Analysis Of Apostles Of Disunion By Charles B. Dew

Apostles of Disunion, written by Charles B. Dew, is a book that focuses on the topics of Slavery, States’ rights, and Secession. The introduction chapter of the book talks about how Dew grew up as a “son of the south”, and how his ancestors fought for the confederacy. He talks about how he went to school in Virginia and he packed his Confederate flag to hang on his wall. Dew says that he didn’t think much about secession, however, he knew that the south had seceded for the lonely reason of states’ rights.

While the North tried to stop the South from withdrawing their spot in the Union, the North also denied the Southern states rights. Sectional groups assembled in the North regarding the “unnatural feeling and hostility” to slavery in the South. “ By consolidating their strength, they have placed the strength... no avail in protecting Southern rights (Document I). The Northerners believed that slavery is not right, and also that “the demand of African slavery throughout the confederacy” is unheard of.

The book that I read was the Apostles of Disunion by Charles B. Dew. This book explains the action of secession commissioners who were given the assignment to travel throughout the South and to other slave states in the years 1860 and 1861. Eventually, their efforts were for not because those men were found guilty of recruiting people to follow secessionary ideals as well as supporting secessionary ideals. I think Dew is trying to get his main point across that people are mistaken if they think that the preservation of slavery in the south was not the primary ideal that lead to the secession and Civil War. I think that he tries to explain through most of the information given to us that states rights may have sparked the secession and civil war but it

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.

This argument is in stark opposition with the argument of Extract 1 which argues that the decision was both constitutional and favours the Union. Whilst both extracts agree that ‘Southern rights’ were fully represented in the verdict and that the South gained a ‘great success’ through the decision, Extract 1 notes that this is a victory for the Union, whilst Extract 2 suggests that it was only a success in the eyes of ‘shallow’ Southerners. Extract 2’s interpretation is more accurate than that of Extract 1 because it

B3 DBQ In the month of March 1861, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as the 16th president of the United States. The north and the south both had different reactions to his presidency. The south felt that Lincoln was a threat to their need of slaves. So when the south heard of Lincoln’s victory 11 states seceded from the United States and became known as the confederacy.

As stated in Document 5, “Many Southerners favored secession as part of the idea that the states have rights and powers which the federal government cannot legally deny. The supporters of states’ rights held that the national government was a league of independent states, any of which had the right to secede”. This shows how Southerners believed that they had every right to secede. They wanted to ensure that they lived in a country in which they would be free to live the way they wanted to. The federal government was unable to prevent this, since each state has inalienable rights and powers.

“Mr. Lincoln says that this government cannot endure permanently in the same condition in which it was made by its framers – divided into free and slave states” campaigns Stephen A. Douglas in the Lincoln – Douglas debates of 1858(1). Well before the eruption of sectional hostility in 1861, Americans clashed over the conception of liberty and slavery. Slavery expanded both demographically and geographically in the Southern states and in the recently acquired Southwest. An emerging aggressive form of abolitionism increased in the northern region and debates over liberty and slavery became entangled in almost every part of American social and political life.

‘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 .

Why South Carolina Seceded The time has come and Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration is approaching. So, the House of Representatives of South Carolina have been discussing what the future holds for us, slave states, after Lincoln abolishes slavery. Everyone knows that if Lincoln wins the Civil War, his main goal will to abolish slavery and for all the states to become a Union. However, we, as Representatives of South Carolina, wrote a letter which declared that “the people of the State of South Carolina, in their sovereign capacity, have resumed the powers delegated by them to the Federal Government of the United States, and have thereby dissolved our connection with the House of Representatives” (History, Art & Archives, U.S. House of Representatives).

Southerners believed that the U.S. was made for and by the white race, and that the Africans had no part of their establishment. They believed that slaves were justified by the “..experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the almighty creator.” (Document B.) They did not want to give up their businesses or their beliefs too soon therefore, they

“Speech upon Leaving the Senate” was written by Jefferson Davis in January of 1861. Davis was a white male and he was also a congressman and senator from Mississippi. Davis later became the secretary of war in 1853. When Davis returned to his time in office after the war he really started to focus his priorities on his interest in Mississippi and the south. This document is an explanation of Mississippi’s nullification and secession from the United States and is also a resignation from Senator Jefferson Davis.

The American Civil War was the war that ended slavery. The civil war was known as one of the bloodiest and deadliest conflicts the United States had ever seen. The loss of life was an estimated amount of 620,000 men. It lasted four years, from April 12, 1861, through May 9, 1865. However, while slavery was a major cause of the American Civil War, there were several other major factors.

Therefore the Southern states should have been allowed to secede from the union as the government of the Union did not protect some of their given rights. First of all, the Southern states had the right to secede because the North had too much power over them. “In all the non-slave-holding States…the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party…based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States” (Document I). Based on this quote, the Northern states started to believe in the abolitionist movement too much; so much that they started to consider the slave states as their enemies. As shown in the quote “By consolidating their strength, they have placed the slave-holding states

There were three main causes of the civil war including slavery, sectionalism and secession. Slavery was a huge part of it and it led to the Missouri Compromise where any states below the border would be slave states and the anything north of that was free states. (Mrs. Wise) "The south feared the declaration of freedom for the slaves by government leaders in the North." Next, sectionalism. Sectionalism-