Decade of Disunion: How Massachusetts and South Carolina Led the Way to Civil War, 1849-1861

With “characteristic wisdom and grace” (Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize–winning author) Robert W. Merry explores a critical lesson about our nation that is as timely today as ever demonstrating how the country came apart during the enveloping slavery crisis of the 1850s.

The Mexican War brought vast new territories to the United States, which precipitated a growing crisis over slavery. The new territories seemed unsuitable for the type of agriculture that depended on slave labor, but they lay so...