Paternalists, who thought the educated elite should be in charge of everyone, and the Jacksonian Democrats, who believed in white egalitarianism (Freehling nails it when he says that for Jackson, democracy died at at the color line). This generalization, however, can't do justice to how different the southern states were. In the Upper South, notably Virginia, you had people who wanted slavery to end, but to end naturally. These were the conditional terminalists, the ones who would terminate slavery if the time was right, the stars aligned, and Jupiter did a salsa around Saturn. Chief among the conditional terminalists was Thomas Jefferson, he of the "fire bell in the night." Freehling has an interesting take on Jefferson that is so shaded that I couldn't figure out if Freehling despised him as a hypocrite or respected his pragmatic incrementalism.

In the lower (deeper?) south, you had the black belt regions. These were the places that not only relied more heavily on slave labor, but were also afraid of becoming a repository for blacks if the Upper South manumitted their slaves and sent the former bondsmen away. Then, of course, there was the border south, which tried to strike a balance between their racist tendencies and the fact that white laborers didn't want to compete with slaves.

Out of these struggles came gigantic figures: Jefferson, the illusionist; John C. Calhoun, who tried to save both slavery and the Union; Henry Clay, who proved you can be racist and against slavery; and Thomas Hart Benton, who tried to keep Missouri white.

Freehling tells of each of these figures, and more, while also hitting the lowlights of 65 years of conflict (1789-1854): the Missouri Compromise of 1820; the Nullification Crisis; the Gag Rule; the anenexation of Texas; and the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

There is a lot to find interesting. The first couple chapters managed to present a powerful image of what slavery was like, both for oppressor and oppressed. It was a charade, with the white father taking care of his black children, and acting surprised when slaves ran away or revolted. Freehling also does a good job of showing all the tensions inherent in the issue of slavery, such as the conditional terminalists verses the perpetualists, and the colonizers verses the diffusers.

The problem, though, is Freehling's writing style, which is awkward at best and nigh incomprehensible at worst. I did not appreciate his odd tendencies: he drops articles; he has long, passive sentences; and he uses frequent colloquialisms, to horrible effect (for instance, he refers to all slaves as "Cuffey" and all plantation owners as "Massa" and even indulges in a few "blackasses" and "n*****s"). The consequence of his writing is to take the horribly complex and make it even harder to understand.

It should also be noted that despite the book's cover, and even its chapter headings, which seem to provide a chronology, this book is not a narrative. It jumps all around and it artfully avoids clarity. Freehling also makes a lot of assumptions about what the reader knows. For instance, Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner are discussed in offhand ways, but Freehling never tells you about their respective uprisings. You could chalk this up to this being an "academic" work, but really, what academic would dare use the phrase "blackassed"? Exactly.

I had to slog to finish this, but I did, because as I said above (from my soapbox) I felt it was necessary.

We live in a world where a sixteen-year old kid drives to school in a pick-up truck (in Minnesota!!) adorned with the Confederate battle flag, and he doesn't have a freaking clue what that flag stood for, what it stands for, and what it means to the descendants of human chattel.

That kid needs to be told a story: it starts in Africa, with a rope net, and proceeds across the Atlantic in a wooden ship, to an auction house in Charleston and a plantation along the Ashley. In this story there are whips and branding irons and barking dogs, until finally you think it's over, because there was a war and three Constitutional amendments, but then it keeps going, and there are nooses and white robes and burning crosses, firehoses and more dogs and a sheriff with ray-bans telling you you can't vote, and there's a kid who gets tossed in the Tallahatchie for whistling at a white lady and three more who get shot for registering voters, and just when you think its all over - finally, because it's a dark story - you end with a 21st century guy standing outside the hall where a black president is speaking and he has a gun on his hip. And you realize that it's all a part of one long historical thread. And you also realize you're kidding yourself if you think this is an abberation, rather than something sewn into the very fabric of our country.

