Download The Scorpion's Sting: Antislavery and the Coming of the Civil War AudioBook Free
An award-winning historian illuminates the technique for stopping slavery that precipitated the crisis of civil war. Surrounded by a diamond ring of fireplace, the scorpion stings itself to fatality. The image, common among antislavery leaders prior to the Civil War, catches their long-standing technique for peaceful abolition: They might encircle the slave areas with a cordon of freedom. They planned to make use of federal electric power wherever they could to determine freedom: the traditional western territories, the District of Columbia, the high seas. By constricting slavery they might induce an emergency: Slaves would avoid in ever-greater amounts, the southern market would falter, and lastly the southern areas would abolish the establishment themselves. For their part the southern areas fully realized this antislavery strategy. They cited it regularly as they adopted secession ordinances in response to Lincoln's election. The scorpion's sting is the centerpiece of this fresh, incisive exploration of slavery and the Civil War: Was there a peaceful route to abolition? Was Lincoln overdue to emancipation? What role does contest play in the politics of slavery? With stunning information James Oakes goes us ever closer to a new knowledge of the most momentous happenings in our record.
