Customer Reviews

The Men of Secession and Civil War, 1859-1861 (The American Crisis Series: Books on the Civil War Era)

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James Abrahamson's book, The Men of Secession examines what can happen when the forces of radicalization overwhelm those of moderation. He deals with radicals on both sides, but concentrates on Southern radicals. These men, such as William L. Yancey and Robert Barnwell Rhett, worked hard during the 1850's to lay the groundwork of radicalization, then, in the Democratic Party Convention of 1860, they struck, splintering the Party and ensuring Lincoln's election.

As the publishing company's name suggests, this book is scholarly, but accessible for most readers. My main critique of the work is that Abrahamson devotes relatively little attention to Northern radicals. The book starts out addressing John Brown and Salmon Chase, then mostly drops further discussion of Northern radicalism. This present the impression that Southern radicalization occured in a vacuum. Northern approval of John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia and Northern State "Personal Liberty Laws" both weighed heavily on moderate Southern minds. Southern radicals played on this to get most Southerners off the fence and on their side.

Overall, a good effort and a good read. To get much detail on the Southern perspective, however, you will have to look elsewhere.

This book is an excellently written, and often insightfull accout of the men who convinced the south to rebel. It gives the basic backgroud on the radicals for both sides and then goes into the basic details of the election of 1860 and how the southern fire eaters assured a victory by Lincoln.

The book was easy to read; maintianing good detail without loseing the scope of the book. This is a great book for anyone who is interested in this topic. My only problem with the book is that its scope could have been a little wider, and the history placed more in context. I read this as supplemental reading to a collage history course, if that puts this review in a little more context.