Book: ‘Decade of Disunion’
by Mark Franke
I have a fondness for counter-factual history, perhaps too much so. This category of fiction begins with a what if question about some critical point in history and then hypothesizes a chain of events to follow. Some end up with a radically different ending while others argue that history would have worked itself back to the same end point.
This type of thinking can be an interesting diversion or simply a recreational mental vacation. But it can be serious stuff as well. For example, what needed to happen for the American Civil War to be prevented? Was there a possible political outcome which would have prevented disunion and dealt with slavery? I am not embarrassed to admit that I cannot see one.
After reading Robert W. Merry’s “Decade of Disunion: How Massachusetts and South Carolina Led the Way to Civil War, 1849-1861” (Simon & Schuster 2024, 440 pages plus notes, $16 hardcover at Amazon), I still don’t see how.
Merry’s thesis is that radicals in Massachusetts and South Carolina were resolved to force disunion by adopting a “no compromise” position on any issue that touched on slavery, even indirectly. For example, the goal of building a trans-continental railroad was subsumed into the slavery debate as both sides demanded it be routed through their territory.
The book begins with the last years of the three legislative giants of the post-Jackson era: John Calhoun, Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. They were all unionists despite their differences on slavery and so found ways to keep the lid on, so to speak, through compromises. Henry Clay’s great Compromise of 1850 appeared as a victory for the moderates but it soon came unraveled for several reasons, not least of which was its component Fugitive Slave Act. Then the Kansas-Nebraska Act put the final nail into the compromise coffin even though many thought it a reasonable compromise based on its principle of popular sovereignty.
As the three giants passed away, new faces emerged but none had the stature and therefore the influence of the original three. Congressional coalitions came and went with no apparent regard for party lines. One of the most interesting stories within the story is the decline and death of the Whig Party, formed as a textbook example of uniting disparate interests in a goal to win power and to use it for its one big idea for a better America. Even the Democrat Party, which survived the 1850’s political bloodletting, still found itself weakened due to splintering and total splitting by 1860.
The political landscape is difficult to understand, let alone follow its rapidly changing vista, but Merry does a reasonable job of explaining it. His editorial methodology is to bounce between South Carolina and Massachusetts, tracking the increasing influence of the most extreme voices in each state. Machinations in Congress, beginning with an inability of the House of Representatives to choose a Speaker in 1849, don’t seem all that different from what we have today . . . and that is unnerving.
Presidential elections were a confused mess as the parties struggled to nominate candidates who could unite the activists and attract the undecided. Again, the 1850s don’t seem that much different from the 2020s. I hope I am being overly pessimistic on this.
The point of no return was what Merry calls “The Six Days in May” of 1856. It was marked by violence on both sides, violence vigorously applauded by each side’s adherents. Bleeding Kansas is one example but perhaps the most egregious single incident was the brutal caning of Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner by South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks while other senators stood by and watched. Note the two states involved, lending credence to Merry’s thesis.
The point of no return can be argued but my sense is that John Brown’s 1859 armed occupation of the federal armory at Harper’s Ferry is a better choice for it. In this I disagree mildly with Merry but he makes a good argument for the Six Days in May. Blame it on my tendency toward naivete when seeing the inherent goodness in my fellow Americans, then and now, but I could still hope for a peaceful solution until Harper’s Ferry.
The year ended with a confused presidential election, one that saw the rise of the Republican Party from the ashes of the Whigs, Free Soilers and Know Nothings. The significance of the Republican Party was its intentional appeal to Northern states with no attempt to find support in the South. The Whig vision of a national party united around a platform of common interests was truly dead and buried. This “North states only” campaign objective understandably caused concern in the South.
Merry continues his story up to Fort Sumter but by now in the book one gets a sense of events spiraling out of control, relentlessly deteriorating to an outcome modern readers know is coming. The Dred Scott decision is almost an afterthought although Merry provides an interesting insight into Chief Justice Roger Taney’s thinking behind the decision.
Merry introduces us to several lesser-known figures and places some of the better-known actors onto a moderate to extremist continuum. Abraham Lincoln’s moderate views on slavery, that of containment, helped somewhat in forming the Republican Party but alienated both extremes. Moderates in South Carolina, a state with a pro-union majority, became fervently secessionist after Lincoln’s election, despite his promise not to interfere with slavery in the Southern states.
Hindsight makes South Carolina’s abrupt about face on secession appear hysterically irrational but Merry explains the psychology well enough. Southerners preferred to listen to the Massachusetts abolitionists on what a Republican administration would do rather than Lincoln himself as to his presidential plans. Lincoln’s election is best seen as the Sarajevo incident on the road to war but it was far down that road. The rhetoric about a potential Lincoln victory heard throughout the South was one of doom and destruction if he won.
In the final analysis I still can’t see any way to avoid civil war given the hardened opinions on both sides. One should keep in mind that the Founding Fathers, the most brilliant group of thinkers our nation has ever assembled in one place at one time, couldn’t solve the slavery issue either other than to punt it into the future. We shouldn’t be too hard on the lesser lights of the 1850s. Some tragedies just cannot be avoided.
This one took 750,000 lives to settle it. Surely there could have been a better way to get there. It is a question we continually must ask ourselves, both historically and today. The specter of extremists’ shouting down the voices of compromise is not an historical phenomenon restricted to the 1850s.
Mark Franke, M.B.A., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review and its book reviewer, is formerly an associate vice-chancellor at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.
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