Decade of Disunion

How Massachusetts and South Carolina Led the Way to Civil War, 1849-1861

By: Robert W. Merry

Narrated by: Jacques Roy

Length: 16 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

Exploring a critical lesson about our nation that is as timely today as ever, Decade of Disunion shows how the country came apart during the enveloping slavery crisis of the 1850s.

The Mexican War brought vast new territories to the United States, which precipitated a growing crisis over slavery. The new territories seemed unsuitable for the type of agriculture that depended on slave labor, but they lay south of the line where slavery was permitted by the 1820 Missouri Compromise. The subject of expanding slavery to the new territories became a flash point between North and South.

First came the 1850 compromise legislation, which strengthened the fugitive slave law and outraged the North. Then in 1854, Congress repealed the Missouri Compromise altogether, unleashing a violent conflict in “Bleeding Kansas” over whether that territory would become free or slave. The 1857 Dred Scott decision—abrogating any rights of African Americans, enslaved or free—further outraged the North. And John Brown’s ill-planned 1859 attack at the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry stirred anger and fear throughout the South.

Through a decade, South Carolina, whose economy depended heavily on slave labor, struggled over whether to secede in a stand-alone act of defiance or to do so only in conjunction with other states. Meanwhile, Massachusetts became the country’s antislavery epicenter but debated whether the Constitution was worth saving in the effort to abolish bondage. Both states widened the divide between North and South until disunion became inevitable. Then, in December 1860, in the wake of the Lincoln election, South Carolina finally seceded, leading the South out of the Union.

Beginning with the deaths of the great second-generation figures of American history—Calhoun, Webster, and Clay—Decade of Disunion tells the story of this great American struggle through the aims, fears, and maneuvers of the subsequent prominent figures at the center of the drama, with particular attention to the key players from Massachusetts and South Carolina.

This history is a sobering reminder that democracy is not self-sustaining—it must be constantly and carefully tended.

©2024 Robert W. Merry (P)2024 Simon & Schuster Audio

Very good overview of the period

I have read a fair amount on the Civil War and thought that I was mostly knowledgeable about the period from the Missouri Compromise to the Douglas' concept of Popular Sovernty and thought that this book might fill in some information that I lacked. I was wrong both about this book and about my knowledge. Robert Merry's book taught me that I did not know nearly as much as I thought I did, and it brought to me much new information about the details of the march toward war.

All of the major individuals are here - Seward, Sumner, Garrison, Phillips, Pierce, Toombs, Yancey, Brown, Buchanan, Lincoln and the others, but the book details how each interacted both in the run up to war and with each other, and how each fared before and after the war. I first thought that the book was too detail oriented as it spent time on people I never heard of and events that did not seem important, but as the book progressed I realized just how thorough the book was and just how important some people were, even if they are not mentioned in many books. The book is about the decade preceding the war and does not touch on the war itself so people like Lee, Sherman, Grant and other military men are either not mentioned at all, or only as they related to events before the war, as with Lee being in command of the military force sent to end the Harper's Ferry raid and Scott's advice to Buchanan about fortifying Fort Sumter.

The narration was adequate, if not inspired, All in all I would recommend this book to anyone who wants more information about this period, about the caning of Charles Sumner, the background of John Brown, about "bleeding Kansas", the southern efforts to add parts of Mexico and Cuba to the US, about Buchanan's lack of actions during the period right up to Lincoln's election and other events critical to the start of the Civil War. An excellent and worthwhile look at an eventful decade.