While slavery is often at the heart of debates over the causes of
the Civil War, historians are not agreed on precisely what aspect
of slavery--with its various social, economic, political, cultural,
and moral ramifications--gave rise to the sectional rift. In
Calculating the Value of the Union, James Huston integrates
economic, social, and political history to argue that the issue of
property rights as it pertained to slavery was at the center of the
Civil War.
In the early years of the nineteenth century, southern slaveholders
sought a national definition of property rights that would
recognize and protect their ownership of slaves. Northern
interests, on the other hand, opposed any national interpretation
of property rights because of the threat slavery posed to the
northern free labor market, particularly if allowed to spread to
western territories. This impasse sparked a process of political
realignment that culminated in the creation of the Republican
Party, ultimately leading to the secession crisis.
Deeply researched and carefully written, this study rebuts recent
trends in antebellum historiography and persuasively argues for a
fundamentally economic interpretation of the slavery issue and the
coming of the Civil War.