Apostles Of Disunion Analysis

The tensions in the South during the late antebellum period were extremely dangerous to the country of the United States as a whole. Secession from the Union became a very real possibility for states of the deep south during this period, and was almost inevitable for many southern states after the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. There is still much debate over the real cause of the Civil War to this day, but in the novel Apostles of Disunion, author Charles Dew narrows down the possible causes. Dew claims that the Civil War was started by either violation of states rights, or slavery. The election of Abraham Lincoln called for immediate action in the southern states because the South believed that an “abolitionist” president would destroy
Southern commissioners created Lincoln in the image of a tyrant that wanted to destroy southern heritage by making slaves free and giving them equal rights as whites. They also claimed that Lincoln would ruin the political balance between northern and southern states because he called for no new slave territories, which would give northern politics a clear advantage. This meant that commissioners became very hostile regarding Lincoln in their speeches. For example, one of the most hostile of the commissioners, Judge William Harris, said in his address to the Georgia convention, “Our fathers made this a government for the white man, rejecting the negro, as an ignorant, inferior, barbarian race, incapable of self government…”(Dew 28), explaining that pure hatred of the idea of assimilating slaves into southern culture. Harris is drawing on the argument for slavery that states that African Americans are supposed to be under the control of white people because they are clearly an inferior species of human. This argument also contributes to the outrage over what would become of southern politics if slaves were equal to whites. White southerners believed that they were very superior to their slaves, and that African Americans needed to be in a