ipl-logo

Summary Of Apostles Of Disunion By Charles Dew

945 Words4 Pages

A great deal of contradicting information has been layered over the nature of the Civil War. Those would remember it today as a “just cause,” maintain that the issue of succession was solely about states’ rights against what the Southern States saw as an aggressive Republican government under, newly elected, President Abraham Lincoln. There are many surviving documents from the pre-war era supporting the argument as States Rights only and many supporting documents that support the institution of Slavery as a central issue. According to Dew’s, historians are also often split on what was the true nature of the act of succession by the Southern States of the US. It is hard to remove slavery from the many arguments altogether, and perhaps, including …show more content…

Dew opens in his introduction with, “I knew from listening to adult conversations about The War, as it was called, and from my limited reading on the subject that the South had seceded for one reason and one reason only: states’ rights.” (Dew 2001, 1) While this is one child growing up in Florida, it is also prevalent, mainly through omission of details, throughout the South. An enlightened today, wants to remember the Civil War as a valiant cause. It may be difficult to find someone, in the South or the North, willing to promote Slavery today, yet racist groups today are quick to align themselves with the idea of an oppressive Government, controlling too much of an individual states rights to enact their own racist or discriminatory legislation. Driving Slavery out of the forefront of the issues leading to succession allows some from the present to borrow what may be convenient from the past. The idea of a “just cause” precipitating the Civil War pushes back the transgressions of Slavery and can be further manipulated to serve the idea of “valor.” The Southern States made intentions clearer with their assembling of State Succession …show more content…

Throughout early 1861, the State Commissioners spread a narrative of impending destruction to the Southern way of life at the hands of a Republican, abolitionist government. Mississippi’s Commissioner to Georgia stated, ““They have demanded, and now demand, equality between the white and negro races, under our Constitution; equality in representation, equality in the right of suffrage, equality in the honors and emoluments of office, equality in the social circle, equality in the rights of matrimony” (Dew 2001, 29). The remainder of the Commissioners speaking across the South continued such rhetoric. As succession became imminent the States met respectively and adopted their individual Declarations of

Show More
Related

  • 1860 To 1877 Dbq Essay

    1327 Words  | 6 Pages

    In the time period of 1860 to 1877, the social and constitutional developments caused a revolutionary change to the social structure of the South, but more so to the constitution. The fight for constitutional amendments became very important to the federal government after the civil war and during the reconstruction era. This caused major backlash from many people in the South, and state governments passed laws such as the Black Codes, which restricted black people’s freedom. As the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments were passed, terrorist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) were created to scare african americans away from voting, among other activities. The federal government responded to these retaliations by placing armed forces in the

    Read More

  • Summary Of Apostles Of Disunion By Charles B. Dew

    592 Words  | 3 Pages

    The book that I read was the Apostles of Disunion by Charles B. Dew. This book explains the action of secession commissioners who were given the assignment to travel throughout the South and to other slave states in the years 1860 and 1861. Eventually, their efforts were for not because those men were found guilty of recruiting people to follow secessionary ideals as well as supporting secessionary ideals. I think Dew is trying to get his main point across that people are mistaken if they think that the preservation of slavery in the south was not the primary ideal that lead to the secession and Civil War. I think that he tries to explain through most of the information given to us that states rights may have sparked the secession and civil war but it

    Read More

  • Why The North Won The Civil War By David Henry Donald

    1743 Words  | 7 Pages

    Six authors. Six points of view. In David Henry Donald’s book Why the North Won the Civil War, Donald uses the views of five authors and himself on the tactics of the North compared to the South. In my opinion, this book should really be called “Why the South Lost the Civil War” because most (not all) of the people who contributed to the book write about the faults of the South. Even though this book was written in 1960, its topics are still heavily debated by today’s historians-- and even people who are merely curious about the causes and effects of the Civil War.

    Read More

  • The Killer Angels Analysis

    740 Words  | 3 Pages

    We established this this country in the first place with strong state government just for that reason, to avoid a central tyranny.” (p. 65). The South looked at the North as a tyrannical government. The North on the other hand looked at the South as trying to tear the country into two. The Union army fought to keep the country together as one, because if the South would win the war it would have split the country into two for good.

    Read More

  • David Blight Race And Reunion Sparknotes

    858 Words  | 4 Pages

    Despite the many years after the Civil War ended in 1865, the war’s significance was still great enough to have caused such controversy with the public over its meaning. In David W. Blight’s Race and Reunion, the meaning of the war changes throughout the period of Reconstruction not due to the misconception of it solely, but due to what we wanted to interpret from the war (or rather, what we remembered from the war that eventually changed over time). Blight argues, “I am primarily concerned with the ways that contending memories clashed or intermingled in public memory, and not in developing professional historiography of the Civil War” (Blight, Prologue). With this being said, the meaning of the Civil War changed through what people felt and

    Read More

  • Dbq Members Of Congress Essay

    997 Words  | 4 Pages

    Distinguished members of Congress, we the United States of America, have fought two years of this war, costly in both currency and lives, against a group of rebels, who against the Constitution seceded and formed the so-called “Confederate States of America,” but for what purpose are we fighting? We fight to end the brutal institution of slavery, to uphold our constitution and moreover to uphold this glorious union of all American states. How, you may ask, do we create a nation composed of persons of many different beliefs? We must firstly handle the issue of those engaged in the creation and protection of those treasonous states, next is the issue of use of the land of the rebel states, and finally we shall discuss the fractious issue of

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of The Secession

    933 Words  | 4 Pages

    Dew uses letters and speeches of the secession commissioners to assess their effect on sparkling resent and bitter emotions by the south to foster the secession movement. Dew’s central thesis is that the secessionist movement was largely motivated by racial inequality and the need to keep that as the status quo. Dew writes that a lot of the secession leaders used that as a reason for wanting the secession. He writes that, “Alabama's Leroy Pope Walker summarized that Republican rule would cost southerners first, ‘our property,’ ‘then our liberties,’ and finally ‘the sacred purity of our daughters’ (Dew, 80).