If nothing else, the depth of Freehling's research shows that much.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Freehling hammers the final nail in coffin of the revisionists that tried to claim that the causes of the civil war had very little to do with slavery. Freehling makes it abundantly clear, in one way or another, everything related to slavery. Obviously, it wasn't the simple "north was against slavery, and the south was for it." But, remove the issue of slavery and you have no Civil War. That was the message I took away from this book.

[Porter Broyles · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book popped up as a memory on Facebook from BEFORE I joined Good Reads. Here is the memory that I shared:

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Interesting read, "The Road to Disunion: Secessionist at Bay" by William Freeling. It's the first of a two volume series about the antebellum America. It differs from Elizabeth Varon's account in that this book is thematic rather than chronological.
The first theme is about transportation---namely the rail system. As you can see from the map, rail roads were MUCH more developed in the north than in the south---but what you might not realize is how much the map under represents the true variance. Northern rails were more standardized. The companies that made rail roads were more likely to use a standard gage and link with one another. In the South, to travel from Charleston SC to Richmond Virginia required that you change trains 6 times and ride on 7 different rail lines---each with different gages. While Richmond was a hub, it had 6 different rails leaving it, none of those 6 spurs connected with anohter! In order to transport something, you had to take it off the train and move it by wagon to a competing rail line!
Northerners were thus much more likely to travel around and to see things. Souterners were much more limited in their world view. Freeling points out that a Southerner definitely did not identify themselves based on nationality. Most probably didn't see themselves as part of the South. Nor did they consider themselves to be "from [state]." Most Southerners saw themselves as coming from the nearest town. Most never even saw the next town over, thus didn't think beyond their community.

****************

A response from my friend (a train buff) pointed out was that while the North was MORE standardized in the guage, the guage was not uniform.

But even when guages were standardized trains might not be interchanageable. Some trains were able to pull more/less and the height of the connectors might differ. So moving a load cross country was not simply a matter of coordinating guages, but in the north you had to ensure that two trains had their connectors at a height that wouldn't cause them problems and that one train wasn't so over loaded that it would ruin the next locamotive.

That this could--in practice--create unforseen problems with the rail system.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

William W. Freehling’s The Road Disunion is perhaps the most comprehensive account of the tensions and conflicts that triggered the American Civil War. The first volume, Secessionists at Bay, chronicles the efforts by early Americans to navigate sectional and economic tensions wrought by slavery. Freehling shows, from the first, how slavery and white supremacy both defined and divided the early Republic; examines the stratifications of slavery throughout the South (from the die-hards in South Carolina to the more malleable Border States) and their impact on local cultures; the intricate interactions between white master and Black slave, from paternalistic indulgence to abuse and terror. Early politicians like Thomas Jefferson (who eloquently denounced slavery while owning hundreds of slaves) hoped slavery would fade away over time, not realizing that kicking conflict down the road only cemented its place in society. Ironically, as slavery grew stronger its defenders grew more paranoid, imagining themselves besieged by Northerners and potentially rebellious slaves. Thus their support for western expansion, censorship of abolitionists and increasing sectional resentment, which frequently burst into violence. Dovetailing with this tale is an exploration of the fragile concept of Union, with states and regions maintaining distinct identities; the only way to avoid explosions were compromises that papered over conflicts without resolving them. For those expecting something like a standard narrative history, Freehling’s discursive writing style takes some getting used to; he’ll go on chapter-long tangents on aspects of slave life, Southern culture and abolitionist literature about that can be, in turns, fascinating, dizzying or even tedious. But the core of the book is fascinating: Freehling chronicles familiar topics (the Missouri Compromise, Nat Turner’s rebellion, the Nullification Crisis, Congressional Gag Rule and the annexation of Texas) with a refreshing focus on their political nuances; familiar faces of antebellum politics (Andrew Jackson, John Calhoun, John Tyler, Henry Clay, etc.) are examined by their place in, and relationship to the contentious culture that bore them. An exhausting read, but a worthy one for anyone seeking to understand the causes of the Civil War.

