Robert V. Bruce
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195089110
- eISBN:
- 9780199853830
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195089110.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter gives a stalking revelation of the fear that gripped America during its antebellum years of the Civil War. Following 1812 and until the Civil War, balancing the free and slave states was ...
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This chapter gives a stalking revelation of the fear that gripped America during its antebellum years of the Civil War. Following 1812 and until the Civil War, balancing the free and slave states was considered a primary goal towards the aim to “preserve the Union”. Many took it for granted that disunion meant war. Spontaneous uprisings against federal authority and state nullification of federal law were clear indicators of a forthcoming war in America. Words such as “disunion” and “civil war” haunted the psyche of Americans. Lincoln willed himself to believe that the unthinkable choice would not have to be made. However, “reconciliation” lay only in war. He rejected the expansion of slavery and its sustenance. “The tug has to come,” he said, “and better now than later”.Less
This chapter gives a stalking revelation of the fear that gripped America during its antebellum years of the Civil War. Following 1812 and until the Civil War, balancing the free and slave states was considered a primary goal towards the aim to “preserve the Union”. Many took it for granted that disunion meant war. Spontaneous uprisings against federal authority and state nullification of federal law were clear indicators of a forthcoming war in America. Words such as “disunion” and “civil war” haunted the psyche of Americans. Lincoln willed himself to believe that the unthinkable choice would not have to be made. However, “reconciliation” lay only in war. He rejected the expansion of slavery and its sustenance. “The tug has to come,” he said, “and better now than later”.
