Reddit reviews The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861

But that's not really accurate. There were no proposals in 1860 to abolish slavery. There were, however a few developments that were certainly anti-slavery (and not just anti-expansion of slavery) such as Harper's Ferry and opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act.

However most sectional tensions revolved around the fights and proposals in the antebellum period regarding the status of slavery in the West including:
-Annexation of Texas (1845)
-Mexican American War (46-48)
-Wilmot Proviso (46)
-Emergence of the Free-Soil Party (48-52)
-Compromise of 1850
-Lack of government support to the Filibusters in Central America (1850s)
-Creation of Republican Party (54)
-Failure of the Ostend Manifesto (54)
-Kansas-Nebraska act (56)
-Bleeding Kansas (55-56)
-Dred Scott Decision (57)
-Lecompton Constitution (1857)
-Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858)

All of these events that increased sectionalism and contributed to secession were focused on the acquisition of more land and whether that land would be slave or free as well as who even would get to determine the slave/free status of that land.

I'm actually reading a great book about the period right now: The Impending Crisis: America Before the Civil War 1848-1861

The most-often recommended single volume is Battle Cry of Freedom.

If Gettysburg is an interest, I found Hallowed Ground by the same author to be a good read. More exhaustive is Sears's Gettysburg, which helped me to understand a very dynamic picture.

Finally, we often get inquiries about the roots of the war. The Pulitzer Prize winning
Impending Crisis is first-rate.

I did provide a source, in the very first comment I made here, which you responded to, with some nonsensical comment about wikipedia being unreliable and something nonsensical about fucking soup.

Here's a link again, with another quote:

> The primary catalyst for secession was slavery, most immediately the political battle over the right of Southerners to bring slavery into western territory that had hitherto been free under the terms of the Missouri Compromise or while part of Mexico. Another factor for secession and the formation of the Confederacy, was white Southern nationalism.

That wikipedia page has more than 150 sources in the event that you want rid yourself of your nativist ignorance. Personally, I'm a fan of David Potter's The Impeding Crisis, but there are plenty of other books and publications to chose from there. Potter's book might enlighten you about the basic historical facts of the antebellum period, which includes the Kansas revolts, John Brown, Lincoln's platform and election, the Dread Scott case and a long list of political conflicts attributable directly to slavery that drove the war.

Your argument here boils down to 1 part semantics. "It was about secession, not slavery", is a bit like saying "this person wasn't killed by that gun, it was the gunshot wound that killed them." It's moronic. But mostly, the argument you're making relies on verifiably false information.

The point you and others are making here boils down to the fact that you all are nativists, who are propagating a revisionist version of history. Take your bigotry to a more appropriate forum, or educate yourself. None of this issue is open to interpretation, there are verifiable historical facts here which you have chosen to willfully disregard.

Saying that we may need violence to solve our political crisis is instigating violence.

Here are some good books for you and others to read

• The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861
  
  
• The American Inquisition, 1945-1960: A Profile of the McCarthy Era
  
  You weren't alive during those two eras.