[Reza Amiri Praramadhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this gargantuan tome of a book, we explored the problematic position of slavery and the controversies it engendered, in Pre-Civil War America. Many aspects are discussed, from the peculiarity of the ‘peculiar institutions’ itself, massa and cuffee, intertwined in a charade, with the master playing the role of paternalistic father who felt superior yet perennially in fear of slave uprising, justifying its brutal treatment of slaves who dared to rebel. And, the slaves, who were indeed being exploited, yet developed an unlikely relation with their owners, which led to so many insurrections being failed by slaves who betrayed the plan to the masters.

Among the whites too, there was no consensus on how the South should deal with slavery. One group, which was more elitist in nature, dwelled in Upper south countries like Virginia, for example, wished the for the slavery to die its natural death, while sending the African slaves to Liberia. What would happen after that, apparently, the aristocratic minority elites will lead the unwashed white masses, for they were the only one worthy of leading. This view was most personified by Thomas Jefferson, who did all his best to avoid the slavery issues until his death. On the opposing site, was the more populist, egalitarian white supremacy, where all whites, rich or poor, were inherently superior than the blacks, thus, every white men must have their says in politics, a view that was put forward by Andrew Jackson. Thus with no common united voice on dealing with slavery, there was bound to be a clash.

The rest of the books dealt with how America maneuvered itself on the labyrinth of slavery issues. It is quite apparent that the US government, regardless of who the president was, tried to ignore the slavery issues altogether, with events such as Missouri Compromise, Acquisition of Texas, The Gag Rule on Slavery Issues, South Carolina Nullification Issue, and Compromise of 1850, all lead the south into (especially the extremists in South Carolina) a more brazen stance of declaring secession in the future.

Due to the huge amounts of information within this book, I sometimes find myself feeling overwhelmed after reading few chapters, leaving this book for quite a long time and forgetting most of what I had read before when returning to this book. However, I found the chapters on how the slavers and the slaves imagined themselves within the institution of slavery to be the most informative.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fascinating read as William Freehling presents a picture of the South that is much more diverse and divided than monolithic. From 1776 to the early 1850s, the clashes of interests among Southerners were epic. Rice planters from the coastal South had different priorities than did either tobacco farmers in the Upper South or cotton producers from the Deep South. And even within states the interests and attitudes of citizens were regionally and economically divided. The leading political events of the period are discussed--the Missouri Compromise, Nullification, the Gag Rule in the U.S. Congress, the Mexican War, the annexation of Texas, the Compromise of 1850, and the debate over the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. In discussing each crisis, Freehling highlights the personalities involved as well as the issues and points out how slavery was an instrumental part of each event before the 1850s and how it became paramount as the 1850s progressed.

[Nicole1999 · Rating 3 out of 5]

"At every step towards civil war, some Southerner had voiced John Bell's message. Chapman Johnson urging the Virginia Convention of 1829 not to impose a Slavepower regime on an egalitarian majority; Henry L. Pinckney warning Carolina extremists not to insist on the most provocative gag rules; Henry Clay urging Southerners not to demand Texas; Clay again asking slaveholders not to insist on a fugitive slave bill without a jury provision—these statesmen had agreed that a vulnerable minority should cease bullying the majority. Your defensive hysterics are awakening a dangerous giant, the John Bells and Thomas Hart Bentons had for a quarter-century been warning Southerners. You are thereby dooming slavery to the earliest possible death.

That analysis remains haunting. By provoking and losing the Civil War, slaveholders brought on themselves the swiftest way to abolish slavery. Worse, southern provocative defensiveness might have paved the only route to emancipation, at least until well into the twentieth century. Did northern abolitionists have the potential appeal or southern apologists the potential bravery to do in the institution, assuming southern hardliners had allowed apologists to work out slavery's fate?

