Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War (Anniversary)

by Charles B. Dew

Book Overview

Charles Dew's Apostles of Disunion has established itself as a modern classic and an indispensable account of the Southern states' secession from the Union. Addressing topics still hotly debated among... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813939445
• ISBN13: 9780813939445
• Release Date: February 2017
• Publisher: University of Virginia Press
• Length: 168 Pages
• Weight: 0.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.4" x 8.9"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

The South Fought Bravely for Its Rights!

Yes, indeed! and chiefly for its cherished rights: 1. to enslave Africans and their descendants, and to coerce their labor by force; 2. to institutionalize the religious and 'scientific' doctrine the racial inferiority of those Africans in perpetuity; and 3. to extend the institutions of slavery into new territories and eventual states to the west and south. In ante-bellum Southern public opinion, the Constitution had guaranteed those rights, which were central to the concept of true liberty for the white race. The first right - of slavery - was the irreconcilable difference between Southern and Northern society by 1830, and the root cause of violent conflict, as Southerners hardened in the opinion that slavery was not only legal but moral and even righteous. The second right - of socially sanctioned racism - was destined to survive even defeat in the Civil War, in the form of Jim Crow apartheid that has lasted very close to the present day. The third right - of expansion - was the right threatened by the victory of Lincoln's Republican Party in 1860, and the fear of containment, by a Northern party of 'fanatics' bent on extinguishing the first two rights, was the proximate cause for secession, military preparation, and the first attack on Fort Sumter. Those are not merely my opinions, dear readers! Those were the sentiments expressed by the advocates of secession in the months BEFORE Lincoln took office. They were embedded in the recorded deliberations of the Southern legislatures and conventions that led to secession and the formation of the Confederacy. They were the message carried by the "Secession Commissioners" whose speeches and writings are neatly analyzed in this irrefutable study by the Southern historian Charles B. Dew. None of those commissioners and none of those legislators who voted for secession had any reservations about declaring that the preservation of slavery and racial inequality was the chief motive for their radical decisions. Not BEFORE the war, that is, though some of them lived to sing a different tune after the fact. Professor Dew begins his book with an apologia and a confession: that as a Southerner he himself had thoroughly accepted the notion that the 'War Between the States' was a battle for "states' rights" and for the original meaning of the Constitution. He had worshiped Lee, had hung the 'Stars and Bars' on the wall of his dorm room in high school. However, his study of the rhetoric of the leading spokesmen for secession had forced him to the realization that the odious racism expressed in the justification of segregation, during his boyhood, was absolutely the same odious racism that excited Southerners to go to war in 1861. Secession agitation was not new at the time of Lincoln's election. The rhetoric had been heard in Congress, in the state legislatures, and in public fora. Immediately after the Republican victory and months before Lincoln's inauguration, in December of 1860, the governors of Missis

Great insight into the causes of the Civil War with evidence from innovative primary sources

This is a must-read for any serious Civil War enthusiast, and a fun, quick read for anyone interested in American history or non-fiction in general. Dew sheds light on the heated debate on if it was about states' rights or slavery after all. I don't want to spoil it because I think Dew's evidence speaks volumes about the subject. It's a quick read with nice, spaced out text that's easy on the eyes. I think it's about a 2 hour ordeal to get through it, and you emerge with a lot more knowledge than you think you can amass in such a short time. Dew writes clearly and cogently, and he exercises the invaluable trait of a historian to let the primary evidence do the talking. I was very impressed by the enlightenment that this little book had to offer.

A persuasive case

Dew's book provides irrefutable evidence that the Confederacy was founded not to preserve the U.S. Constitution, or even states' rights, but to preserve slavery. The documents he cites (and reproduces) are letters and speeches from "secession commissioners" sent out from the lower south states (that seceded immediately after Abraham Lincoln was elected president) to other southern states. The commissioners uniformly laid out their single case for secession: preservation of slavery, and, by extension, white supremacy. While Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens and others made this case loudly at the founding of the Confederacy, their about-faces after the war (when they claimed slavery had been the last thing on their minds) worked to convince many Americans that the Civil War was fought over states' rights. Dew handles some pretty horrible material calmly and thoroughly, setting the stage for the commissioners, then letting them hang themselves with their own rope. It's a must-read for anyone studying U.S. history.

