Synopses & Reviews
In the decades before the Civil War, Americans debating the fate of slavery often invoked the specter of disunion to frighten or discredit their opponents. According to Elizabeth Varon, "disunion" was a startling and provocative keyword in Americans' political vocabulary: it connoted the failure of the founders' singular effort to establish a lasting representative government. For many Americans in both the North and the South, disunion was a nightmare, the image of a cataclysm that would reduce them to misery and fratricidal war. For many others, however, threats, accusations, and intimations of disunion were instruments they could wield to achieve their partisan and sectional goals.
In this bracing reinterpretation of the origins of the Civil War, Varon blends political history with intellectual and cultural history to show how Americans, as far back as the earliest days of the republic, agonized and strategized over disunion. She focuses not only on politicians but also on a wide range of reformers, editors, writers, and commentators. Included here are the voices of fugitive slaves, white Southern dissenters, free black activists, abolitionist women, and other outsiders to the halls of power. In a new and expanding nation still learning how to meld disparate and powerful interests, the rhetoric of disunion proved pervasive--and volatile. As the word was marshaled by competing sectional interests in the tumultuous 1840s and 1850s, the politics of compromise grew more remote and an epic collision between the free North and slaveholding South seemed the only way to resolve, once and for all, whether the struggling republic would survive.
Review
"Deserves to be ranked alongside some of the landmark studies of Civil War causation. . . . As good an account of the worldview of antebellum Americans as one can read."
H-Net Reviews
Review
"Highly readable political, social, and intellectual history at its best. . . . Highly recommended."
Choice
Review
"Provides sharp, critical assessments of recent scholarship. . . . A narrative told with liveliness and clarity."
--Indiana Magazine of History
Review
"Installs [the premise of disunion] by weaving the country's beginnings with the immediate, and profound, philosophical differences that existed between the agrarian, slaveholding South and the industrialized North."
The Anniston Star
Review
"An excellent history that is well balanced and fairly presents all sides. . . . Recommend[ed] . . . to all Civil War readers as an essential foundation to understanding why the war came and many of the decisions of 1860 to 1862."
James Durney, independent Book Reviewer
Review
"An excellent history that is well balanced and fairly presents all sides. . . . Recommend[ed] . . . to all Civil War readers as an essential foundation to understanding why the war came and many of the decisions of 1860 to 1862."
-- James Durney, Independent Book Reviewer
Review
"[A] very important book. . . . Well-written and carefully documented and will be imminently useful to undergraduate and graduate classrooms alike."
The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography
Review
"A cogently reasoned intellectual history of a frequently misunderstood historical term. . . . Varon successfully weaves together political debates, contemporary journalism, literary fiction and nonfiction, sermons from pulpits of the nation's leading churches and other sources of popular culture."
Civil War Times
Review
"Expertly tackles a substantial body of historical literature while weaving the growth of disunionist rhetoric through the traditional landmarks on the road to Civil War."
Southern Historian
Review
"An ambitious book that seeks to reimagine the causes of the Civil War. . . . Original and valuable."
-The Journal of American History
Review
"A cogently reasoned intellectual history of a frequently misunderstood historical term. . . . Varon successfully weaves together political debates, contemporary journalism, literary fiction and nonfiction, sermons from pulpits of the nation's leading churches and other sources of popular culture."
Civil War Times
Review
"Varon's success in setting her analysis of disunion rhetoric against a comprehensive historiographical backdrop is exceptional. Meticulously researched and beautifully assembled,
Disunion will become a standard text for students and scholars interested in this tumultuous chapter in American history."
North and South
Review
"Definitive . . . explain[s] the effects Disunion had upon the various political groups and the citizens from our founding fathers and later on. . . . Balanced history at its very best."
The Midwest Book Review
Review
“Liberty Power is a wonderfully fresh study of a well-trod topic of continuing interest. Brooks tells the story of antislavery third parties confidently and with a commanding grasp of the political and social events of the era. The book is thoroughly and impressively researched and an impressive addition to the flourishing literature on abolitionism as well as political history. Brooks writes fluidly and convincingly, making this a compelling and sophisticated narrative.”
