A collection of essays by a master historian. Amongst the subjects that Stampp tackles are the inevitability of the Civil War and the truth about why the confederacy actually died. The other essays are a mix of historiography and analysis of issues including Lincoln's role in reinforcing Fort Sumter, the impact of psychology in trading slaves, and the role of racism in the Republican Party.

It was a year packed with unsettling events. The Panic of 1857 closed every bank in New York City, ruined thousands of businesses, and caused widespread unemployment among industrial workers. The Mormons in Utah Territory threatened rebellion when federal troops approached with a non-Mormon governor to replace Brigham Young. The Supreme Court outraged northern Republicans and abolitionists with the Dred Scott decision ("a breathtaking example of judicial activism"). And when a proslavery minority in Kansas Territory tried to foist a proslavery constitution on a large antislavery majority,...

"Americans interested in history need to make the pilgrimage to Gettysburg," writes Gabor Boritt in the Acknowledgments. In this book seven historians make that journey, five of them Pulitzer laureates, looking for Lincoln. Kenneth Stampp explores the issue of national self-determination, comparing the South's struggle for independence to others in history (including the post-Soviets in eastern Europe). Arthur Schlessinger, Jr. offers a provocative comparison of how Lincoln and our other outstanding war president, FDR, went beyond the limits of the Constitution--and why. David Brion Davis...