Regardless of whether they owned slaves, Southern whites lived in a world defined by slavery. As shown by their blaming British and Northern slave traders for saddling them with slavery, most were uncomfortable with the institution. While many wanted it ended, most were content to leave that up to God. All that changed with the election of Abraham Lincoln.
Rebels in the Making is a narrative-driven history of how and why secession occurred. In this work, senior Civil War historian William L. Barney narrates the explosion of the sectional conflict into secession and civil war. Carefully examining the events in all fifteen slave states and distinguishing the political circumstances in each, he argues that this was not a mass democratic movement but one led from above.
The work begins with the deepening strains within Southern society as the slave economy matured in the mid-nineteenth century and Southern ideologues struggled to convert whites to the orthodoxy of slavery as a positive good. It then focuses on the years of 1860-1861 when the sectional conflict led to the break-up of the Union. As foreshadowed by the fracturing of the Democratic Party over the issue of federal protection for slavery in the territories, the election of 1860 set the stage for secession. Exploiting fears of slave insurrections, anxieties over crops ravaged by a long drought, and the perceived moral degradation of submitting to the rule of an antislavery Republican, secessionists launched a movement in South Carolina that spread across the South in a frenzied atmosphere described as the great excitement. After examining why Congress was unable to reach a compromise on the core issue of slavery's expansion, the study shows why secession swept over the Lower South in January of 1861 but stalled in the Upper South. The driving impetus for secession is shown to have come from the middling ranks of the slaveholders who saw their aspirations of planter status blocked and denigrated by the Republicans. A separate chapter on the formation of the Confederate government in February of 1861 reveals how moderates and former conservatives pushed aside the original secessionists to assume positions of leadership. The final chapter centers on the crisis over Fort Sumter, the resolution of which by Lincoln precipitated a second wave of secession in the Upper South.
Rebels in the Making shows that secession was not a unified movement, but has its own proponents and patterns in each of the slave states. It draws together the voices of planters, non-slaveholders, women, the enslaved, journalists, and politicians. This is the definitive study of the seminal moment in Southern history that culminated in the Civil War.
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Rebels in the Making...is an important work and an incredible feat, particularly when one considers that previous scholarship has provided largely one-state-per-monograph histories of secession. Even more important, although he condenses essentially fifteen histories into one, Barney avoids omitting important facts and reveals new evidence, which provides for a more thorough understanding of secession....In his focus on the middling class of enslavers' contribution to secession, Barney presents new information in the historiography, which traditionally has focused on elite planters spearheading the movement....With clear prose, Barney's book is suitable for graduate students as well as undergraduates who have never studied the Civil War or secession....Barney's work, a thorough, one-volume history of secession, will be a valued addition to academics' bookshelves. * Bond Ruggles, Ohio Valley History * Barney's unparalleled expertise in the movement for disunion in the fifteen slaveholding states sparkles throughout Rebels in the Making. Primarily focusing on the period between the presidential campaign of 1860 and the summer of 1861, when the Middle South states of Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee exited the Union and joined the seven Lower South states in the nascent Confederacy, Rebels in the Making offers a fast-paced yet carefully argued narrative of the secession crisis.... Rebels in the Making is a testament to Barney's deep knowledge of the secession movement and finely honed writing talent. Scholars and the general reading public will want to read this book. * Michael D. Robinson, Journal of the Civil War Era * Readers will conclude this work with a deep understanding that the battle for secession was fought in a variety of ways depending on the needs of each Southern state and that those crucial months in 1860 and 1861 were a time of both restless waiting and relentless activity. It is a recommended, in-depth primer to secession for academics and classrooms alike. * Melissa DeVelvis, Civil War Monitor * William L. Barney's latest work masterfully illustrates that there is still much left to say about America's greatest conflict. Until now, there has not been a book dedicated to the secession crisis that took place in the fifteen slave states, and Barney weaves together stories from the summer of 1860 to the secession of the upper South in 1861....While the secession crisis has received significant focus at the state and local level, the success of this work is his synthesis of those studies with his own extensive r search. Throughout the book, Barney is careful to reaffirm the centrality of slavery to the secessionist cause but makes sure to highlight the complexity of reasoning that existed within each state....This work has broad readership appeal and is as useful to a graduate student preparing for comprehensive exams as it is to an established academic. * Madeleine Forrest, Annals of Iowa * Throughout his distinguished career, William L. Barney has taught us much about the context, character, and consequence of secession, a process, he has shown, that by the late 1850s seemed almost inexorable but never inevitable. In this tour de force, Barney brings together his vast knowledge of the dynamics and directions