Review
“In response to the Slave Power, opponents of slavery constructed a ‘Liberty Power’ that took concrete form as the Liberty Party. Brooks shows us how they did it and why it mattered. Elegantly crafted, thoroughly researched, and invariably insightful, this is one of the truly essential books on the antislavery movement and the origins of the Civil War.”
Review
“Liberty Power is a game changer. For too long political historians have seen abolitionists as so far removed from the electoral mainstream that their impact on politics was negligible. And historians of abolitionism have concluded that a deeply pro-slavery antebellum political system remained immune to the efforts by serious reformers to move it toward emancipation. Brooks persuasively contests both of these generalizations by demonstrating that abolitionists involved in the Liberty and Free Soil Parties succeeded over a span of two decades in wresting control of the House of Representatives from the slaveholders and their northern allies. Grounding these claims in deep research, Brooks’ study reconstructs the sophisticated long term strategies these abolitionists developed, their short-term political tactics, and, most welcome and revealing of all, their incontestably significant impact on the deliberations of the Congress itself. Scholars of Civil War causation must attend to this book.”
Synopsis
In the decades of the early republic, Americans debating the fate of slavery often invoked the specter of disunion to frighten their opponents. As Elizabeth Varon shows, disunion connoted the dissolution of the republic--the failure of the founders' effort to establish a stable and lasting representative government. For many Americans in both the North and the South, disunion was a nightmare, a cataclysm that would plunge the nation into the kind of fear and misery that seemed to pervade the rest of the world. For many others, however, disunion was seen as the main instrument by which they could achieve their partisan and sectional goals. Varon blends political history with intellectual, cultural, and gender history to examine the ongoing debates over disunion that long preceded the secession crisis of 1860-61.
Synopsis
Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party was the first party built on opposition to slavery to win on the national stage—but its victory was rooted in the earlier efforts of under-appreciated antislavery third parties.
Liberty Power tells the story of how abolitionist activists built the most transformative third-party movement in American history and effectively reshaped political structures in the decades leading up to the Civil War.
As Corey M. Brooks explains, abolitionist trailblazers who organized first the Liberty Party and later the more moderate Free Soil Party confronted formidable opposition from a two-party system expressly constructed to suppress disputes over slavery. Identifying the Whigs and Democrats as the mainstays of the southern Slave Power’s national supremacy, savvy abolitionists insisted that only a party independent of slaveholder influence could wrest the federal government from its grip. A series of shrewd electoral, lobbying, and legislative tactics enabled these antislavery third parties to wield influence far beyond their numbers. In the process, these parties transformed the national political debate and laid the groundwork for the success of the Republican Party and the end of American slavery.
About the Author
Elizabeth R. Varon is professor of history at Temple University. She is author of the award-winning Southern Lady, Yankee Spy: The True Story of Elizabeth Van Lew, a Union Agent in the Heart of the Confederacy and We Mean to Be Counted: White Women and Politics in Antebellum Virginia (from the University of North Carolina Press).
Table of Contents
"Masterful. . . . Varon skillfully blends race, gender and social history to fashion a political chronicle of the period. . . . An excellent and well-designed book."
-Civil War News "Breathes new life into our understanding of the antebellum era. . . . Varon's work proves that this history, one that marries rhetoric to events, can illuminate dark corners of the antebellum narrative and carry lessons into the present day."
-Journal of American Studies "A stimulating and extremely fluent study, bringing together a multitude . . . of voices offering their particular perspective on, proscriptions against, or prescriptions for disunion."
-Georgia Historical Quarterly "Deeply enriches our understanding of the causes of the Civil War. . . . [Varon's] insights on the gendered nature of disunion discourse are especially valuable. . . . Extremely readable."
-Maryland Historical Magazine "[A] well-reasoned study of the long war of words and ideas predating the open bloodshed of the Civil War."
-The Midwest Book Review "This is a very interesting book and important in helping to understand the underlying political causes of our American Civil War. . . . This is a valuable addition to your Civil War / Confederate library."
-The Lone Star Book Review "Expertly tackles a substantial body of historical literature while weaving the growth of disunionist rhetoric through the traditional landmarks on the road to Civil War."
-Southern Historian "Blends political history with intellectual, cultural, and gender history to examine the ongoing debates over disunion that long preceded the secession crisis of 1860-61. . . . A valuable addition to your Civil War/Confederate library. . . . Excellent."
