Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War (A Nation Divided: Studies in the Civil War Era) 35242nd Edition

by Charles B. Dew (Author)

314 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-0813921044

ISBN-10: 081392104X

Why is ISBN important?

Share <Embed>

Other Sellers

from

Other Sellers

See all 10 versions

Used: Good | Details

Sold by Martistore

Fulfilled by Amazon

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime

FREE delivery: Friday, July 2 on orders over $25.00 shipped by Amazon. Details

Fastest delivery: June 30 - July 1

Only 1 left in stock - order soon.

Ships from and sold by symposia.

$3.99 delivery: July 2 - 8

Fastest delivery: June 30 - July 2

There is a newer edition of this item:

Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War (A Nation Divided)
$14.50
(314)
In Stock.

In late 1860 and early 1861, state-appointed commissioners traveled the length and breadth of the slave South carrying a fervent message in pursuit of a clear goal: to persuade the political leadership and the citizenry of the uncommitted slave states to join in the effort to destroy the Union and forge a new Southern nation.

Directly refuting the neo-Confederate contention that slavery was neither the reason for secession nor the catalyst for the resulting onset of hostilities in 1861, Charles B. Dew finds in the commissioners' brutally candid rhetoric a stark white supremacist ideology that proves the contrary. The commissioners included in their speeches a constitutional justification for secession, to be sure, and they pointed to a number of political "outrages" committed by the North in the decades prior to Lincoln's election. But the core of their argument―the reason the right of secession had to be invoked and invoked immediately―did not turn on matters of constitutional interpretation or political principle. Over and over again, the commissioners returned to the same point: that Lincoln's election signaled an unequivocal commitment on the part of the North to destroy slavery and that emancipation would plunge the South into a racial nightmare.

Dew's discovery and study of the highly illuminating public letters and speeches of these apostles of disunion―often relatively obscure men sent out to convert the unconverted to the secessionist cause--have led him to suggest that the arguments the commissioners presented provide us with the best evidence we have of the motives behind the secession of the lower South in 1860–61.

Addressing topics still hotly debated among historians and the public at large more than a century after the Civil War, Dew challenges many current perceptions of the causes of the conflict. He offers a compelling and clearly substantiated argument that slavery and race were absolutely critical factors in the outbreak of war―indeed, that they were at the heart of our great national crisis.

Frequently bought together

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Steven E. Woodworth
50
Paperback
$26.66
James M. McPherson
349
Paperback
$14.99
Mark Grimsley
24
Paperback
$25.10
Jonathan M. Steplyk
21
Paperback
$22.95
Charles B. Dew
90
Paperback
$16.42
Gary W. Gallagher
61
Paperback
$29.95

Customers who bought this item also bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

James M. McPherson
349
Paperback
$14.99
Steven E. Woodworth
50
Paperback
$26.66
Drew Gilpin Faust
555
Paperback
$13.19
Jonathan M. Steplyk
21
Paperback
$22.95
Gary W. Gallagher
161
Paperback
$25.84
Camilla Townsend
164
Paperback
$9.07

Special offers and product promotions

Amazon Business: Make the most of your Amazon Business account with exclusive tools and savings. Login now

Editorial Reviews

Review

This incisive history should dispel the pernicious notion that the Confederacy fought the Civil War to advance the constitutional principle of states' rights and only coincidentally to preserve slavery.

(The New York Times Book Review)

Dew has produced an eye-opening study....So much for states' rights as the engine of secession.

(James McPherson The New York Review of Books)

Charles B. Dew offers a penetrating and incisive evaluation of secessionist ideology, with a clear eye to the priority of race over issues of constitutional rights. The principal source on which the book is built certainly appears neglected to me, and the source is worthy of exploitation: we have an opportunity here to see what Southerners said to each other and not what they said primarily to the North or to the world.

(Mark E. Neely Jr., Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties and Southern Rights: Political Prisoners and the Myth of Confederate Constitutionalism)

With stunning clarity, Apostles of Disunion reminds us that race and slavery were at the center of the march toward secession. This small but powerful book should be required reading for all students of the Civil War.

