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A review by firstwords
The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War by Joanne B. Freeman
4.0
Very interesting. While this is indeed a book about violence in Congress in the 1830-60s, it is just as much a story of how Southern congressmen dominated Congress through violence. I would say - the author hints at this just once, but I think she believes it as well - that the corrupting force of slavery, its requirement to subjugate/beat/rape/kill to maintain control, poisoned the minds of those southern slaveholders (and most southern Congressmen were slaveholders or from slaveholding families). Not to stereotype, but it was interesting that for Northerners, almost to a man, the idea of dueling was "barbaric," but for Southerners, it was what you did whenever someone insulted you. This dueling/honor culture was said to influence (in another book whos title escapes me) African-American culture at the end of legal slavery. Or the general idea that a slight at your honor or honesty required not a speech, but retribution.
The author is no fan of slavery or the antebellum South, that much is clear, but even with that "bias," it is clear that southern congressmen thought the best/only way to keep slavery alive in the South, and to help it spread westward, was violence or the threat of violence on the House and Senate floor (and boy howdy, we think the House now is rowdy...not even close).
THe dynamic of "preserving the Union at all costs" also came through so clearly here. Northerners wanted to maintain this experiment, this Union of states, so much that they passed the Fugitive Slave Act and pretty much cowed to Southern interests, while Southerners were ready at the drop of a hat - for the most part - to let the Union dissolve if it meant they got to keep enslaving human beings.
Fascinating book.
The author is no fan of slavery or the antebellum South, that much is clear, but even with that "bias," it is clear that southern congressmen thought the best/only way to keep slavery alive in the South, and to help it spread westward, was violence or the threat of violence on the House and Senate floor (and boy howdy, we think the House now is rowdy...not even close).
THe dynamic of "preserving the Union at all costs" also came through so clearly here. Northerners wanted to maintain this experiment, this Union of states, so much that they passed the Fugitive Slave Act and pretty much cowed to Southern interests, while Southerners were ready at the drop of a hat - for the most part - to let the Union dissolve if it meant they got to keep enslaving human beings.
Fascinating book.