When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession

by Charles Adams

Overview

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with one another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect of the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
With these words, thirteen of the British colonies in North America unanimously declared independence from British rule. Eighty-five years later, adhering to principles articulated by their revolutionary forebears, the 11 Confederate States of America seceded from the United States, plunging the country into the bloodiest war of its history. Until the publication of this highly original book, most attempts to explain the origins of the American Civil War relied heavily on regional sympathies and mythology—that the South abandoned the Union to maintain slavery while President Lincoln's primary goal was to preserve the nation. Prominent scholar Charles Adams challenges this traditional wisdom.
Using primary documents from both foreign and domestic observers, Adams makes a powerful and convincing case that the Southern states were legitimately exercising their political rights as expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Although conventional histories have taught generations of Americans that this was a war fought for lofty moral principles, Adams' eloquent history transcends simple Southern partisanship to show how the Civil War was primarily a battle over competing commercial interests, opposing interpretations of constitutional rights, and what English novelist Charles Dickens described as "a fiscal quarrel."
Working from the premise that "wars have seldom been justified," Adams argues that the Civil War was an avoidable humanitarian disaster that nearly destroyed American democracy. This bold and controversial book will not only change how historians think about the causes of the Civil War bu

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780847697236
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	12/23/2004
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	278
Sales rank:	288,774
Product dimensions:	5.94(w) x 8.92(h) x 0.63(d)

About the Author

Charles Adams, the world's leading scholar on the history of taxation, is the author of the best selling books For Good and Evil, Those Dirty Rotten Taxes, and Fight, Flight, and Fraud.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 1 The Dangerous Road to Secession
Chapter 3 2 A Useless Fort?
Chapter 4 3 Lincoln Crosses the Rubicon
Chapter 5 4 Whose War Was It, Anyway?
Chapter 6 5 The British Press Views the War
Chapter 7 6 British Scholars Speak
Chapter 8 7 How British Cartoonists Saw the War
Chapter 9 8 A Just War?
Chapter 10 9 Negrophobia
Chapter 11 10 The Ku Klux Klan
Chapter 12 11The Peacemakers
Chapter 13 12 The Trial of the Century That Never Was
Chapter 14 13 Lincoln's Logic
Chapter 15 14 The High Ground
Chapter 16 15 Reflections: Healing the Breach

Editorial Reviews

For those wanting additional information on the subject I recommend the following books: "When in the Course of Human Events, the Politically Correct Guide to American History."

Tuscaloosa News - David Allen David Allen

An insightful indictment of our political, military and religious Institutions.

Dunn County News

The Civil War violently destroyed the decentralized federal system of the Founders and opened a way for the vast centralized empire of today. To legitimate this revolutionary change, Americans have taught that secession was unconstitutional; that the South seceded to protect slavery; and that the North invaded to emancipate slaves. Charles Adams, a northern historian, argues persuasively that these propositions are false. Adams claims that the war was about what most wars are fought over: control of territory, resources, and revenue. To many this book will be disturbing; to others it will be a breath of fresh air. The first step in healing the fractural historical memory imposed on all Americans by the Civil War is to face the hard truths that Adams brings into focus. Having read this book, I can no longer, with ease, recite the 'Gettysburg Address' or sing the 'Battle Hymn of the Republic.'

Donald Livingston

But if we were to recommend one work—based on originality, brevity, depth, and sheer rhetorical power—it would be Charles Adams' time bomb of a book, When in the Course of Human Events.

Worldnetdaily

Delightful and insightful book. The author has provided a well-documented exposure of the real reasons for an unnecessary war. It is a pleasure to read.

The Rebel Rouser

Highly original.. .. Mr. Adams' work, as well as contributing to the subject, makes a lovely example of the way history should be written.

Clyde N. Wilson

Charles Adams manifests in this excellent book a rare talent—he asks intelligent historical questions.

Mises Review

Adams is the world's leading scholar on the history of taxation. When in the Course of Human Events is a must read for history teachers and history buffs searching for honesty.

The Charlotte Observer

When in the Course of Human Events offers a sustained challenge to much of the conventional wisdom about the conflict. Particularly valuable is Adams' critique of Lincoln.

The Washington Times

This is one of the most important books ever published on American history.

Forum News Magazine

This is a well-rounded historical presentation of the events surrounding the Civil War. Whatever you have to do, but do read this book! Winner of the Reformed Library's 2000 Paradigm Award.

Reformed Library

A great read is "When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession" by Charles Adams. This is recent scholarship on an old and painful subject. It dispels many myths which I swallowed "whole cloth" in my school days, and which are deeply embedded in current "facts" about the causes, conduct and outcome of the war.

Southern Aviator - Al Coombe

A very readable and insightful book.

Marshall L. DeRosa

There cannot be any better treatment of the causes of the war and the motivations for the Northern invasion than this book. Using primary documents from both foreign and domestic observers, Adams makes a powerful and convincing case. Certainly, anyone interested in truth will gain a great education from reading When in the Course of Human Events.

Madison Enterprise-Recorder

This is the best written, most accurate account of the causes and meaning of the American Civil War.. .. A fantastic book!

John V. Denson

Provocative, well-argued revisionist history.

The New American

When in the Course of Human Events offers a sustained challenge to much of the conventional wisdom about the conflict. Particularly valuable is Adams' critique of Lincoln.

