I just finished this book yesterday. I have found that there is already 50+ 5 star reviews of this book, but I could not refrain from writing one myself.

This book was simply amazing. I could hardly put it down. It is definetly NOT a history of the Civil War, from a military standpoint. It IS a history of the War from a political standpoint. The major arguement is whether secession is legal or not under Constitutional law. That is a question best left to the book. Though the author does make a pretty strong arguement in favor of secession being legal. Using historical precedents that predate the war, as well as the thoughts on the subject concerning the Founders.

I will that I was impressed by all the new information about Lincoln that I had not known. The more I read about Lincoln, the REAL Lincoln, the less I like about him. This book also deals with the subject of Reconstruction. It is informative, and has sparked my interest in learning more about the period immediately following the war.

I give this book a well-earned 5 stars!

This is book seems to me like a manifesto on why the KKK was justified in terrorizing black people. Everyone who knows anything about Lincoln knows that he wasn't a racist but, he also was willing to do whatever had to be done to perserve the union. No President before or since has had to deal with such an issue. The man live through and extremely tough time period, politically and personally. I found this book offensive and demeaning to a historically great president. Our some of Charles Adams arguments true? Yes. But, to make such claims as the freed blacks brought on their harsh treatment after the Civil War is absurd. Racist and people who still believe the South will rise again, for whatever reason, will like this book.

As a historian, I have learned that the heart of any great work in history lies in the ample and accurate use of primary sources, and primary sources are the great strength of this work. While countless tomes have debated the perceived moral sides of the Civil War and the motivations of the various actors, this work goes back and investigates the motives of the primary players in this time from their own words and writings. This gives the work an excellent realism and accuracy.

The author, Charles Adams, has earned a reputation as one of the leading economic historians in the field, particularly in the area of taxes. He utilizes this background to investigate the American Civil War, and comes to some very striking conclusions, many that defy the politically-correct history of today. His thesis postulates that the Civil War had its primary cause not in slavery or state's rights, but rather in cold, hard economic concerns.

He shows that the North used its supremacy in Congress in push through massive tariffs to fund the government, and that these tariffs fell much harder on the export-dependent South than upon the insular north. In fact, the total revenue from the "Compromise" Tariffs on the 1830s and 40s amounted to $107.5 million, of which $90 million came from the South. Despite by this, the majority of the revenue was spent on projects from the South.

According to Adams, this disparity finally pushed the South to seek its own independence. Supporting this conclusion is the fact that the South enacted extremely low tariffs throughout the war, whereas the north enacted the Morrill Tariff of 1861, which enacted tariffs of as much as 50 percent on some goods.

Adams also chronicles the oft-overlooked excesses of the Lincoln Administration, and compares them to the actions of Julius Caesar. While this initially made me quite skeptical, his plentiful, primary source-based examples overcame my qualms. Using the letters and reports of the times, he tells how Lincoln suspended habeus corpus, trod roughshod over the Constitution, jailed thousands of U.S. citizens who dared disagree with him and even wrote a warrant for the arrest of the Chief Justice of the United States.

Adams also ably uses the viewpoints of British and other Europeans to describe different contemporary views on the struggle. These provide excellent outside insight.

On the whole, readers will find the book a superb and scholarly analysis, providing fresh insights into the motivations and causes of the defining war in American history.

This book was superb. I would write a short description and/or critique; however, much of what I have to say has been covered in earlier reviews. Every student in the south should be required to read this book. Our ancestors were not traitors. We held the true government of the founding fathers on our backs in every battle.

Southrons, hear your country call you!
Up, lest worse than death befall you!
To arms ! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!
Lo! All the beacon-fires are lighted,
Let all hearts be now united!
To arms ! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!

Advance the flag of Dixie
Hurrah! Hurrah!
For Dixie's land we take our stand,
And live or die for Dixie!
To Arms! To Arms!
And conquer peace for Dixie
To Arms! To Arms
And conquer peace for Dixie

Hear the Northern thunders mutter!
Northern flags in South winds flutter!
To arms ! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!
Send them back your fierce defiance!
Stamp upon the accursed alliance!
To arms ! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!