-Lone Star Book Review "Impressive in scope, as well as in breadth and depth. . . . A masterful synthesis of the predominant primary and secondary literature on the antebellum period. . . . Accessible in both structure and style, and will be especially valuable for students in an upper division course on antebellum America or the Civil War. . . . Varon excels at weaving together the multiple discourses of disunion."
-Louisiana History "A broad study. . . . Strong both in illuminating operative gender and racial perspectives and in presenting in some detail the views and methods of presentation and activism of many figures who will be unfamiliar even to most American historians, but who, as this book demonstrates, should not be ignored."
-Reviews in American History "Highly engaging. . . . Makes good use of recent historical literature to produce a synthetic and balanced account of the politics of disunion in the American republic."
-Civil War Book Review "From the moment the American union was created in 1789, threats and fears of disunion pervaded the polity. At the root of these fears lay the paradox of a slaveholding nation founded on a charter of freedom. With great clarity, Elizabeth Varon shows how sixty years of disunion rhetoric centered on slavery set the stage for secession and war."
-James M. McPherson, author of Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief "This exciting book puts North and South, politics and ideas, abolitionists and secessionists into conversation across the entire era between the Constitution and the Civil War--and by doing so explains a crucial part of American history. This is a story of great importance, powerfully told."
-Edward L. Ayers, President, University of Richmond "A solid contribution to antebellum political history [that] offers a new and interesting viewpoint on sectionalism."
-Journal of Southern History "In scope, authority, and lucidity, this book . . . deserves to be ranked alongside some of the landmark studies of Civil War causation. . . . As good an account of the worldview of antebellum Americans as one can read."
-H-Net Reviews "Highly readable political, social, and intellectual history at its best. . . . Highly recommended."
-Choice "Varon fulfills her goal of distinguishing disunion from secession and exploring the multifaceted meanings of the term. . . . She eminently succeeds in showing how disunion evolved from a 'prophecy' that no one wanted fulfilled to the fire-eaters' 'program.'"
-American Historical Association "A cogently reasoned intellectual history of a frequently misunderstood historical term. . . . Varon successfully weaves together political debates, contemporary journalism, literary fiction and nonfiction, sermons from pulpits of the nation's leading churches and other sources of popular culture."
-Civil War Times "[A] very important book. . . . Well-written and carefully documented and will be imminently useful to undergraduate and graduate classrooms alike."
-The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography "Definitive . . . explain[s] the effects Disunion had upon the various political groups and the citizens from our founding fathers and later on. . . . Balanced history at its very best."
-The Midwest Book Review "Installs [the premise of disunion] by weaving the country's beginnings with the immediate, and profound, philosophical differences that existed between the agrarian, slaveholding South and the industrialized North."
-The Anniston Star "Expertly tackles a substantial body of historical literature while weaving the growth of disunionist rhetoric through the traditional landmarks on the road to Civil War."
-Southern Historian "Varon's success in setting her analysis of disunion rhetoric against a comprehensive historiographical backdrop is exceptional. Meticulously researched and beautifully assembled, Disunion will become a standard text for students and scholars interested in this tumultuous chapter in American history."
-North & South "A compelling argument about the political significance of language. . . Speaks to specialists and remains approachable for undergraduates, scholars in other fields, and general readers."
-Common-Place "Provides sharp, critical assessments of recent scholarship. . . . A narrative told with liveliness and clarity."
-Indiana Magazine of History "New works periodically appear that significantly contribute to our understanding of that deep national schism. Elizabeth Varon's Disunion is one of those studies. . . . Utilizing a wide range of source material, Varon has crafted a fascinating study that examines not just leaders but a wide array of voices. She does an excellent job of providing the appropriate context for the issues discussed so that readers have both a good understanding of the issue at hand and this work's place within the historiography."
-North Carolina Historical Review "An ambitious book that seeks to reimagine the causes of the Civil War. . . . Original and valuable."
-The Journal of American History "An excellent history that is well balanced and fairly presents all sides. . . . Recommend[ed] . . . to all Civil War readers as an essential foundation to understanding why the war came and many of the decisions of 1860 to 1862."
-James Durney, Independent Book Reviewer