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Don Edward Fehrenbacher

David Morris Potter

The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861 Paperback – Illustrated, March 15, 2011

by David M. Potter (Author)

4.7 358 ratings

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David M. Potter's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Impending Crisis is the definitive history of antebellum America. Potter's sweeping epic masterfully charts the chaotic forces that climaxed with the outbreak of the Civil War: westward expansion, the divisive issue of slavery, the Dred Scott decision, John Brown's uprising, the ascension of Abraham Lincoln, and the drama of Southern secession. Now available in a new edition, The Impending Crisis remains one of the most celebrated works of American historical writing.

Print length

672 pages
Language

English
Publication date

March 15, 2011
Dimensions

8.2 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
ISBN-10

9780061319297
ISBN-13

978-0061319297
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Down Home Hip to the Jive

One of Our Nation's Narratives

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 23, 2023

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I've been "out of school" for decades. I suppose, like many adult Americans, what we learned way back in the day of elementary, middle, and high school as pertains to American history has been forgotten or relegated to a status of less importance. Marriage, career, parenthood and family come to absorb most of our thoughts and musing. American history resides in the realm of academics but our lives remain replete with the mundane concerns of our day-to-day life. This book, The Impending Crisis 1848-1861, reveals what we've probably forgotten and discloses how our nation's leaders and citizens vehemently wrestled with the institution of slavery, its relevance to the newly obtained westward territories, the Southern rationale and proposal for disunion, and ultimately the consequential civil war. As mentioned, many years have passed since my learning of American history happened. The events in the book both impressed and pressed upon me how significant, troubling, impactful and unprecedented were the years from 1848-1861. Democracy aptly describes the process that our government leaders partook in during these turbulent years.
We owe it to ourselves to be enlightened by the narrative presented by David Potter.

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Jeremy A. Perron

INCOMING DOOM

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 4, 2011

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David Potter died before this book was published so all the success and praise, including a Pulitzer Prize, could only be received posthumously. It is however a magnificent work that captures the over a decade period that was leading up to the Civil War. The book is part of the New American History series not the Oxford History series that I had been reading. Unlike the Oxford History volumes, it does not dive as deep into the average people as well as the elites with the same amount of elegant detail, nevertheless it is a great book. A small note to any readers that when they read this book they may to want to be aware beforehand: it was written before the term 'African-American' became widely accepted and instead uses the anachronistic word 'Negro'. It actually took me a minute to catch on because when reading about the past one comes about the word Negro quite a bit, normally I just view the term in its historic lens, but as I read further the term was used quite generally referring to 'the Negro population' and to Fredrick Douglass as a 'leading Negro thinker' even when not talking from a historical perspective.

This book covers the political battles of the many participants who were in the political arena in the late 1850s; the work also covers the political theories of the state of American Nationalism, and the formation of Southern Nationalism. Potter also discusses how the impact of books and literature that were written in the 1850s impacted the time period. One example of a powerful and hard-hitting book was the original The Impending Crisis that dealt with the problem of slavery from a southern prospective of non-slaveholding whites. A more famous example of strong literature is the immortal Uncle Tom's Cabin.

"In almost every respect, Uncle Tom's Cabin lacked the standard qualifications for such great literary success. It may plausibly be argued that Mrs. Stowe's characters were impossible and her Negroes were blackface stereotypes, that her plot was sentimental, her dialect absurd, her literary technique crude, and her overall picture of the conditions of slavery distorted. But without any of the vituperation in which the abolitionists were so fluent, and with a sincere though unappreciated effort to avoid blaming the South, she made vivid the plight of the slave as a human being held in bondage. It was perhaps because of the steadiness with which she held this focus that Lord Palmerston, a man noted for his cynicism, admired the book not only for 'its story but for the statesmanship of it.' History cannot evaluate with precision the influence of a novel upon public opinion, but the northern attitude toward slavery was never quite the same after Uncle Tom's Cabin. Men who had remained unmoved by real fugitives wept for Tom under the lash and cheered for Eliza with the bloodhounds on her track."p.140

One of the things Potter discusses in the book that I was very pleased to here is the tendency for most people to look back at the past with the feeling of inevitability. This attitude does everyone a disservice because it creates a misinterpretation of the past and the people who were living in it. Although, his own title of this book helps with that narrative that he was trying to combat.

"Seen this way the decade of the fifties becomes a kind of vortex, whirling the country in ever narrower circles and more rapid revolutions into the pit of war. Because of the need for a theme and focus in any history, this is probably inevitable. But for the sake of realism, it should be remembered that most human beings during these years went about their daily lives, preoccupied with their personal affairs, with no sense of impending disaster nor any fixation on the issue of slavery."p.145

Potter also discusses the Lincoln-Douglas debates, and while doing so he tries to cut though the legend and misinterpretations that often are made about this event. He tries to make it plain what the two opponents believed and what they were fighting for.

