Matthew Karp has written a book of tremendous historiographic importance. Examining the means by which slaveholders held firm control over what he calls the federal government's "outward state"--the sector responsible for foreign policy, the military, and the role the United States assumed beyond its borders--he argues that these slaveholders waged a "hemispheric battle between freedom and slavery" (p. 70) during the 1840s and 1850s (what he refers to as the "long 1850s"). He highlights the roles men such as John Tyler, Abel P. Upshur, John C. Calhoun, Duff Green, and Henry Wise played in this battle, and offers succinct character sketches of each of them. Ultimately Karp persuasively demonstrates the necessity of viewing southern control of American foreign policy in the two decades leading up to the Civil War, as well as the secession of the South in 1860-61, within a global context, a view that comports with recent work by Don Doyle and other scholars.
In my opinion, Karp's work offers two original insights that seem destined to re-shape our understanding of the coming of the Civil War. First, he maintains that slaveholders tended to make a (self-serving) distinction between federal power in the domestic realm of politics and federal power in foreign affairs. That is, they railed against what they saw as the federal government overstepping its bounds on matters like the tariff and--most importantly--on interfering with slavery, but championed the power of the federal government when it came to advancing their agenda in the hemispheric battle between slavery and freedom. The irony, as he points out, is that vaunted states'-righters like Calhoun were the most aggressive advocates for centralized state power when it came to foreign policy, because that foreign policy was designed to maintain slavery's primacy of place.
Second, Karp points out that, in domestic terms, secession is rightly viewed as "defensive." Slaveholders recognized the overt threat the election of Abraham Lincoln posed to the institution of slavery. In international terms, however, slaveholders were willing to take a high-stakes gamble and dissolve the Union because they believed the global necessity of slavery (mostly, though not exclusively for cotton) meant they stood a high likelihood of success. As Karp puts it, "...the Confederate project was not designed to escape 'modern civilization' but to command it." (p. 239)
There are other attributes of this book I like. Karp engages the scholarly literature with a great deal of skill, sometimes within the text of the book; more often in the endnotes. I found myself predicting which books and articles he would cite in the endnotes based on how he dealt with the arguments in the text. His command of the secondary literature is evident. He also utilizes rather obscure nineteenth-century writings to great effect. His research in primary sources is equally well-displayed. Finally, the book is engaging, well organized, cogently argued, and a pleasure to read. You will learn a great deal, and question a lot of previously-held assumptions about the significance of slaveholders and their worldview, if you give this terrific book your time.
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