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This succinct and readable account of the heated debate over the expansion of slavery provides readers with a thorough understanding of how the Civil War was precipitated.This book vividly depicts and clearly explains the events in the decades leading up to the Civil War that resulted from the controversy over expansion of slavery into the western territories. The chapters describe how this single issue drove a wedge through the country and spawned the creation of several new political parties, including the Republican Party; caused furious congressional debates; sparked violence in Kansas; increased sectional discord between North and South; and allowed Abraham Lincoln to rise from relative obscurity to become the first Republican president of the United States. The work also supplies two-dozen thumbnail sketches of the period''s greatest statesmen and less-than-great presidents, including individuals such as James Buchanan, John C. Calhoun, Salmon P. Chase, Henry Clay, Stephen Douglas, and William Henry Seward.>
List of contents
Series Foreword
Chronology of Events
Preface
Prologue: "The Sheet Anchor of American Republicanism": Lincoln in Peoria
Chapter 1. Slave Power, Free Soil, and Mr. Polk's War
Chapter 2. A False Peace: The Compromise of 1850
Chapter 3. The Making of a Perfect Storm: The 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act
Chapter 4. The Republicans Field a Presidential Candidate
Chapter 5. Lincoln vs. Douglas
Chapter 6. From Wigwam to White House
Epilogue: Storm's Eve: "Think Calmly and Well"
Biographies: Personalities in the Antebellum Slavery Debate
Appendix: Primary Documents in the Antebellum Slavery Debate
Annotated Bibliography
Index
