Summary Of Apostles Of Disunion By Charles B. Dew

Charles B. Dew argued in his book “Southern Secession Commissioners and the Cause of the Civil War” that the south seceded to protect the slaves. He also stated the north had larger military forces compared to the south. That southerners fought because of their pride and that is why the war lasted for four years (322). Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana wanting to get out of the Union and become one of their own. The lower southern states persuaded many other slave state to secede from the Union as well.

Racism is one of the main subthemes that is evident throughout the book. The treatment of the African American race showed how the White race felt about the African Americans. The Whites were afraid their “blackness” would rub off on them. An example of this behavior in the book was when Hilly says, “ It’s just plain dangerous. Everybody knows they carry different kinds of diseases than we do” (Stockett,10).

The Crittenden Compromise and Alexander H. Stephens’s “Corner Stone” speech are two significant pre-Civil War sources that serve to give students of history insight about the ultimate cause of secession and the War: slavery. Both documents discuss the issue but from different angles. The first document, The Crittenden Compromise, was a midnight hour attempt to prevent the Union from splitting in two. It presented six articles for amending the Constitution and four resolutions for Congress.

Dew opens in his introduction with, “I knew from listening to adult conversations about The War, as it was called, and from my limited reading on the subject that the South had seceded for one reason and one reason only: states’ rights.” (Dew 2001, 1) While this is one child growing up in Florida, it is also prevalent, mainly through omission of details, throughout the South. An enlightened today, wants to remember the Civil War as a valiant cause. It may be difficult to find someone, in the South or the North, willing to promote Slavery today, yet racist groups today are quick to align themselves with the idea of an oppressive Government, controlling too much of an individual states rights to enact their own racist or discriminatory legislation. Driving Slavery out of the forefront of the issues leading to succession allows some from the present to borrow what may be convenient from the past.

Uncompromising differences between the South (Confederacy) and the North (Union) created a civil war that lasted five years. During this war, Abraham Lincoln was president. His election led to the secession of many Southern states. After refusing to recognize the Confederacy as its own nation, the American Civil War commenced in 1861. The three main causes of the Civil War between the North and the South were industrial and agricultural economies, politics, and slavery.

With a majority of abolitionists from the North the Northern states view slavery as an immoral action. In contrast the majority of pro-slavery persons were from the South and didn’t see anything wrong with slavery. The Northern outlook upon slavery can be seen in Document 4 when Frederick Douglass, a former slave himself, says. “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim”.

Dew uses letters and speeches of the secession commissioners to assess their effect on sparkling resent and bitter emotions by the south to foster the secession movement. Dew’s central thesis is that the secessionist movement was largely motivated by racial inequality and the need to keep that as the status quo. Dew writes that a lot of the secession leaders used that as a reason for wanting the secession. He writes that, “Alabama's Leroy Pope Walker summarized that Republican rule would cost southerners first, ‘our property,’ ‘then our liberties,’ and finally ‘the sacred purity of our daughters’ (Dew, 80).

The South’s choice of leaving the Union was an offensive act rather than a defensive one. In 1860 the

‘Slavery was the root cause of secession’. ‘November 6 1860, Lincoln was elected president of America which resulted in panic emerging in the South’ . The election of Lincoln as president who was a Republican leader meant that ideologies, movements and values from the North would be implemented in the South which meant the abolition of slavery. Slavery was a huge characteristic of the South as the economy; politics; social status and psychological mind-sets were influenced by the process of slavery. The southern white population then derived the idea of secession which meant the South would gain independence from Northern aggression .

The year is 1865, A country is divided by war and rage. The ideas of freedom and liberty are defended by the Union army and the ideals of slavery and inequality are fought for by the Confederate army. One country, one people, two sides, against one another. The United States, a country that was founded on the idea of freedom and equality for all, is now fighting to keep that same idea, only this time the enemy is itself. Many Americans during the 19th century were fighting either to keep slavery or see all as equal.

Set in the 1930s in northern Alabama where slavery was at its peak, the book To Kill A Mockingbird is narrated in Scout’s point of view. Through Scout’s eyes, Harper Lee illustrates examples of racism and social inequality and these reveal what it was like for the blacks during that period in America. The racist rationales and social inequality in Maycomb county are, according to the characters, something that is reasonable. Throughout this book, Harper Lee criticises mainly racism and how unjust human beings can be. The readers are able to see how the blacks and the whites were treated differently and how they avoided inter-racial interactions.

Matter in fact the union had nearly twice as many troops as the confederates did. This unproportional distribution of troops would prove as a fatal blow in the southern States fight for independence and the legalization of slavery. In his address Sherman States, “You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it.”

In chapter one of What They Fought For, I learned about the letters and diaries of the Confederate soldiers. The themes of the letters were home-sickness, lack of peace, and the defense of home against their invading enemy. The thought of soldiers fighting for their homes and being threatened by invaders, made them stronger when facing adversity. Many men expressed that they would rather die fighting for a cause, than dying without trying and this commitment showed patriotism. Throughout the letters, soldiers claimed their reason for fighting, was for the principles of Constitutional liberty and self-government.

Two fundamental questions normally surround the history of any war: whether the war was inevitable and if it was necessary. These same questions emerge any time during debates regarding the American Civil war. The most cited cause of the Civil war is the secession of certain southern states that formed the Confederate States of America in January 1861. Thomas Bonner writes "Civil War Historians and the "Needless War" Doctrine" arguing that Southern Carolina seceded in 1860, followed by six other states by January the following year. A deep analysis of the events leading to the war indicates that the Union and the Confederates had profound ideological, economic, political, and social differences.

Embedded Quote (Context and quote) with page number Your Response When Jem, Scout, and Calpurnia go to church, after a bit of scuffle between Jem and Scout,Calpurnia, tells them to go to a First Purchase African M.E. Church, called that way “because it was paid for from the first earnings of freed slaves”(157).Since this place was built by African Americans “ Negroes worshiped in it on Sundays and white men gambled in it on weekdays” pg 157. Lee’s provides even more development for her theme of racism by once again giving a very clear understanding of prejudice to the reader as she makes something honorable as prideful as building a church to African Americans a task at the time was very hard to do since they barely got any money to completely be disregarded for the white as they do something carefree with it like gambling. With this Lee provides a heavy contrast on how the African Americans were to the church being grateful and respectful, compared to the white people disregard the prosperity of the church simply because it was built by “negros” pg 157. Embedded Quote (Context and quote) with page number