Sectional Crisis and Southern Constitutionalism

Sectional Crisis and Southern Constitutionalism is a single volume comprising of two short studies of major aspects of antebellum southern history. The South and Three Sectional Crisis, is a commentary on the crises of 1819-1821, 1846-1850, and 1854-1861, shows how the South-especially the lower South-contributed decisively to the sectional conflict that exploded at last into the civil war. Constitutions and Constitutionalism in the Slaveholding South finds that southern state constitutional development generally paralleled that of northern states, but an increasingly distinctive and dangerous southern interpretation of the United States Constitution finally spawned the short-lived wartime Confederate Constitution. The two studies together outline the South's determination to maintain political power and equality against the northern majority, and explains how this determination led to southern nationalism, disunion, and the Civil War.