(Dwight T. Pitcaithley, Chief Historian, National Park Service)

Drawing on the records of secession commissioners, Charles B. Dew has provided a stunning analysis of the South’s decision to leave the United States, which brought on the Civil War. This is an important study, meticulously researched and convincingly argued. Especially now, when heated debates about the display of the Confederate flag and the historical meaning of Civil War reenactment strain the social fabric of the nation, this book is a must-read.

(James Oliver Horton, author of The Landmarks of African American History)

About the Author

Charles B. Dew, W. Van Alan Clark Third Century Professor in the Social Sciences at Williams College, is the author of Bond of Iron: Master and Slave at Buffalo Forge and Ironmaker to the Confederacy: Joseph R. Anderson and the Tredegar Iron Works.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Virginia Press; 35242nd edition (March 18, 2002)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 144 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 081392104X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0813921044
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.75 x 0.5 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #356,850 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #335 in Military History (Books)
- #983 in United States History (Books)
- #1,567 in U.S. Civil War History

Customer Reviews:
314 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		71%
4 star		16%
3 star		6%
2 star		3%
1 star		3%

How are ratings calculated?

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

SAL

Truth

Reviewed in the United States on September 19, 2017

Verified Purchase

This work is a must read for anyone who wants to truly understand the unvarnished truth about the racist factors driving the decisions of Southern leaders and their push for succession and civil war. These men left no doubt, in the text of their own words, that slavery and white supremacy were the primary driving factors of the war. Revisionist history fans may wish to continue the fables of state's rights and constitutional differences, but the stain of the truth is forever captured in the hateful speeches of the leaders themselves. We must own and acknowledge our shameful past, or we will never rid ourselves of the racist scourge of slavery and white supremacy, our nation's original sins.

29 people found this helpful

Helpful

Daniel Gallagher

Explodes the ‘noble cause’ rationale

Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2018

Verified Purchase

Using the ‘Commissioners’ speeches and letters shows that race and slavery were the root cause of secession. Written with the passion of a convert, I admire his honesty.

My one complaint: I would like to read more of the original tracts versus his synopsis of the writings and speeches. Although he does produce a few in full in the appendix.

15 people found this helpful

Helpful

Justin C. Marlatt

Slavery or State's Rights...

Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2017

Verified Purchase

This is a great perspective on the rhetoric that swirled around the debate as to whether the Southern states should secede from the Union. After reading, it is difficult to divorce slavery and willful ethnic protectionism from the ex post facto "Lost Cause". Couple this book with the language contained within the secession documents of the Southern states and the primacy of slavery as the primary reason for secession is without question.

17 people found this helpful

Helpful

Taylor

Well written, but one dimensional

Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2021

Verified Purchase

Charles Dew's now classic "Apostles of Disunion" attempts to explain the causes of the Civil War by looking at the rhetoric of a group of commissioners sent out by the earliest seceding to convince their neighbors to join the newly formed Confederacy. With solid background research on many of these commissioners, and numerous direct quotations, he pulls out a common theme of racial fear and the desire to perpetuate the institution of slavery in the appeals to each state. From this, he draws (and repeatedly emphasizes) the conclusion that the Civil War was about slavery.

In so far as he demonstrates that support of slavery was a popular argument, and that the argument could be made to all of the states that ended up seceding, Apostles presents good history. However, the book feels overly reductionist. Dew does address the claim that many prominent figures (such as CSA VP Alexander Stephens) made that the war was about states rights, but he does so dismissively by pointing out that these figures made reference to slavery as a motivation in 1860 or 1861. What he does not seem to address is the fact that states rights is addressed in virtually all of the speeches that he reproduces in the book alongside slavery. Of course, some might argue that states rights to decide the slavery question is the same as slavery itself, but it really doesn't even consider the possibility that the commissioners might be arguing to different constituencies, some of whom would be more swayed by states rights as a principle, and other more by the call to slavery. Because he only sets out to prove that slavery was mentioned by all of the delegations trying to sell secession to the southern states, Dew does not convincingly make the case that slavery was the only primary cause of the war. Such as case is made by other historians of course, but Dew is not one of them.
Rather, Dew is simply pulling out racially charged language present throughout the writings of the time, and draws a sweeping conclusion about a complex event in history. It is valuable scholarship in isolation, but is not particularly usefully for really understanding the war, and certainly does not merit respect as a monography on the topic when it is merely an overly stretched article with a single point.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