Advance the flag of Dixie
Hurrah! Hurrah!
For Dixie's land we take our stand,
And live or die for Dixie!
To Arms! To Arms!
And conquer peace for Dixie
To Arms! To Arms
And conquer peace for Dixie

Fear no danger! Shun no labor!
Lift up rifle, pike and saber!
To arms ! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!
Shoulder pressing close to shoulder,
Let the odds make each heart bolder!
To arms ! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!

Advance the flag of Dixie
Hurrah! Hurrah!
For Dixie's land we take our stand,
And live or die for Dixie!
To Arms! To Arms!
And conquer peace for Dixie
To Arms! To Arms
And conquer peace for Dixie

Swear upon our country's altar
Never to submit or to falter,
To arms ! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!
Till the spoilers are defeated,
Till the Lord's work is completed!
To arms ! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!

Advance the flag of Dixie
Hurrah! Hurrah!
For Dixie's land we take our stand,
And live or die for Dixie!
To Arms! To Arms!
And conquer peace for Dixie
To Arms! To Arms
And conquer peace for Dixie

I've never seen such poor research from a so-called historian. How would you interpret such inanity as the following: When he discusses the KKK, Adams concludes "Now the threat of a black-Yankee takeover of the South was over. The Klan continued because the Yankees did not completely disappear." Maybe that was a very minor motivation for the Klan's existence, but the author should go on to explain why racism was NOT the main motivation for its activity. Adams acts as if racism is a minor side note. My response to him is, if the KKK was primarily there to stop the Yankees, why weren't Yankees being lynched left and right as the blacks were? The historian goes on to display his idiocy, claiming that even "ardent abolitionists" regarded blacks as an inferior race (p.159). Does he follow this bold claim by providing historical evidence, perhaps from the writings of ACTUAL abolitionists? Of course not! There are these things called primary documents and sources. Mr. Adams, you might want to try using them once in a while.

I am a northerner, whose grandparents immigrated to the U.S. between 1895 and 1914. I was taught that Lincoln was the greatest president in U.S. history because he preserved the Union. So when a friend suggested that I read this book, I was intrigued. I will try to present the book's strengths and weaknesses in an objective manner.

There are two significant weaknesses, and they are obvious. The author states on page 52 that Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus, and that over 10,000 people were arrested and held without trial. He cites many sources of people who complained about the arrests. But Mr. Adams names only two (Messrs. Merryman and Vallandigham) and the Maryland state legislature and its Southern sympathizers (51). This total of 53 is less than 1% of 10,000. Mr. Adams would have solidified his argument if he had quoted several references to help him reach 10,000.

Similarly, the author states that Lincoln shut down over 300 newspapers that opposed his policies. But on page 41, Mr. Adams names only 16 specific papers. He does quote one source that said, "scores" were shut down, but scores could be 100 (five score). Where are the rest? There are no references.

The second weakness is that the book repeatedly wanders from the topic. Chapter 1 discusses the history of secession, but the 10th Amendment is mentioned only in Chapter 12 (page 181). There are others: Chapters 2 and 4 cover tariffs and trade (the main reason for the war), but specific statements in Chapters 5 and 6 should have been mentioned in Chapters 2 or 4, and then referenced in the later chapters.

But these weaknesses are overwhelmed by the book's strengths.

The book's greatest strength is its list of references, both old (1862) and new (1998). There are more than 100 references, which support some of the more shocking facts in the book. The author makes a very strong case for the South's right to secede, citing both U.S. and world precedents.

These references adequately support the author's insistence that Lincoln was a tyrant, such as Lincoln's order to arrest the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Adams cited two specific references, of which one was a first-hand account.

The author supplies many references to show that the war was started over money, not slavery. (Read Lincoln's First Inaugural Address.) Ironically, it was an English writer (John Stuart Mill) who was the first to write about slavery as the real reason for the war, in February 1862.