of secession and fresh, deep research into the public and private writings of many and diverse southerners to reveal the complex, sometimes contradictory, and often contested process whereby the idea of secession became fact. Barney shows with great skill and insight that whatever the consensus there may have been among white southerners on the right of secession, they were not in agreement on the exact circumstance, means, and timing for it. * Randall M. Miller, Journal of American History * This book will become a standard reference point and is perhaps the most capacious and best synthesis to date of the people and events who brought about secession. * Brian Schoen, North Carolina Historical Review * This work has broad readership appeal and is as useful to a graduate student preparing for comprehensive exams as it is to an established academic. * Madeleine Forrest, The Annals of Iowa * Barney effectively provides a single-book overview of secession and the formation of the Confederacy ... Barney has produced a worthwhile addition to the literature on secession ... Rebels in the Making would make a fine addition for any historical reader, not just experts, wanting to expand their knowledge on the secession crisis. * Lucas Volkman, Missouri Historical Review * Rebels in the Making, the first one-volume narrative history of secession in all the 15 slave states, is both a withering indictment of secessionist folly and a concerted attempt to examine the divergent and often contradictory threads of its fabric. * Bill Thompson, Los Angeles Review of Books * The Civil War was indeed a defining event in American history, and this book is one of the best overall analysis of why it began. * Jerry D. Lenaburg, New York Journal of Books * Readers will conclude this work with a deep understanding that the battle for secession was fought in a variety of ways depending on the needs of each Southern state and that those crucial months in 1860 and 1861 were a time of both restless waiting and relentless activity. It is a recommended, in-depth primer to secession for academics and classrooms alike. * Melissa DeVelvis, Civil War Monitor * An illuminating study of the many ideologies and geographies at issue in the Civil War era. * Kirkus * Barney brings his expertise to the subject of secession, when 11 states in the South severed their ties with the Union in 1860 over the issue of slavery. Barney reminds readers that secession was not a foregone conclusion....The author describes how farmers and plantation owners were intimidated and politically outmaneuvered by a younger segment of aspiring lawyers and plantation heirs whose fortunes were tied to upholding the institution of slavery....Barney outlines the conflicting forces at play, state-by state, and the political evolution that led to the Civil War....Citing contemporaneous diaries and newspapers, Barney's investigative account supplies an enlightening expose on the lead-up to the Civil War * Library Journal * William Barney's Rebels in the Making is a sweeping study of secession and the formation of the Confederacy. More than a history of the six-month long crisis, this is a work of a mature, sophisticated political historian who has read widely in the manuscript and newspaper sources, who understands the subject's broad social context, and who writes and thinks with great clarity. Weaving together rich primary sources while integrating the latest scholarship, Barney shows a deft command of the subject. Successfully blending political history with social and cultural history, Rebels in the Making is a magnificent work, deserving wide attention by those interested in the origins of the American Civil War. * William A. Link, author of Roots of Secession * Comprehensive, balanced, and authoritative,Rebels in the Making synthesizes decades of energetic research and scrupulous scholarship into an unsurpassed history of secession. William Barney explains how arrogant and heedless secessionists unwittingly became, in the end, the most effective abolitionists in American history. * Michael Johnson, The Johns Hopkins University * Given that southern secession has generated an abundance of ever more sophisticated--if particularized--attention in recent years, the time is ripe for this comprehensive narrative by one of the field's most senior scholars. In placing slavery center stage throughout the crisis--as political issue, economic reality, and source of racial unrest--William Barney delivers a full-fledged account of the road to disunion that's packed with fresh insights and adept analysis. * John C. Inscoe, University of Georgia * A fitting capstone to five decades of research and writing about secession, William A. Barney's Rebels in the Making shows us how cadres of radical proslavery ideologues manipulated other Southern whites into supporting secession. But the joke was on those all-too-familiar propagandists of anti-egalitarian amorality. They convinced themselves and other enslavers to do the one simple thing that no slaveholding elite could afford to do: invite an army of invaders onto the doorstep of their police state. * Edward Baptist, Cornell University *
William L. Barney is Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Civil War (OUP, 2011); The Making of a Confederate: Walter Lenoir's Civil War (OUP, 2007); and The Secessionist Impulse: Alabama and Mississippi in 1860, among other titles.
Autor*in
Professor of HistoryProfessor of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1 Uneasy Rests the Masters: Strains from Below in the 1850s
Chapter 2 Getting Right with Slavery: The Drive for Unity
Chapter 3 Waiting for Lincoln: The Election of 1860
Chapter 4 Verdict Rendered: Lincoln is Elected
Chapter 5 South Carolina Takes the Lead
Chapter 6 Deadlock and a Deepening Crisis
Chapter 7 Secessionist Surge: The Lower South Leaves
Chapter 8 The Upper South: Straddling the Divide
Chapter 9 The Confederacy: A Slaveholder's Republic
Chapter 10 From Waiting Game to War: Lincoln Takes Command
Conclusion
Notes
Index
