Speech of Hon. C. L. Vallandigham, of Ohio

This book analyzes the causes that led to the disintegration of the United States of America and which saw seven Southern states leave the Union. The author places the crisis within the historical context of America's development and underlines the country's unparalleled economic and political development as having contributed significantly to the issue. The text dissects the political motivations and ambitions of key players while examining the development of the Republican party in the context of the anti-slavery movement's role in the divisions that were developing in the country. The author argues that the main catalyst for the crisis was the power struggle at the heart of the immense and ever-growing Federal Government and the vast rewards at stake for exercising control over it. This book provides a deep dive into the factors that fractured America during the 19th century and will be of great interest to historians and anyone curious about the origins of the American Civil War.

Excerpt from Speech of Hon. C. L. Vallandigham, of Ohio: Delivered in the House of Representatives, February 20, 1861

I propose, then, sir, to do as all others in the Senate and the House have done, so far -to recognize the existence of sections as a fixed fact, which, lamentable as it is, can no longer be denied or suppressed; but, for the reasons I have already stated, I pro pose to establish four instead of two grand sections of the Union, all of them well known or easily designated by marked, natural, or geographical lines and boundaries. I pro pose four sections instead of two; because, if two only are recognized, the natural and inevitable division will be into slaveholding and non-slaveholding sections; and it is this very division, either by constitutional enactment, or by common consent, as hith erto, which, in my deliberate judgment and deepest conviction, it concerns the peace and stability of the Union should be forever hereafter ignored. Till then there cannot be, and will not be, perfect union and peace between these United States; because, in the first place, the nature of the question is such that it stirs up, necessarily, as forty years of strife conclusively proves, the strongest and the bitterest passions and antago nism possible among men; and, in the next place, because the non-slaveholding section has now, and will have to the end, a steadily increasing majority, and enormously dis~ proportioned weight and influence in the Government; thus combining that which never can be very long resisted in any Government - the temptation and the power to aggress.

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