The Truth Will Out

Why did the southern states attempt to secede from the Union in 1860-'61?Confederate apologists constantly insist it was all a question of the Constitution. The Northern states were violating the Southern states rights to do something or another, and the South had no choice except secession in order to preserve 'Constitutional' govt. Union supporters insist that this isn't so. So what really happened?Prof. Charles Dew cuts right to the heart of things by quoting the arguments made in 1861 by supporters of secession. Seven states passed secession ordinances in 1860 and '61, and four of them sent representatives to other slave states, explaining the reasons why they too should secede.So what was the Southern cause? Surprise, surprise. It was WHITE SUPREMACY. The South needed to secede before the North amended the Constitution. In the nightmare world of the disunionists, the "Black Republicans," as the South invariably called them, were bent on seeing a South simultaneously: drenched in blood when the slaves rose in revolt; drenched in equality, as whites and blacks lived together withouth a master race; and drenched in miscegnation, as the races became one. Of course, it was logically impossible for all these things to happen at the same time, but logic was not the South's strong point.Neither was honesty. As Dew makes clear, disunionists started lying about why they'd pushed secession as soon as they lost. Dew notes he was indoctrinated during his Florida youth with the story that "the South had seceded for one reason and one reason only: states' rights;" Dew also quotes contemporary neo-Confederates trying to deny the truth that the South was trying to preserve White Supremacy and Slavery.Their sucessors keep it up: Art Chance maintains "No serious student of the War of Southern Independence can doubt that slavery and Southern perceptions of Northern fanaticism were the proximate causes of secession." Chance then tries to change the subject to 'why did the North resist Southern Aggression?' (Answer: we were fed up with being pushed around by the South).'A reader from USA' sets up a fantasy about the Founding Fathers, citing a book titled FORCED FOUNDERS (go look at the reviews; they say the Virginian Founders were motivated by anti-slavery).'tabsaw' says the book "walks down the road well traveled," without giving titles of any of the other books making this argument.Still, we progress. Not even the apologists for slavery reviewing this book have the nerve to deny that preserving Slavery and White Supremacy was the South's reason for secession. Once we get that established, we'll be able to go on to more interesting issues.

Refreshing

Adult American's are often heard to say that "the Civil War was not about slavery; it was about states' rights." This statement (and ones similar to it) betray two poor assumptions the speakers make: that they were first told that slavery was the cause, but view that as juvenile because they were juvenile when they first heard it; that the answer must be one or the other. Both of these assumptions are false. There is no reason that what is commonly said is necessarily false, or to think that there was only a single cause of the Civil War. Dew makes an error in this book in claiming to answer the question "what was the singular cause of the Civil War." Although any attempt to answer this question will inevitably be wrong there is no reason to dismiss the rest of the work as wrong. What Dew does manage to do is show that the issues of slavery and states' rights were intertwined. Why would Southerner's have cared about whether or not the Federal Government had the authority to abolish slavery if slavery was not immensely important? The answer, of course, is that they would not have. Dew examines the speeches of Deep Southerners sent to Western and Border states to convince their legislative bodies secede to show exactly why slavery was such an emotional issue for Deep Southerners. The answer is racism; and more specifically, fear of emancipation under any terms. The three common points made in the speeches of all fifty-two secessionist commissioners were: white supremacy (and the fear of being made equal); a race war in the South; and the genetic (and, obviously, sexual) mingling of the two races.An interesting point that Dew makes in his introduction and his conclusion is that many of the major powers of the CSA retracted their racist statements immediately after the war. It was them -- Davis, Stephens, and many of the secessionist commissioners -- that began to perpetuate the myth of "states' rights." It is as if they realized that there only escape from shame was to become martyrs for an honorable cause -- and that slavery was not it.Finally, Dew's work is simply a short and refreshing look at an ignored aspect of the five months between Lincoln's election and the attack on Ft. Sumter. These hundred pages are very much worth your time. I look forward to reading more of Dew in the future, and I am certain that, after reading Apostles of Disunion, you will too.