That puzzle will never be solved, for the solution requires writing a history which never happened about an historical path defiantly blocked. Even guesses about where that other road might have wandered are forbidding, for slaveholders' tactics shadowed everything on the patch chosen. Southern threats and intimidations powerfully influenced both the North's dislike of abolitionists and the South's wariness about heretics. If another sort of southern ruling class had allowed calm and constructive discussions, without disunion ultimatums or disloyalty cries to deter Jeffersons and Bentons and Clays and Aberdeens and Lincolns—well this master class did not wish to risk that fantasy. These slaveholders preferred to go down fighting, if they perished at all, whether or not the John Bells called it death by one's own hand."

This book provided a lot of insight into what exactly happened on the road to disunion and I particularly liked the philosophical and ideological approach that was taken at the beginning of the book. Some people don't realize that it's not just the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act themselves that led to the Civil War, it's also the philosophy and ideas of the Northern and Southern people that ultimately is the most important factor in the road to disunion. The discussion focused more on the Southern ideological side, with a specific chapter set aside just for the thoughts and culture of South Carolinians (for obvious reasons). I thought the parallel between Southerner's "Cuffee" character and their own endless paranoia on traitors in their own class (white slaveholders), was particularly illuminating. Southerner's learned from their slaves that underneath a loyal, placcid, unassuming mask, dissent and betrayal may lurk behind that veneer of friendship. With this aspect of Antebellum Southern culture in mind, it is really difficult for me to see how a united South emerged once South Carolina seceded but that's what the next volume is about so I'll have to read it!

I also found it very interesting how Northerners were often the side to compromise, rather than the South but one side cannot compromise forever. Eventually resentment builds up and I think the Compromise of 1850 is where you can really see Northern resentment seep through. The examples of Northerners refusing to send fugitive slaves down south particularly reveal this growing discontent. Both sides were reaching a boiling point and this book effectively conveys this.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and while it may have gotten slightly dry at times, I think the thoughts and ideas it discusses are really important to learn about. This is especially true as America seems more divided than ever, making this book a very prescient and salient read.

[Kevin Moynihan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book. Covers so much material which then helps pique a deeper interest into various subjects. The writing can be difficult as other have noted but really enjoyed how the author questions the simplistic narrative of today’s ‘historians’...

[Aisha Manus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad book per say, just academic and the topic bored me because it was mainly politics. Good information.

[Everett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must read for anyone interested in a deep dive of the underlying roadmap to the American Civil War. Hindsight is always 20/20 and William Freehling does a great job of showing that.

[Josh H · Rating 3 out of 5]

In many ways a very strange book describing how Southern radicals nudged moderates closer to secession. The book focuses on the differences between regions of the South and their attitudes towards slavery and politics, ranging from the herrenvolk Democrats of the Southwest to troubled, compromising aristocrats of Virginia, and driving much of the action, the reactionary planters of South Carolina.

The author uses the text to lay out the economic, social, and psychological factors at work in the slave society of the old south, particularly as they relate to the slave-owning planters, and especially the radical minority bent on secession. The ability of the South to act as a veto player allowed the (increasingly more) minority region to use the Democratic Party as their vehicle to national control. The narrative continues to the compromises and crises of the early 1850s, documenting how the national crisis over slavery gradually began to dominate politics.

The author employs an odd technique of imaging dialogue between key classes in his narrative, namely slaves, poor whites, and slave owners. The invented dialogue and strange use of nicknames detracts from the weight of the subject. The author's occasional use of slang or familiar language is also somewhat surprising. Most readers would likely benefit more from this section if it were one or two chapters at the opening of the second volume of the series.

[Miles · Rating 4 out of 5]

At times, this is one of the most fascinating books on the antebellum era you will find. Since the overwhelming majority of books on the history of secession focus on the period after the Mexican-American War, the events and attitudes surrounding slavery from the very beginning (and even before) the Revolution tend to be underdiscussed. This first of two volumes dives deep into the controversies surrounding slavery from the very first days of an independent American nation.

