Apostles Of Disunion Charles Dew Summary

In the book “Apostles of Disunion,” by Charles B. Dew, we are presented with ideas of secession, slavery and racism. The overall goal in this book was to prove the causes of the Civil War. We are given experiences and background from southerner, Charles B. Dew in order to justify the underlying reason for the cause of the War. During this time period of 1860-1861 there was a lot of talk as to what the real cause of the Civil War was, in which there have been many theories and hypothesis’ from historians as to what was the true reasoning was behind it all. Being a southerner, Dew is passionate about his facts, and researches to better support his argument. He further explains his belief of the Civil War was not only because of states rights, …show more content…
While this was a shock to many, chaos was in the air. Immediately after the confederates began to invade on Fort Sumter. From then on the controversies and opinions began forming, as to how so much turmoil could happen so quickly. There was no way only one reason/cause could create such an uprising. Dew was inspired to find out for himself what were the causes of the war, which then became the main argument presented throughout the book. Charles Dew explains in his book how his research, which was made up of many primary documents, has a large impact to his beliefs. Due to the many controversies and hypotheses, Dew studied many letters and speeches from secession commissioners to the remaining slave states and their attempts and opinions of a new nation. From this research Dew reveals what the secession commissioners believed to be the reasons for succession. From the research, Dew then wrote “Apostles of Disunion,” to further explain his research and his conclusions and …show more content…
Commissioner of South Carolina, John Smith Preston, believes that “the South cannot exist without slavery…” (Page 72) which is why South Carolina was the first to succeed from the Union. Southerners did not want to put and end to slavery, therefore creating this uprising that influenced many factors such as states rights, the economy, and the state as a whole. With the many states succeeding in effort to dissolve the Union, politics played a big role between the North and the South. Dew realized that time and time again, in all the commissioners’ speeches and letters, slavery was always the main topic brought up along with other brief topics discussed in this book. Dew took place in individual research to find his own argument. When all the conflict started to begin, and even in present day, historians all want to make their claim as to what they believe to be true about the war. Dew did a great job using many sources, different experiences, and lots of people from different backgrounds in order to gain the best conclusions from his