mike reed

A book that should be taught in every High school

Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2017

Verified Purchase

This book accurately tells a story that needs to be told. It does not use emotion or opinion to state its case, but instead uses the words that were spoken by the appropriately named "Apostles of Disunion" to clearly articulate that those in power in the South only cared about one thing, preserving the institution of Slavery.

7 people found this helpful

Helpful

gloine36

Illuminating exploration of the secession conventions and how slavery dominated those discusssions.

Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2013

Verified Purchase

Historians have been debating the cause of the American Civil War since before the guns fell silent to end that conflict. Multiple theories have been proposed and examined, but regardless of the theory, the issue of slavery cannot be ignored. With the advances in historiography in that era’s history, examinations of the primary sources from that period have been emphasized. Charles Dew, a Southerner himself who described his background as one that embraced the notion of state’s rights as being the cause of the Civil War, explained how his research involving primary documents in Confederate records brought up documents that challenged what he had been told about the war and its cause, and that inspired him to look at the subject to determine the answer for himself.

The result was a study into the letters and speeches of the secession commissioners from the first states that seceded to the remaining slave owning states in the attempt to form a new nation. Dew’s analysis of those documents revealed what was said about the reasons for secession by leading figures of the South and the secession commissioners. The study served as the reason he wrote Apostles of Disunion where he presented both the primary documents he examined and his conclusions. The result is a concise assessment of the secession commissioners themselves and their beliefs, what they wrote and said concerning the issue of secession both privately and publicly, the reactions to their words by their audiences, and the conclusions Dew drew from his research.

Instead of trying to speak for the commissioners, Dew chose to let their words and actions speak for themselves. He detailed the personal history of each commissioner as well as the context of the situation in the various states the commissioners spoke in. This gave the words of these commissioners a setting in which they could be understood for what they were instead of just words on paper. Dew drew attention to the rhetoric of slavery and race which were prominently mentioned multiple times in each address to the secession conventions. This was a sharp contrast to long held views by some that the war was not about slavery or race, but that of state’s rights, economic differences, or constitutional arguments. Dew pointed out that while the commissioners did bring up those points, they did not place the emphasis on those points while they spoke at length about slavery and race.

He also described the reactions to the commissioner’s addresses from both individuals and newspapers which also focused on the issues of race and slavery stated by the commissioners, and not on any other issue. Dew’s major drawback is that he did not explore the conventions or the makeup of the delegates beyond that of a cursory examination. In many cases the commissioner’s speeches were merely exhortations to openly receptive audiences while others failed to sway their audiences into outright secession although in some instances the speeches may have caused some delegates to finally side with secession.

The result is a slim tome in which Dew was able to show that the fear of slavery’s elimination as well as racial equality was the primary cause of the war because that was what those commissioners focused on in those speeches. In doing so Dew was able to fill in a gap in the historiography of the months prior to the war by limiting the book’s topic to that of the secession commissioners and their own words which speak for themselves as to why secession was desired by many in the South.

28 people found this helpful

Helpful

What other items do customers buy after viewing this item?

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Pages with related products. See and discover other items: idaho history, atlantic coast

Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War (A Nation Divided: Studies in the Civil War Era) 35242nd Edition

Buy used: $6.36

Buy new: $18.99

There is a newer edition of this item:

Frequently bought together

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Customers who bought this item also bought

Special offers and product promotions

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

Product details

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

What other items do customers buy after viewing this item?

Buy used:

$6.36

Buy new:

$18.99