The first few chapters are absolutely enthralling - Freehling's description of the early Southern states, from both the upper and lower souths paints a vivid image of the early slave economy and how cultural attitudes shaped said economy and vice versa. This is followed by a deep discussion of the paternalistic attitudes between master and slave. Freehling's depth of research is pretty impressive - his sources cites dozens of personal papers between slave owners and early southern politicians ranging from a wide variety of southern libraries. Particularly interesting was his discussion of the Denmark Vesey conspiracy and Nat Turner revolt, and how slaves, more often than not, found the easiest chance of escape to be to ingratiate themselves with their masters rather than try their hands at a potentially bloody revolt, thus leading many masters to truly delude themselves into believing that their slaves were, in fact, obedient lovers of their masters. I would have liked to see more of this from the slaves' perspective, though - I don't recall a single slave narrative being cited.

Unfortunately, Freehling's writing style is clumsy and difficult to parse. He has a bizarre affinity for giving politicians nicknames (some of which I wasn't able to find evidence were actually used at the time) and referring to masters and slaves as "Massa" and "Cuffee" (yes, seriously. It's really annoying). Making up imaginary conversations is another strange trope that pops up frequently. It is reasonable to make assumptions on how certain figures may have spoke given their correspondence, but the random throw-ins of bits made to look like a political thriller feel so out of place when the rest of his sentences are often paragraph-long and require several re-readings to grasp.

As other reviewers have noted, Freehling has a penchant for going off on very long tangents that most casual history readers will find to be inscrutable. For the dedicated, some of these are fascinating - specifically his deep dive into the aristocratic, paternalistic world of 18th and early 19th-century South Carolina and how the art and literature of the time morphed white attitudes, or the examination of the early Virginia slavery debates and the struggle between the yeomanry and the slaveholding class. Others, like the excruciatingly long explanation of every single gag rule concept in the Congress, will make anyone want to rip their eyes out, and even Chernow or McCullough would have a tough time making the debates and voters over the Kansas-Nebraska Act interesting.

Ultimately, though, I found this an engaging read with plenty of worthwhile moments. Many histories of the antebellum era will write detailed descriptions of battles of the Mexican War - useful, but not entirely relevant to the secession crisis. Instead, Freehling details the story of the fight over Texas annexation, a true page-turning section. Names such as James Henry Hammond, William Gilmore Simms, and especially John C. Calhoun are detailed as well as I have ever read in a non-biography. The book is pretty sympathetic to Calhoun, and while I still am not going to champion a man who saw slavery as a positive, I certainly have a richer understanding of his psyche than I did coming in.

While this book is tough to read (it took me nearly two months) and often dives into super boring topics, I would still recommend this to anyone interested in a deeper understanding of the early antebellum era.

[Chuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Road to Disunion by William W. Freehling Volume I: Secessionists at Bay 1776-1854 is a very lengthy book on the early stages of the Southern political process that led to Disunion, Secession and the Civil War.

I picked up this book for three reasons. First, because I am interested in American history. Second, because I was curious how our democracy failed and the United States ended up in the bloodiest war in its history. Third and finally, because I am curious if there is anything I can draw from history to provide insight into current American political and social debate. The fact that it and its companion volume were on sale at the late and lamented local Borders Bookstore also helped.

This book is the first volume of two in a series by Freehling on the political and social process that led to the South attempting to seperate from the United States.

Freehling mostly concentrates on the South. He seems to only touch on the North in order to provide context. Such focus gave this reader the feeling that much of the development of disunion was done in isolation in the South, for Southern rather than national reasons. And that the rest of the country was more reacting than pushing the South in the direction of disunion.

Freehling also provides a depth that I do not often find in history books. Either the book is a short all encompassing summary or it deals at length with some small part of the whole. Trying to cover 4 or 5 decades of American history and Political Science across a huge and diverse region can be quite daunting. In this series Freehling seems to allow himself sufficient number of pages to cover the entire process in the depth that he wishes. And to have pared the subject material in such a way to allow him to focus on the core of most important issues. I find these two issues point to a great maturity and understanding of the topic.

