ABSTRACT
This book’s somewhat sympathetic readings of John Calhoun’s works and Dred Scott is rather perverse. Nevertheless, this approach helps answer one of the more difficult questions concerning the Civil War: Why did so many decent Southerners, including many non-slave owners, fight so hard and so long against the North? Although slavery was clearly the central, triggering issue, it was not the only source of contention.1 Intelligent Southerners correctly foresaw that their region would soon be economically politically subordinated to Northern capitalism. The Abolitionists’ constitutional arguments undermined not only fundamental property rights, but also conceptions of equality throughout the republic that can be traced back to the American Revolution. Although it is tempting to characterize Southern constitutional propositions as window-dressing that obfuscated the underlying venal motives of Slave Power, such a harsh view of Southern beliefs is akin to the equally fallacious argument that Northerners and Americans in general have never believed in the more inspiring aspects of their constitutional faiths, but have merely used them as pretexts for exploitation and glory.
