Charles B. Dew, Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001).

SYNOPSIS:

Dew uses the speeches of the secession commissioners to examine the reasons these Southern secessionists gave for secession. These men emphasized in their speeches that Republican victory meant racial equality, racial amalgamation, and race war. Dew's narrative is aimed mainly at those who think slavery was not a causative factor in the coming of the war (relying instead on explanations such as states' rights). This book shows just how openly the secession commissioners linked slavery with the reasons for secession.

EXCERPT:

"The commissioners sent out to spread the secessionist gospel in late 1860 and early 1861 clearly believed that the racial fate of their region was hanging in the balance in the wake of Lincoln's election. Only through disunion could the South be saved from the disastrous effects of Republican principles and Republican malevolence. Hesitation, submission--any course other than immediate secession--would place both slavery and white supremacy on the road to certain extinction." (80)

"In setting out to explain secession to their fellow Southerners, the commissioners have explained a very great deal to us as well. By illuminating so clearly the racial content of the secession persuasion, the commissioners would seem to have laid to rest, once and for all, any notion that slavery had nothing to do with the coming of the Civil War. To put it quite simply, slavery and race were absolutely critical elements in the coming of the war." (81)

RELATIONSHIP:

Dew's book differs from our article in several important respects. Mainly, his book examines the rhetoric of the secession commissioners but not how it was received in Virginia. Our article explores the fundamental social logic by which some of that rhetoric might resonate with Augusta residents and Virginians generally and why much of it did not.

"White people in Augusta rarely discussed slavery openly and for the most part only did so under provocation when they hoped to defend their institution."

"Franklin County's papers spent more ink--almost all of it negative--on its nearly two thousand free blacks than Augusta did on its five thousand enslaved people."