When in the course of human events : arguing the case for southern secession

Using primary documents from both foreign and domestic observers, prominent scholar Charles Adams makes a powerful and convincing case that the Southern states were legitimately exercising their political rights as expressed in the Declaration of Independence when they seceded from the United States. Although conventional histories have taught generations of Americans that this was a war fought for lofty moral principles, Adams' eloquent history transcends simple Southern partisanship to show how the American Civil War was primarily a battle over competing commercial interests, opposing interpretations of constitutional rights, and what English novelist Charles Dickens described as a fiscal quarrel. Adams Uses Documents From Foreign (primarily British) And Domestic Observers To State That The South Was Exercising The Rights Laid Out In The Declaration Of Independence Against A Fiscally-quarrelsome And Commercial North, Rather Than Maintaining Lofty Moral Principles Of Slavery. The Dangerous Road To Secession -- A Useless Fort? -- Lincoln Crosses The Rubicon -- Whose War Was It, Anyway? -- The British Press Views The War -- British Scholars Speak -- How Bristish Cartoonists Saw The War -- A Just War? -- Negrophobia -- The Ku Klux Klan -- The Peacemakers -- The Trial Of The Century That Never Was -- Lincoln's Logic -- The High Ground -- Reflections: Healing The Breach. Charles Adams. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Working from the premise that "wars have seldom been justified, " Adams argues that not only was the Civil War avoidable, but it was a humanitarian disaster that nearly destroyed American democracy.