The book is by no means disjointed. I could not have written it, but I think its organization could have been better.

There were some statements with which I strongly disagreed, but they aren't relevant here. The two main points that I learned were: 1. states have the right to secede, and 2. Lincoln was a tyrant.

"You must not tell the truth if it hurts a national hero." - Anonymous commentator, cited in "The Last Place on Earth," by Roland Huntford.

Did you know...

- That Abraham Lincoln, in his first inaugural address, stated his support for the Corwin Amendment, which had just passed Congress, and which would have guaranteed the existence of slavery in perpetuity as an 'unamendable amendment' to the United States Constitution?

- That, at the start of the war in 1861, Congress passed a resolution stating that the war "is not waged on our part...for interfering with the rights, or established institutions of these [the Confederate] States"...meaning slavery?

- That Abraham Lincoln actually contermanded emancipation orders issued by Union General Fremont in Missouri early in the war on the basis that "It was a war for a great national idea, the Union" and that "General Fremont should not have dragged the Negro into it"?

- That Lincoln wrote to Horace Greeley (a prominent abolitionist and editor of the New York Tribune) stating that, "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it"?

- That Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed only those slaves in areas of the Confederate States that were not controlled by Union armies, but left those in occupied territory and border states in slavery?

- That Congress, devoid of any representatives from the Confederate States, did not pass an amendment to outlaw slavery until December of 1865, months after Lincoln was dead and the war was over?

All of the above are facts, and yet few Americans are aware of them. Why? For that simple reason that, since the end of the war in 1865, a concerted effort has been made to present Abraham Lincoln and his comrades in Union blue as humanitarian crusaders bent on achieving the equality referred to the in the Declaration of Independence.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Lincoln himself stated many times that he was not in favor of equality between the races, a fact underscored by his participation in the American Colonization Society: an organization dedicated to relocating American blacks in such places as Africa and South America - anywhere but the United States. Had Lincoln and his Republican colleagues pushed for racial equality, the GOP would have died in its infancy. Lincoln himself admitted in 1858 that the vast majority of Americans (including himself) strongly opposed the idea.

Nevertheless, the modern image of Lincoln as a 19th Moses leading slaves out of bondage should not surprise us. All throughout human history, the factions that have won wars have done their best to present themselves in the best light possible, while simultaneously denegrating their enemies. They do this for two primary reasons: 1) to morally justify the enormous loss of life and destruction that wars cause, and 2) so that future generations will embrace them as heroes and accept their vision of the world. Sometimes, what they have to say is true; sometimes it is not. It is up to us to look back into the past, weigh the facts for ourselves, and decide where the virtue and blame truly lie in the history of any given conflict.

For those interested in the American war of 1861-1865, Charles Adams' book "When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession" should, along with the works of men such as Thomas DiLorenzo and Clyde Wilson, be considered 'equal time for the other side'. As such, I believe it is well worth your time and careful consideration.

"The thesis that the solid South seceded to protect slavery just does not make sense," writes Adams. "The institution of slavery had never been more secure for the slave owners, with the Supreme Court in their back pocket; with the Constitution itself expressly protecting slavery and mandating the return of fugitive slaves everywhere -- a mandate Lincoln said he would enforce; with Lincoln also declaring that he had no right to interfere with slavery and no personal inclination to do so; with Lincoln personally supporting a new constitutional amendment protecting slavery forever -- an amendment expressly made irrevocable." Indeed, rather than slavery, Adams argues that the war between North and South had more to do with taxation and competing economic interests; and he supports this assertion with an impressive variety of facts. Of particular interest here is that Adams quotes extensively from European sources, including newspaper accounts and the perspectives of such well-known figures as Charles Dickens and Karl Marx. Of all the books I have read on this subject, none weigh the international opinion so frankly and heavily as Adams does for us here. He also takes time to investigate the history of secession and to compare and contrast the ideology of the American Revolution with that of Lincoln and his Northern war partners. Again, the European perspective is evaluated, and we are treated to such thought-provoking quotes as the following from England's Cornhill Magazine: "With what pretence of fairness, it is said, can you Americans object to the secession of the Southern States when your nation was founded on secession from the British Empire?"