"The difference between Douglas and Lincoln--and in a large sense between proslavery and antislavery thought--was not that Douglas believed in chattel servitude (for he did not), or that Lincoln believed in an unqualified, full equality of blacks and whites (for he did not). The difference was that Douglas did not believe that slavery really mattered very much, because he did not believe that Negroes had enough human affinity with him to make it necessary for him to concern himself with them. Lincoln, on the contrary, believed that slavery mattered, because he recognized the human affinity with blacks which made their plight a necessary."p354

He explains the raid of Harper's Ferry and the antislavery crusader John Brown in his rather insane attempt to cause a slave rebellion. In Potter's narrative what Brown lacks as an armed rebel he excels as a martyr. The North morns his death, which infuriates the South and makes them feel more isolated. Thus after the election of Lincoln they begin their attempts to break the South away from the Union.

Everything discussed in this review and more is covered in this incredible book. I would recommend it to people who already have a strong knowledge of the history of this country who would like to increase their understanding of this difficult time period.

26 people found this helpful

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David H. MacCallum

an absorbing look at a tragic national story

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 20, 2012

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The story of the runup to the Civil War has been told many times, with many different points of view, and with a focus on many different elements of the evolving bitterness between the North and the South. None of these accounts has captured the relentless force and complexity of the conflict as well as David Potter's The Impending Crisis.

It almost seemed natural that the United States in 1850, a nation then only just over 60 years old, was still very much growing into its transcontinental form, still encompassing two vastly different cultures - that of the patrician slaveholders of the South, stuck a bit in the past, and of the mercantile interests, surging with energy and ambition, in the North. Not only were there economic and cultural differences but the political gulf that separated the North from the South ruined one of the two great parties of the country, the Whigs, and splintered the Democratic party into two belligerent wings.

Through the forces of territorial expansion and increasing imbalances in economic power, the North confronted the South with gradually louder demands to dismantle the slavery system. Slavery, however, in the South had been too firmly woven into its cotton economy, based as it was on cheap labor. In addition, many in the South felt the potential insurrection potential of having six million exploited souls in its midst.

Potter tells this agonizing drama with great skill. It is, indeed, a remarkable story, full of human conflict - Calhoun drifting further and further away from his former roommate, Henry Clay; Steven Douglas - never able to grant the concept of citizenship to the black population -- arguing for the rights of popular opinion in whether or not to retain or reject slavery in the new territories against an extraordinary rising politician in the new Republican party, Abraham Lincoln; Charles Sumner, the abolitionist Massachusetts senator clubbed brutally on the floor of the Senate by his senatorial colleague from South Carolina.

More than anything, Potter tracks the gradual disintegration of the political parties. Since the first election, in 1796, the winner had carried both slave and free states until 1848. After that, no winner carried both the North and the South. In fact, as Potter points out, the next winner to prevail in both sections was Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. As the Whigs weakened, a new faction, the Republican party, picked up the pieces, almost all of which were derived from the Northern states. The Democratic party was increasingly a party led by the South. In fact, by 1860, the Republican candidate, Lincoln, won the election without even being on the ballot in the Southern states. This realignment of the political parties was a complicated process but Potter lets it unfold in a logical and absorbing way.

By the time Potter arrives at the election of Lincoln in 1860, the story is complete. The South had far fewer natural advantages going in to the armed conflict. It had a far smaller economy, a smaller population, a sizable proportion of the population that could not be relied upon to remain orderly and submissive, and less developed transportation and communication systems. The South did, however, possess military figures of enormous skill, some with almost unnatural talents in picking the right fights at the right time. Only with the rapid promotion of Ulysses S. Grant ("Unconditional Surrender Grant") did the Union begin to turn the tide.

This is book that requires time to absorb; each major topic is discussed with great care to present the context of both sides in the conflict. Each topic moves the reader along the path to understanding the core reasons for the differences between the North and the South. It is a fully rewarding experience to be led by Potter through this great story.

11 people found this helpful

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Marc Ranger

An incomplete work

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on November 10, 2016

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The Impending Crisis is a step by step analysis of the sectional conflict between North and South leading to the Civil War.
The expansion and protection of slavery was at the absolute heart of the conflict, Even if I liked the book, I found I learned nothing that the first
chapters of "Battle Cry of Freedom" did not cover, in a better fashion at that.

Good points for "The Impending Crisis" are the Lecompton story, the Lincoln-Douglas debates and the hours leading to Fort Sumter's attack by P.T. Beauregard.

The weak point is that slavery is presented much like an abstract concept, not a living hell human beings were actually living. Also, the fact that the South was a backward region, where education for white children as well as blacks where of no concern to the politicians, among other things, are not mentionned, much less covered.

Although a good read, in my opinion it is still an incompte work.

A. Thompson

The journey to war

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 1, 2015

Verified Purchase

The definitive one-volume historical guide to the lead up to the American Civil War.

3 people found this helpful

Cosmo lang

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 26, 2015

Verified Purchase

100%

One person found this helpful

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