Freehling also covers the topic in a depth that I did not expect. Reviewing his footnotes I see that he has read, understood and come to thoughtful conclusions on many different sides to the many issues he is covering. Again this shows a tremendous expertise, passion, and maturity, on the period.

Freehling's voice in the book did not strike me as that of a neutral academician. He glories in all the diversity and complexity of the South. He also expresses a consistent, editorial position. While clearly one who loves the South, he is not a partisan member of the "Lost Cause" school. He detests slavery, and with the benefit of hindsight, is scathing regarding the efforts of many Southern leaders to push disunion and to silence and intimidate it's many local opponents.

The reader truly benefits from the obvious "passion" (to use a phrase currently in vogue) for this period. It is a tremendous strength. But for those just peripherally interested, this book may be too detailed and large. And the strong viewpoints expressed by the author do take some getting used to. Even with my interest I needed 4 months to fully read the volume.

[Jim Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Faulkner observed "The past isn't dead. It not even past." Here we are in 2017 still arguing about what caused the Civil War. Personally I think we should leave that argument to the experts on Antebellum American history, and to find an expert you really can't do much better than William Freehling, Singletary Professor of the Humanities Emeritus at the University of Kentucky. For over 50 years Freehling has studied and written about the development of the idea of secession in the political thought, cultural expression and common life of the South. This work, and the accompanying volume Secessionists Triumphant, 1854-1861 (also published by OUP), reflect his deep learning on the subject. My one complaint about this work, and Freehling willing acknowledges this shortcoming in the forward of another of his works, is that he likes to engage in too many imaginary conversations in his writing as a means of making his ideas "more approachable," to the non-specialists. Otherwise this work, and the accompanying volume, is a masterful summary of how an idea moved from the fringes of respectable thought into the political arena where after a long and winding journey it would come to triumph, for a time, in the American South. This is not a straight political history, nor is it really an intellectual history, but a synthesis of the two.
Ultimately secession was about slavery but there was no agreed upon reason in the South why secession was necessary to save slavery. Freehling is masterful at pointing out that the goals of the idiosyncratic, almost isolationist, elitist republicans of South Carolina, a state that as late as 1860 did not allow for voters to directly elect presidential electors, did not match the goals of slavery expansionist in the Gulf states, who dreamed of an empire for slavery, and those goals did match the goals of slave owners in the upper south who were concerned about the loss of their economic investment to the development of creeping abolitionism in their states, by 1860 almost half of the Negros in Maryland were free people of color, and of slaves running off. Yet in the end most would agree to leave the Union on the perception that with Lincoln's election what was once a friendly Federal government would fall into the hands of a party that would ultimately destroy slavery. The irony here is that while Lincoln had professed that he had no power to end slavery in the states it would be the secessionists, in starting a war to protect slavery, who created the environment that led to its destruction. I would never praise such men but it is indeed an irony of Southern History, in the best sense of that phrase, that they created the environment through which the enslaved, Lincoln, the Republicans in congress and the Union Army were able to destroy one of the most evil of American institutions.

[C Baker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite dreadful prose and a clear anti-southern bias that at times borders on hyperbole, Freehling does provide a well researches social and political history of the pre-Civil War south.

Freehling concentrates much of his effort on the social history of the south and shows how the United States was fractured not just north and south, but within the south as well. The social and political divisions between the upper and lower south and then further divisions within these sections are well detailed and illuminating. Freehling does a good job on the political front as well, but is stronger on the social aspects.

Several things are clear after reading Freehling and other pre-Civil War accounts of US politics and society. First, slavery was the root cause of the Civil War. I’m amazed historians continue to cling to the supposed notion that southerners were fighting over states rights. States rights was the political ideology that cloaked their tenacious fight to save slavery. And while there is no doubt they were states rightists, there was no issues that they were truly willing to go to war for (including tariffs where the political rhetoric gets pretty hot.)

Secondly, Southern society was frighteningly dysfunctional. Even had there been no civil war Southern society would have eventually withered away – but exactly how and to what consequence is unclear. It’s unlikely such a schizophrenic society could last in perpetuity without imploding – slowly but surely.

