Southern Defiance Essays - South Carolina In The American Civil War

Southern Defiance Days of Defiance by Maury Klein is a very interesting and detailed account of the events leading up to the Civil War. It was published by Alfred A. Knopf inc. in New York City in 1997. It is a four hundred and twenty one-page book. The author of this book is Maury Klein. Klein is a professor of history at the University of Rhode Island. He specializes in American history during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This gives him good credentials to write an accurate book on the coming of the Civil War, since the Civil War took place in the nineteenth century. He has written other books on the Civil War as well as on other books on American History during the nineteenth century. Klein therefore has a vast knowledge on the Civil War and on the time period of the Civil War. This allows him to write a very accurate and detailed account of the events that led up to the Civil War. This book deals with the start and causes of the Civil War. It starts with the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency of the United States in 1860 and ends with the attack on Fort Sumter in 1861. The approach of the book is a documentary approach. Klein divides the book into three parts. Part one is entitled The Battle Over Washington, the second part is entitled The Battle Over Secession, and the third part of the book is entitled The Battle Over Fort Sumter. Klein also describes the events in chronological order. He goes through the major events of each month starting with November 1860 and going through April 1861. Overall the book covers six months leading up to the start of the Civil War. The length of the book is four hundred and twenty one pages. it is a very well organized book. It is divided into three parts and twenty-three chapters. For the most part it is told in chronological order, but in some places it goes into the past to discuss events that help the reader understand the current situation. Klein starts off the book by talking about the election of 1860 in chapter one. He describes the different reactions across the country to Lincoln being elected president. Klein describes the reaction to the election of the northern states, the southern states, and the border states as well. Klein also touches a little bit on the problems Lincoln being elected causes, and how these problems are being thrown on the current president James Buchanon until Lincoln would be inaugurated in March. In chapter two Klein starts off by talking about the admittance of Florida and Texas into the Union and expansionism in general. He then talks about slavery and the problems it causes with expansionism. Klein then discusses how the country is divided over the issue from the common people to the government officials. In chapter three Klein goes back to talk about past events that tried to solve the problem of slavery and events that helped lead to more division among the country on the issue. He talked about the Fugitive Slave Act, Harriet Beecher Stowes novel Uncle Toms Cabin, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Bleeding Kansas, the idea of popular sovereignty, the Missouri Compromise, and the Dred Scott decision. In chapter four Klein talks about the two senators from South Carolina; James Chestnut and James Hammond. He describes their lives and the fact that they both owned plantations and the way they both rose to the Senate. In the next chapter Klein talks about three cities: Charleston, South Carolina; Washington D.C.; and Springfield, Illinois. He talks about the cities attitudes and reactions to the current situation of the country. In the next chapter Klein talks about Major Robert Anderson and how he was sent to take over command at Fort Sumter. He then talked about the problems president Buchannon faced with the impending secession of South Carolina. The next chapter discussed the uproar that the possibility of secession was causing in the government and in the country. The next chapter talked about the new governor of South Carolina Francis W. Pickens. Klein then talks about the official secession of South Carolina from