Overview

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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9780190076085

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Reviews

"""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 exposé 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 DL if particularized DL 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 DL as political issue, economic reality, and source of racial unrest DL 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"

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.A 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 This thoughtful and capacious book starts informally with the author assessing her own childhood ballet classes -- then opens out to chart ballet's rise to prominence among America's most cherished childhood traditions.A Along the way she does justice to a number of under-sung ballet teacher-pioneers, takes on ballet's problematic relations to such topics as body image, gender, and race -- and ends up offering nothing less than a two-century-long social history of American culture itself. -- Elizabeth Kendall , Associate Professor of Liberal Studies and Literary Studies, The New School for Social Research, author of Balanchine and the Lost Muse Revolution and the Making of a Choreographer At a time when the relevance of ballet for the 21stAcentury context is under scrutiny, this lively account provides much needed personal and meticulously researched revelations into its beloved (though not unproblematic) role in providing comfort, challenge, discipline, artistry, fitness, creativity, and empowerment to generations of regular girls and boys across America. -- Naomi Jackson , Associate Professor of Dance, Herberger College of the Arts, Arizona State University Of the myriads of little girls who fell in love with ballet the first time they faced the mirror, few became ballerinas. I imagine that fewer became prize-winning historians, but Melissa R. Klapper did. She has returned to the dance studio with this definitive history of America's ballet classes. Ballet students end class with a reverence to their teacher. I bow to Melissa Klapper.AHer remarkable book takes those who remember the five positions back to their days in ballet class. -- Pamela S. Nadell, Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women's and Gender History at American University and author of America's Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today

Author Information

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.

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