Fascinating reading. Educational. But you’ll have to slog through some pretty tepid prose and stick with it.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This marks beginning point of an entire new reading theme just begun: the American Civil War. Really liked the way that this books works geography (and climate) as a key element factoring into author's main point about how the US SOUTH was never one unified society in years leading up to war, but a network of many localized societies that shared economic and systems of slavery for labor force. Freehling debunks many of the popular myths about what were oversimplified key "triggers" of the Civil War. Instead Freehling links together series of many different crises and debates, where the 2 societies gradually grew farther and farther apart with time, and the extremists in the political spectrum gradually growing more and more polarized and powerful. Freehling's points almost support Diamond's theories of geography dictating economic policies (ie the expansion and contraction of slavery along climactic lines where crops thrived) is very interesting when he shows his state-by-state maps showing slaves as % of populations in each state. Freehling's notions of Lower and Upper Souths, and Upper and Lower Norths, and then Border States is a much more complex spectrum of geographic forces at play, more sensical than the simple North-South alignment taught popularly as the simplistic political alignment of the Civil War.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book by Civil War historian William W. Freehling is an excellent book but not easy to read. I liked that Freehling argues against the South as being some kind of monolith in favor of slavery. Some regions of the South and portions of the populace were actually against it. Not only that, but places like the State of Virginia had statewide votes that almost abolished slavery even before the war.

Another good thing Freehling does is that he describes the mechanism of slavery before the war, how violence was present at many levels to keep slaves and sympathetic whites from making any change. Slaves were treated like children by their masters but could also be cruelly whipped to keep them in line. Masters that were too kind to their slaves could have their plantations visited by groups of vigilantes that could dispense violence against the slaves, anyway. The contrast between the idea that slavery was a family institution and the ever-present violence always showed the hypocrisy and inconsistency of slavery.

This would be a five star book except for the fact that Freehling's style is dense and hard to read. But the insights he shares are first-rate, making him an excellent author anyway.

[Mark Stephenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This focuses so much on legislative debates and votes that it made the narrative lag for me at times - especially towards the end. The story of the annexation of Texas had me riveted while it lasted. I came away with greater respect than I expected for John C.Calhoun as well as his frequent opponent Andrew Jackson. Interesting was the analysis of the nearly universal labor shortage which brought American slavery into existence during the colonial era and led many to argue for its continuation into the 19th century. Largely missing is any extended discussion of the religious motivations and ideologies of these decades a la Daniel Walker Howe's What Hath God Wrought?

[Frederick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first volume of two about the long road to the Civil War. It is a social and a political history filled with the drama of events in the Antebellum South during the time period stated. The Missouri Compromise, the Nullification Controversy, the Gag Rule, Texas' Annexation, as well as the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act are discussed in this portrait of the Old South's political manipulation of American politics. It certainly is an important work for students of the Civil War.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly exhaustive detail on the social & political forces driving the South to secession. Not quite as detailed as Allan Nevins 5 volume history, but does seem to capture a bit more of the human reaction on the ground.

[Clayton Cummings · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a great cursory read into Antebellum politics. My one complaint is at the beginning, Freehling relies on metaphors and abstract titles to different social groups such as "Cuffies," instead of using empirical studies or straightforward facts.

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazingly complete and brings to life the power relationships created by slavery and their psychological and political effects.

[MET · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly interesting history

[Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worth reading for the "Swing Around the Southern Circle" alone -- opening section.

[Debra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Couldn't wait for the next volume. This one does a masterful job with psyche of Southern slaveholders, among other things.

[Alex Raines · Rating 4 out of 5]

The content is good, but the author has an annoying habit of refering to groups using multiple labels and the like. Many others have made the same complaints.

[Gerry Connolly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prof Freehling's The Road to Disunion is a masterful chronicle of slavery and the South. The South was not as one on slavery's place or future

[Alismcg · Rating 3 out of 5]

UGH ! the most grueling read i have managed to crawl through in some time.