The only real words of criticism that I have for Adams is that I believe he downplays the role of slavery too much when he evaluates the causes of secession. He is absolutely correct in maintaining that the war was not fought over the question of slavery, but that does not mean that it played no role whatsoever in the events leading up to the war. There are prominent references to slavery in several of the secession ordinances of the Southern states; and while Adams would maintain that those references represent so much political posturing, I disagree. Although few Southerners actually owned slaves, slavery itself was an essential element of the Deep South economy, and an important aspect of the overall social fabric of 19th Century America (even many in the Northern states had no desire to see slavery end, as it might mean that freed blacks could move north). Thus, there were very real concerns regarding the institution and how Lincoln and his "Black Republicans" might interfere with it. Adams points out that Lincoln had promised not to interfere with it, but he forgets that Southerners trusted Lincoln about as far as they could throw him. I think Adams might have tackled the issue more successfully had he focused on the fact that, while several Southern states did mention slavery prominently in their ordinances of secession, the majority of their comments on the issue focused on sectional feeling (the "sectional, anti-slavery party in Washington," as South Carolina put it) and slavery's economic importance to the South (see Mississippi's ordinance). These factors tie back into his main thesis, while acknowledging that slavery did play a role in the secessions of the first seven Southern states to leave the Union (the latter four states seceded because of Lincoln's call for troops to be used against the first seven seceded states). Southerners simply had no desire to be dictated to, not on any issue; and they seceded when they became convinced that Northern interests had taken over the federal government, and that their best hope for protecting their interests lay outside the Union.

The 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth will be upon us in less than two years, and between now and then we will undoubtedly be subjected to a barrage of the usual Abe Lincoln-as-messiah-and-patriot-extraordinaire mythology. Swallow it if you will; but for those of you who are interested in the candid, and often downright ugly, truth about America's 16th president and its most disastrous conflict, I cannot recommend "When in the Course of Human Events" highly enough. My quibbles with him aside, Adams presents his evidence and conclusions in such a even-handed, scholarly and compelling manner that only the most ardent Lincoln admirers will be able to put the book down and walk away unaffected by it.

Also recommended in the 'equal time' department: "The Real Lincoln" and "Lincoln Unmasked", both by Thomas DiLorenzo; "Is Davis a Traitor?" by Albert Taylor Bledsoe; "The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government," by Jefferson Davis; "From Union to Empire: Essays in the Jeffersonian Tradition," by Clyde Wilson and Joseph Stromberg; and "A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States," by Alexander H. Stephens.

"You must not tell the truth if it hurts a national hero." - Anonymous commentator, cited in "The Last Place on Earth," by Roland Huntford.

Did you know...

- That Abraham Lincoln, in his first inaugural address, stated his support for the Corwin Amendment, which had just passed Congress, and which would have guaranteed the existence of slavery in perpetuity as an 'unamendable amendment' to the United States Constitution?

- That, at the start of the war in 1861, Congress passed a resolution stating that the war "is not waged on our part...for interfering with the rights, or established institutions of these [the Confederate] States"...meaning slavery?

- That Abraham Lincoln actually contermanded emancipation orders issued by Union General Fremont in Missouri early in the war on the basis that "It was a war for a great national idea, the Union" and that "General Fremont should not have dragged the Negro into it"?

- That Lincoln wrote to Horace Greeley (a prominent abolitionist and editor of the New York Tribune) stating that, "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it"?

- That Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed only those slaves in areas of the Confederate States that were not controlled by Union armies, but left those in occupied territory and border states in slavery?

- That Congress, devoid of any representatives from the Confederate States, did not pass an amendment to outlaw slavery until December of 1865, months after Lincoln was dead and the war was over?

