I have read both volumes of Professor Freehling's "Road to Disunion" and this review is intended to apply to both volumes. I consider his work to be of the highest scholarship, impeccably researched, and very informative. Unfortunately, Professor Freehling's writing style seems to indicate that his work was prepared more for the perusal of his fellow Ph.D's than for the reading public. It is lamentable for those having an interest in this period of our history that he did not take a cue from writers and historians of this era such as Shelby Foote, Douglas Southall Freeman, Carl Sandburg, Allan Nevins, and Bruce Catton whose works are highly informative but at the same time very readable, flowing, actually entertaining.

One has to actually experience Professor Freehling's sentences and paragraphs to appreciate the difficulty of grasping some of them. He seems never to have met a suffix--and few prefixes--which he did not like. Social and political factions, groups, and sub-groups are inevitably named and labelled resulting in an exponential proliferation of nouns such as Secessionists, Unionists, Dis-unionists, Separatists, Cooperationists, Abolitionists, Borderites, Paternalists, Egalitarianists, Nativists, ex-Whigs, anti-slavery Democrats, Calhounism, Van Burenites, etc., ad infinitum. More than a few casual readers will likely find that a glossary, however sophomoric it might seem to Professor Freehling, would be helpful. I found myself reading many sentences two, three, even four times before feeling satisfied that I had grasped the intended meaning. Several entire paragraphs, after being subjected to similar scrutiny, were simply abandoned as I moved on through the work, resigned that, if I should ever be able to digest them, it simply would not be worth the effort.

On a substantive note, Professor Freehling, especially in Volume II, appears to conclude that the proponents of slavery, in their efforts to defend and protect their "peculiar institution" infringed and trampled upon the "Republicanism" of other whites, and tended thereby even to enslave such whites. He seems to offer this conclusion as an explanation for the fervor which opponents of slavery brought to the struggle against it. The primary example offered of such infringement of "Republican" rights is that for a number of years, the Democratic Party was controlled by a minority centered in the lower south, and that through the Democratic Party, then the major party in the nation, this southern minority in effect exercised control over a nationwide majority, thereby infringing upon the "Republican" right of majority rule. Other more concrete examples of infringement of "rights" were southern efforts to "gag" and censor abolitionist communication designed to agitate and incite resistance to slavery in the south, and actual violence offered to those inclined to go in person among slaves and non-slaveholding whites for such purposes. Southerners felt justified in such action by the basic necessity of self-preservation due to the omnipresent threat of slave violence, a threat which would be exacerbated if violent tendencies should be inflamed by agitation.

It is unimaginable to me that any Yankee soldier--indeed anyone opposed to the South and/or slavery--in the Civil War ever said or thought that his (or her) "Republicanism" was threatened by the South or that any white person was in danger of enslavement by the South. Even if Professor Freehling's conclusion is considered as merely an articulation of some unspoken visceral reaction to slaveholders, what purpose is served by such a contrived articulation? Is it the result of academic pressure to forever derive and construct some new insight or theory upon one of the most studied and exposed eras of history? If the people who lived in that era did not articulate their views in such terms, and if nobody else in modern society considers the matter in such terms, what is the value of expounding upon history in such contrived fashion?

My conclusion is that Professor Freehling's somewhat strained efforts to bring new insights to an old story have rendered his telling of the story unnecessarily difficult to follow. I do recommend reading his work, but I would not recommend that the casual reader plunge into it without some prior familiarization with the history of the era. Potter's "The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861" may be considered one of the leading works on the subject prior to the publication of "Road to Disunion", and the casual reader might be well-advised to take them in chronological order of publication.

I was a big fan of Freehling's first volume, but I believe the second volume is even better than its predecessor. Perhaps this is because Freehling devotes so many pages to a shorter time period so you get a fuller picture of what was going on. Or perhaps it is because of the fact that Freehling did so much research and uncovered interesting stories that had previously been skipped over. Whatever the reason, if you are interested in the causes of the Civil War or 19th century American history, pick this up. Freehling's writing style is unique, but I didn't find it detrimental at all.

I appreciate Dr. Freehling's comments (in the Preface) that this is not just an academic history, but a readable book. I feel that he is right (and wrong) on both counts. This is a DEFINITIVE academic history of 1854-1861, but there is no context of Southern (or Southron) culture as in the first Road to Disunion book, and so this book does not stand well on its own, independent of the first volume.
It is also not a "readable" book. There is no narrative flow. It is simply a series of dissertations on minor persons and incidents chopped up chronologically or by theme (Four men named John?(!)). There is no sense of a cascade of events here. John G. Fee (who?) gets as many pages as John Brown. It is impressive that Dr. Freehling is able to immerse himself in the minutia of proslavery (or religious, or economic, or political, etc) arguments of the 1850s, but not terribly interesting or enlightening.
I teach a college class, Why We Fight: American Civil War, so I feel qualified in saying that if you are a Civil War fanatic, you will find some undiscovered jewels here, the evolution and change of proslavery tracts being but one example. If however, you are a more casual reader of American history, there is little here to draw your attention or sustain it. Freehling is, in every sense, exhaustive.

I was a little bit disappointed because the book lacked a fair bit of context. For example, I know that a Senator from South Carolina preferred his slave concubine to his wife, but otherwise I would have to read another book to really understand what was going on. So, I appreciated the mini-biographies of the players leading up to the war, but I felt that there was a huge hole in my understanding of 1854 - 1861.

Freehling's research is quite good, but his analysis often seems flawed. Like so many Civil War researchers, Freehling generally seems to blur the distinction between what issues caused the conflict and what issues motivated Southerners to actually join the army and risk their lives in the fight. While slavery was certainly a prominent, but hardly exclusive, cause of the war, it seems to have played a relatively minor role in motivating the bulk of the Southerners who actually died fighting. Freehling's error is a common one, but it detracts from an otherwise interesting book. Still, the book is worth reading for people interested in the period -- just be sure to complement your reading with other books to get a more complete set of perspectives.

No matter how good your research is, you get a 1 star if your writing is awful!

Seventeen years ago Freehling's Road to Disunion Vol. I was published and we Freehling fans have been impatient for this book to come out. It has been along wait but worth it. Professor Freehling has outdone himself on Road II. If there is a problem with this book it is that you can't afford to "skip" a paragraph because you think you know all about the subject. You find a fact, a thought, or a conclusion you never thought of before. Thid book is surely the crowning jewel in Wm. Freehling's bejeweled crown. Thank you, Dr. Freehling.

Barrie W. Bracken, Researcher

If you like Freehings Road to disunion volume I: Secessionists at bay, then you wan't be sorry getting volume II. It is written in the same style and with great analysis. You can just pick this up where you left part one. Just like volume I had many topics and events that have not been included in other antebellum histoybooks, this volume offers a lot of fresh insights about the storming 1850:s that other books miss. This book must be considered, if not the best general history of the south during theese years, one of the top 3 best. If you are interested in the pre civil war era...don't miss this book!!