At the Precipice
Americans North and South during the Secession Crisis
Shearer Davis Bowman
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 10/2010
Pages: 392
Subject: History
| University of North Carolina
Print ISBN: 9.78E+12
eBook ISBN: 9780807895672
DESCRIPTION
At the Precipice seeks to answer these and related questions by focusing on the different ways in which Americans, North and South, black and white, understood their interests, rights, and honor during the late antebellum years. Rather than give a narrative account of the crisis, Shearer Davis Bowman takes readers into the minds of the leading actors, examining the lives and thoughts of such key figures as Abraham Lincoln, James Buchanan, Jefferson Davis, John Tyler, and Martin Van Buren. Bowman also provides an especially vivid glimpse into what less famous men and women in both sections thought about themselves and the political, social, and cultural worlds in which they lived, and how their thoughts informed their actions in the secession period. Intriguingly, secessionists and Unionists alike glorified the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, yet they interpreted those sacred documents in markedly different ways and held very different notions of what constituted "American" values.
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