All of the above are facts, and yet few Americans are aware of them. Why? For that simple reason that, since the end of the war in 1865, a concerted effort has been made to present Abraham Lincoln and his comrades in Union blue as humanitarian crusaders bent on achieving the equality referred to the in the Declaration of Independence.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Nor should this surprise us. All throughout human history, the factions that have won wars have done their best to present themselves in the best light possible, while simultaneously denegrating their enemies. They do this in the hope that future generations will embrace them as heroes and accept their vision of the world. Sometimes, what they have to say is true; sometimes it is not. It is up to us to look back into the past, weigh the facts for ourselves, and decide where the virtue and blame truly lie in the history of any given conflict.

For those interested in the American war of 1861-1865, Charles Adams' book "When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession" should, along with the works of men such as Thomas DiLorenzo and Clyde Wilson, be considered 'equal time for the other side'. As such, I believe it is well worth your time and careful consideration.

"The thesis that the solid South seceded to protect slavery just does not make sense," writes Adams. "The institution of slavery had never been more secure for the slave owners, with the Supreme Court in their back pocket; with the Constitution itself expressly protecting slavery and mandating the return of fugitive slaves everywhere -- a mandate Lincoln said he would enforce; with Lincoln also declaring that he had no right to interfere with slavery and no personal inclination to do so; with Lincoln personally supporting a new constitutional amendment protecting slavery forever -- an amendment expressly made irrevocable." Indeed, rather than slavery, Adams argues that the war between North and South had more to do with taxation and competing economic interests; and he supports this assertion with an impressive variety of facts. Of particular interest here is that Adams quotes extensively from European sources, including newspaper accounts and the perspectives of such well-known figures as Charles Dickens and Karl Marx. Of all the books I have read on this subject, none weigh the international opinion so frankly and heavily as Adams does for us here. He also takes time to investigate the history of secession and to compare and contrast the ideology of the American Revolution with that of Lincoln and his Northern war partners. Again, the European perspective is evaluated, and we are treated to such thought-provoking quotes as the following from England's Cornhill Magazine: "With what pretence of fairness, it is said, can you Americans object to the secession of the Southern States when your nation was founded on secession from the British Empire?"

The 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth will be upon us in less than two years, and between now and then we will undoubtedly be subjected to a barrage of the usual Abe Lincoln-as-messiah-and-patriot-extraordinaire mythology. Swallow it if you will; but for those of you who are interested in the candid, and often downright ugly truth about America's 16th president and its greatest conflict, I cannot recommend "When in the Course of Human Events" highly enough. Adams presents his evidence and conclusions in such a even-handed, scholarly and compelling manner that only the most ardent Lincoln admirers will be able to put the book down and walk away unaffected by it.

Also recommended in the 'equal time' department: "The Real Lincoln" and "Lincoln Unmasked", both by Thomas DiLorenzo; "Is Davis a Traitor?" by Albert Taylor Bledsoe; "The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government," by Jefferson Davis; "From Union to Empire: Essays in the Jeffersonian Tradition," by Clyde Wilson and Joseph Stromberg; and "A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States," by Alexander H. Stephens.

Like most of us I grew up learning that the Civil War was fought to free the slaves, and that Abraham Lincoln was the Great Emancipator who freed all the slaves admirably once and for all. But over the years this story was just not adding up for me anymore.

For one, when has any country really fought a war only for moral issues and not economic and political ones? With this in mind does it really make sense that American families would send hundreds of thousands of their own children to their graves to fight a war to end slavery in the 1860s? If this was true, and these people felt so strongly about giving rights to the blacks, then why weren't black soldiers allowed to fight alongside white soldiers in our military until the Korean War approximately 90 years after the Civil War ended? Does it make sense that white families would volunteer their sons to fight for this cause if the government still wouldn't allow blacks and whites to fight together for another 90 years?

In addition, why then during the Civil War did Lincoln allow West Virginia to be admitted to the Union as a slave state more than two years after the war began? And why were the slave owners in the North allowed to keep their slaves throughout the entire Civil War? The underlying reason is because the Civil War was much more about money, economics, and politics than it was about slavery.