    Read More

  • Civil War Dbq Essay

    871 Words  | 4 Pages

    In America in the 1840s and 1850s the north were growing industrially and relying on factories while the south was still rural and all about agriculture the two were growing apart. There became the debate over slavery and the north saw it has morally wrong while the south saw no problem with it. In the 1860s the south finally seceded from the union when Lincoln became president. In effort to try and help with issues there became many compromises like the compromise of 1850. While some believe the civil war started over “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” there is historical evidence that shows that the real causes for the secession of the southern states and the starting of the civil war to force them back into the union, were overwhelmingly the caning of

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast The Civil War And The Second American Revolution

    1148 Words  | 5 Pages

    The Civil War marked a moment in American history with the metamorphosis of the meaning of the concept of liberty into one of freedom of opportunity. By examining the war between the Union and the Confederacy, James McPherson, in his book, Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, he illustrates the issues present in antebellum and postwar America. The author defends the belief that the Civil War was a second revolution through a detailed look at key issues during the time period treating employment, land ownership, and education, among others. The extension of power of the national government that resulted from the war and Abraham Lincoln’s persuasive efforts to end the divide between the North and the South, led to an expansion

    Read More

  • How Did The Civil War The Cause Of The American Revolution

    833 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Northern states, who did not rely on slavery for their economy, were anti-slavery and hence wanted all the nation to be such. The Southern states vehemently opposed this view, as their flow of money relied almost entirely on the use of slave labor. This extreme divide among the people roused talk of division in America. Stephens argues that “slavery and white supremacy were not only the cause for secession, but also the “cornerstone” of the Confederate nation.” He also states, quoting Jefferson: “(this is the) rock upon which the old Union would split”, referring to the existence of African slavery.

    Read More

  • How Did Slavery Cause Secession

    1451 Words  | 6 Pages

    ‘Slavery was the root cause of secession’. ‘November 6 1860, Lincoln was elected president of America which resulted in panic emerging in the South’ . The election of Lincoln as president who was a Republican leader meant that ideologies, movements and values from the North would be implemented in the South which meant the abolition of slavery. Slavery was a huge characteristic of the South as the economy; politics; social status and psychological mind-sets were influenced by the process of slavery. The southern white population then derived the idea of secession which meant the South would gain independence from Northern aggression .

    Read More

  • Michael Holt The Fate Of Their Country Summary

    595 Words  | 3 Pages

    The fate of their country by Michael Holt is a book made up of 3 to 4 sections, titled  Pandora's Box, The Wilmot Proviso, The Compromise of 1850, The Kansas-Nebraska Act. Author Michael Holt examines what caused the Civil War and the Pandora’s Box of sectional dissent territorial slavery issue over slavery into all current and future western territories also the Missouri crisis debate. It wasn’t slavery per the book but the debates about the extension of slavery into new territories and states that sent the nation careening into civil war, argues writer Michael Holt. He gives his readers an analysis of the partisan political forces, on the great debate over the extension of slavery into the American West.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast The American Revolution And The Civil War

    825 Words  | 4 Pages

    After the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and the rise of the Republican party, Southerners feared the tipping of the balance of political power against them; their need for self-determination parallel the colonists’ belief of rebelling against the oppressive government of Great Britain. However, the Civil War represented something more: the clash of the feudalistic, agrarian South with the industrialized, capitalistic North. These two powers differed socially, politically, and economically, and were especially conflicted over slavery. These two sections of the United States were divided against one another, and could not survive this way. Therefore, it is more accurate to state that though the Civil War resembled some aspects of the American Revolution, it was a clash between two forces who could not exist with one another in their current state, leading inevitably to conflict between the

    Read More

  • Economic Impact Of The Civil War Essay

    720 Words  | 3 Pages

    It is eerily personal, as we complete this course reading about the civil war and living through today’s adversarial climate of protesters, division of social, economic and political parties. As Abraham Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address “and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth” (Lincoln 428). The Civil War, while largely believed to be largely about slavery it appears to me that state’s right played just as an important role in the actual cause and continuance of the war. The division of the states and their prosperity, industry, education and representation in Congress divided this country, much as it is today.

    Read More

  • Confederates In The Attic Analysis

    1063 Words  | 5 Pages

    The living legacy of the United States Civil War is a complicated time in American history one finds difficult to describe. The ramification of the war prior, during and after still haunt the current citizens who call The States their home. Tony Horwitz’s book Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War looks at the wide gap of discontent that still looms in the late 1990s. For some southerners, the Confederacy still lives on through reenactments, stories and beliefs. For others in the South, reminders the land was dedicated to the Confederacy spark hatred and spite.

    Read More

More about Summary Of Apostles Of Disunion By Charles Dew

Open Document