{"product_id":"the-road-to-disunion-secessionists-at-bay-17761854-volume-i-9780195058147","title":"The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay  1776-1854: Volume I","description":"\u003cp\u003eFar from a monolithic block of diehard slave states  the South in the eight decades before the Civil War was  in William Freehlings words  \"a world so lushly various as to be a storytellers dream.\" It was a world where Deep South cotton planters clashed with South Carolina rice growers  where the egalitarian spirit sweeping the North seeped down through border states already uncertain about slavery  where even sections of the same state (for instance  coastal and mountain Virginia) divided bitterly on key issues. It was the world of Jefferson Davis  John C. Calhoun  Andrew Jackson  and Thomas Jefferson  and also of Gullah Jack  Nat Turner  and Frederick Douglass. Now  in the first volume of his long awaited  monumental study of the Souths road to disunion  historian William Freehling offers a sweeping political and social history of the antebellum South from 1776 to 1854. All the dramatic events leading to secession are here: the Missouri Compromise  the Nullification Controversy  the Gag Rule (\"the Pearl Harbor of the slavery controversy\")  the Annexation of Texas  the Compromise of 1850  and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Freehling vividly recounts each crisis  illuminating complex issues and sketching colorful portraits of major figures. Along the way  he reveals the surprising extent to which slavery influenced national politics before 1850  and he provides important reinterpretations of American republicanism  Jeffersonian states rights  Jacksonian democracy  and the causes of the American Civil War. But for all Freehlings brilliant insight into American antebellum politics  Secessionists at Bay is at bottom the saga of the rich social tapestry of the pre-war South. He takes us to old Charleston  Natchez  and Nashville  to the big house of a typical plantation  and we feel anew the tensions between the slaveowner and his family  the poor whites and the planters  the established South and the newer South  and especially between the slave and his master  \"Cuffee\" and \"Massa.\" Freehling brings the Old South back to life in all its color  cruelty  and diversity. It is a memorable portrait  certain to be a key analysis of this crucial era in American history.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45279597199413,"sku":"ByrdShop_0195058143","price":28.4,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780195058147.jpg?v=1780603334","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-road-to-disunion-secessionists-at-bay-17761854-volume-i-9780195058147","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}