In this book Charles Adams shows us how the Southern states were simply sick and tired of how they were being treated by the North. 87% of the country's taxes were collected from the people in the South, with the majority of this tax money being spent on projects in the North. The South really wanted to secede from the Union because of this and some other issues, and the North recognized they would be devastated economically if they ever allowed this to happen. In addition, the South controlled the best shipping ports in the Union, and the North recognized they would be dealt a serious blow if they ever lost access to these ports themselves.

So when the war began, the people in the North were told it was all about the importance of preserving the Union, and nothing about ending slavery was mentioned at the time. The book shows letters, quotes, and newspaper articles that were written at the time confirming the North's position on this, and some of the articles came from Europe which had a more unbiased opinion in reporting on the war than the Northern and Southern journalists did.

The book also points out how Lincoln closed down hundreds of newspapers in the North for writing articles against the war, and how he imprisoned politicians for expressing their opposition to the war also. He even went so far as to order the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to be arrested for disagreeing with him.

As it's been said by many over the years, the Emancipation Proclamation freed no one. It only declared the slaves in the Southern states not already under Union control to be free from slavery. This Emancipation Proclamation was issued in January of 1863, almost two years after the war began. And when it was issued there were riots in the North because people were angry at the thought of the war being about ending slavery and freeing the blacks, not about preserving the Union for their own economic interests. And as the book points out...racism was actually far worse in the North than it was in the South.

Some of the Northern states allowed slavery, and most of the other Northern states either forbid blacks to live there or forbid them to own any property there. And as far as the abolitionists were concerned, there were those who thought slavery to be immoral, but the most vocal abolitionists were vehemently against slavery because they wanted no blacks living in any state in the Union whatsoever. This explains much about why racism has existed for so long in our country, both in the North and in the South. And surprisingly it was Indiana, a Northern state, that was the one with the highest percentage of its population who eventually became members of the Ku Klux Klan.

One interesting note is the fact that Lincoln's original Emancipation Proclamation was issued in September of 1862, four months before the one we've become familiar with was issued. In the earlier Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln offered the Southern states the right to come back, rejoin the Union, and keep their slaves if they'd agree to end the war. But the Southern states refused to do so, indicating that there was much more at stake for them to fight over than just keeping their slaves.

The idea of making the war look like it was really about slavery came only after it had been fought for about 12-18 months, and the North had been taking a beating both on the battlefields and in the media worldwide. They were being chastised for refusing to allow states to secede from the Union from what was seen as an oppressive government that was taxing the people of the South unjustly. And the international media talked about how ironic it was that the South wanted to secede for almost identical reasons as the original colonies did when they signed the Declaration of Independence and fought the British for their independence in the American Revolution. But in the Civil War, the North was convinced they needed the 87% of the taxes the South had been paying, and they weren't going to let the South secede and stop paying these taxes to them.

This book is one of the best ones I've ever read on any subject, and I definitely recommend it.

Charles Adams is a man possessed: possessed of hatred for Abraham Lincoln, the North, and the United States of the 21st century. That the book is not history is proven by its subtitle: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession. An historian would not argue a case for or against any historical event. Like his counterpart Thomas DiLorenzo, Adams is an unhappy man who feels driven to trash the entire American historical scene with incomplete, anachronistic arguments. Neither man delves deeply enough into history, although Adams is the better of the two in that regard. Suffice it to say that if you truly want history, Adams and DiLorenzo are not the men to deliver it.

I give this one a single-star review, for many of the same reasons discussed in the previous 1- and 2-star reviews.

I give this one a single-star review, for many of the same reasons discussed in the previous 1- and 2-star reviews.

Too many fail to realize that the secession-crisis was far older than the slavery-debacle, going back to 1832 regarding the Nullification-crisis-- whereby President Jackson claimed that the federal government held supreme national authority over the states, even though the Founders and Framers-- particularly Madison and Jefferson-- claimed that the states were individually sovereign in being able to nullify federal law and/or secede from the union entirely.