A great read is "When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession" by Charles Adams. This is recent scholarship on an old and painful subject. It dispels many myths which I swallowed "whole cloth" in my school days, and which are deeply embedded in current "facts" about the causes, conduct and outcome of the war.

A very readable and insightful book.

Adams is the world's leading scholar on the history of taxation. When in the Course of Human Events is a must read for history teachers and history buffs searching for honesty.

An insightful indictment of our political, military and religious Institutions.

But if we were to recommend one work-based on originality, brevity, depth, and sheer rhetorical power-it would be Charles Adams' time bomb of a book, When in the Course of Human Events.

Charles Adams manifests in this excellent book a rare talent-he asks intelligent historical questions.

Delightful and insightful book. The author has provided a well-documented exposure of the real reasons for an unnecessary war. It is a pleasure to read.

For those wanting additional information on the subject I recommend the following books: "When in the Course of Human Events, the Politically Correct Guide to American History."

Highly original. . . . Mr. Adams' work, as well as contributing to the subject, makes a lovely example of the way history should be written.

Provocative, well-argued revisionist history.

The Civil War violently destroyed the decentralized federal system of the Founders and opened a way for the vast centralized empire of today. To legitimate this revolutionary change, Americans have taught that secession was unconstitutional; that the South seceded to protect slavery; and that the North invaded to emancipate slaves. Charles Adams, a northern historian, argues persuasively that these propositions are false. Adams claims that the war was about what most wars are fought over: control of territory, resources, and revenue. To many this book will be disturbing; to others it will be a breath of fresh air. The first step in healing the fractural historical memory imposed on all Americans by the Civil War is to face the hard truths that Adams brings into focus. Having read this book, I can no longer, with ease, recite the 'Gettysburg Address' or sing the 'Battle Hymn of the Republic.'

There cannot be any better treatment of the causes of the war and the motivations for the Northern invasion than this book. Using primary documents from both foreign and domestic observers, Adams makes a powerful and convincing case. Certainly, anyone interested in truth will gain a great education from reading When in the Course of Human Events.

This is a well-rounded historical presentation of the events surrounding the Civil War. Whatever you have to do, but do read this book! Winner of the Reformed Library's 2000 Paradigm Award.

This is one of the most important books ever published on American history.

This is the best written, most accurate account of the causes and meaning of the American Civil War. . . . A fantastic book!

From the Publisher

For those wanting additional information on the subject I recommend the following books: "When in the Course of Human Events, the Politically Correct Guide to American History."

Tuscaloosa News - David Allen

Adams is the world's leading scholar on the history of taxation. When in the Course of Human Events is a must read for history teachers and history buffs searching for honesty.

Charlotte Observer

Adams is the world's leading scholar on the history of taxation. When in the Course of Human Events is a must read for history teachers and history buffs searching for honesty.

Charlotte Observer

Charles Adams manifests in this excellent book a rare talent—he asks intelligent historical questions.

The Mises Review

A very readable and insightful book.

Marshall DeRosa

When in the Course of Human Events offers a sustained challenge to much of the conventional wisdom about the conflict. Particularly valuable is Adams' critique of Lincoln.

Washington Times

A great read is "When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession" by Charles Adams. This is recent scholarship on an old and painful subject. It dispels many myths which I swallowed "whole cloth" in my school days, and which are deeply embedded in current "facts" about the causes, conduct and outcome of the war.
— Al Coombe

Southern Aviator

From Adams (Those Dirty Rotten Taxes, 1998), a selectively argued, sometimes absurd polemic against Abraham Lincoln and the Union. Abraham Lincoln assumed in the Second Inaugural Address that his audience knew that slavery `was, somehow, the cause of the war.` Adams disagrees: brushing aside massive historical evidence to the contrary (including the observations of northern and southern contemporaries) and relying heavily on British rather than American writers about the war, Adams asserts that the slavery was a non-issue devised as a pretext to justify Lincoln's unconstitutional `assault` on the South. He argues instead, with extraordinarily slender evidence, that the preservation of taxes and revenues from the South were somehow the cause of the war. Validly, though not particularly controversially, Adams argues against the Lincoln administration's suspension of habeas corpus and its practice of suppressing dissent in the North, although he fails to discuss the Confederacy's attitudes toward internal political dissent. Less reasonably, Adams excoriates Lincoln for not observing constitutional niceties in 1861 with a hostile southern army nearby (arguing that Lincoln had no authority to do anything more than call Congress into session), and he appears to go well beyond historical evidence in attributing the entire war to northern contentiousness about the low southern tariff. Adams grounds his argument for the legitimacy of southern secession in the language of the Declaration of Independence, ignoring the fact that no southern state except Texas had ever been independent and that millions of slaves were not consulted in the southern ordinances of secession. Finally, he rendersanabsurd, quibbling attack on Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: among other objections, he feels the American Revolution did not establish the US as a `new nation, conceived in liberty` and that US national existence and democracy were not at stake in the Civil War. The world will little note nor long remember this poorly reasoned, quarrelsome little tract.

Kirkus Reviews

For those wanting additional information on the subject I recommend the following books: "When in the Course of Human Events, the Politically Correct Guide to American History."
— David Allen

Tuscaloosa News

This is a well-rounded historical presentation of the events surrounding the Civil War. Whatever you have to do, but do read this book! Winner of the Reformed Library's 2000 Paradigm Award.

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