The War Before the War

We’re taught in school that the Civil War began in 1861, with the firing on Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Technically, that’s true. Yet the nation had long been debating about slavery, whether to let it flourish or to outlaw it. When Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, major stops on the Underground Railroad, like the Cataract House Hotel in Niagara Falls, became very important.

In the shadow of the famous tourist stop, it was located alongside the last river to cross before escaped slaves could reach freedom. Against this backdrop of beauty, the wait staff at the… show more.

Even now we can't quite help thinking that America could have ended slavery without fighting a monstrous war. Delbanco argues that war was not only unavoidable--hardly, in fact, a controversial proposition--but that what made it so was not Kansas-Nebraska or Dred Scott but the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Once Congress agreed that slave-owners could pursue escaped slaves into free territory, and mobilize the federal government to track them down, Northerners got to see first-hand just what it meant to treat humans as chattel. Those sickening scenes helped bring the Republican Party into existence and made its cause that of… show more.