This issue was over tarriffs on imports such as Whiskey and sugar-- not slavery, and eventually grew into the Civil War when nullification became secession.

While slavery was listed as a cause of secession by some states, this was not a protest of a federal act, so much a protest of northern states' violating Constitutional fugitive-slave agreements, by using THEIR sovereign power to nullify these laws, and refusing to comply with them by sending slaves back; some southern states seceded over this contractual breach by other states.

Secession only became war, because the federal government declared it illegal; the South did not WANT war, but would not give up their claim to sovereignty without a fight. Therefore the war was not over tariffs or slaves, but the right of secession; the union invaded to prevent that, not to free slaves or collect tariffs!

Adams is wrong, however, that "secession's legality should have been determined by the courts;" for unilateral secession could be justified only by state sovereignty-- and federal courts cannot HAVE jurisdiction over a sovereign state, only a subordinate one.

Therefore by this argument, Adams harms his own premise, since this implies that the states were subordinate, not sovereign-- and thus had NO inherent right of secession.

I found the book to be well written and very well documented. It should be required reading in every school. Its time for historical accuracy instead of political correctness.

I find it a healthy thing to see so many differing opinions expressed regarding Adam's book. A lively discussion does justice for those seeking some semblance of the truth.

One area of contention, however, that puzzles me is the feverant declaration by a minority of readers that slavery WAS the primary reason for the Civil War. Of course there were those who fought to be rid of this most monstrous of practices and those who fought for quite the opposite reason, but given slavery was declared constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court (Dred Scott Decision in a 7-2 vote) it hardly stands to reason the Constitution was on Mr. Lincoln's side. In fact in the same decision the Supreme Court struck down the Missouri Compromise that had tried to limit the further spread of slavery in the territories. Slavery, the court said, could not be so limited and the Compromise was declared UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

Had the south wished only to protect the institution of Slavery, it could have sat on its pea-picking duff and thumbed its nose at Mr. Lincoln, the same gentleman I assume who had not crossed his fingers when he took the oath of office to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States. The safest place for slavery's continuance would have been from within the United States, not outside its borders! Perhaps another reason existed??

Well worth the read!

I find it a healthy thing to see so many differing opinions expressed regarding Adam's book. A lively discussion does justice for those seeking some semblance of the truth.

One area of contention, however, that puzzles me is the feverant declaration by a minority of readers that slavery WAS the primary reason for the Civil War. Of course there were those who fought to be rid of this most monstrous of practices and those who fought for quite the opposite reason, but given slavery was declared constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court (Dred Scott Decision in a 7-2 vote) it hardly stands to reason the Constitution was on Mr. Lincoln's side. In fact in the same decision the Supreme Court struck down the Missouri Compromise that had tried to limit the further spread of slavery in the territories. Slavery, the court said, could not be so limited and the Compromise was declared UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

Had the south wished only to protect the institution of Slavery, it could have sat on its pea-picking duff and thumbed its nose at Mr. Lincoln, the same gentleman I assume who had not crossed his fingers when he took the oath of office to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States. The safest place for slavery's continuance would have been from within the United States, not outside its borders! Perhaps another reason existed??

Well worth the read!

As a card holding member of the SCV and one of the founding members of the Naples, FL Civil War Roundtable, I can only say this: if you want to know why we had "the war" and what "really" happened after it, you must read this book.

Since I am 80 years old - my recollection of the aftermath of the Invasion of the south by the north - is still fairly current.
I remember the tales told to me by father, grandfather and mother, even the children of some freed slaves. That was in north Louisiana where General Butler - the butcher ruled.
The book has a few errors in my opinion, but very few.
Talk about terrorists - our government wins that game in spades.

war Crimes ? Many would be convicted if they were German.

The thing that bothers me right now is that our government seems to be making the exact same errors, that Lincoln made.