The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

by Erik Larson

“When men come under the influence of fanaticism, there is no telling where their impulses or passions may drive them.”

The seven clauses underscored the fact that for all of the South’s efforts to blame the crisis on Northern tyranny in imposing tariffs, collecting revenue, and ordaining “internal improvements,” the crux of the crisis was in fact slavery. This was obvious to all at the time, if not to members of a certain school of twentieth-century historiography who sought to cast the conflict in the bloodless terms of states’ rights. As famed historian Samuel Eliot Morison observed, “I wish that some of our evasive historians, our mufflers of great passionate issues, who are trying to persuade the American public that Negro slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War, would read the debates in this Peace Convention.”

“In the middle of these excited gatherings,” Russell wrote, “I felt like a man in the full possession of his senses coming in late to a wine party.”