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The Scorpion's Sting: Antislavery and the Coming of the Civil War * James Oakes * New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2014 * 208 pp. * $23.95
In The Scorpions Sting, James Oakes contends that antebellum Americans were irreconcilably divided over slavery. These irresolvable differences, however, did not make the Civil War inevitable. In fact, the war's outbreak surprised many people. To understand why, one needs to examine the history of military emancipations.
But first, it is necessary to investigate why the nation was standing L. Sfcá at the precipice of war in 1861. The irreconcilable differences between Republicans, who sought slavery's ultimate extinction, and their foes stemmed from disagreements over the morality of chattel bondage, which in turn emanated from disparate racial views. Republicans were hardly racial egalitarians. But they did believe that black people were entitled to the natural rights articulated in the Declaration of Independence and that liberty could be withheld only by state laws. To them, freedom...