The book has held up well even if it is 50 years old. An excellent writer, Catton lays out the political goings-on both North and South as if he had been a reporter alive on the scene at the time. The book covers about one year of activity: from the Democratic Party Convention of 1860 in Charleston through the First Bull Run campaign of July, 1861. I read this 1961 classic now (in 2011) on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. This book is about more than battles and military strategy-the fighting does not even start until page 452 of my edition. It was a complicated war, by the legal standards of the time. Was he justified in suspending habeas corpus in Maryland? What is a nation? Is it a compact among sovereign states? Or is it a sovereignty over constituent states? When federals violated the Fugitive Slave Law, did that constitute recognition that the South was an independent country?

Was secession a Constitutional right, as the Confererates claimed? If not, why did Lincoln recognize West Virginia’s right to secede from Virginia? Was this a hypocritical double standard? Private property was protected by the Constitution did that include private property in slaves? Lincoln thought it did. history: how should President Lincoln respond to the secessions and the seizures of federal property in the South? It raises many interesting questions, not the least of which is, did he make the right decision? Was the bloodbath worth it? If Lincoln had known the consequences, would he have made the same decision? If he had let the South go, would it have brought peace? How long would slavery have continued?

This one is about the complex legal issues that led to the Civil War and to the most momentous decision in U.

The Coming Fury by Bruce Catton