The Scorpion's Sting: Antislavery and the Coming of the Civil War

Many pre-Civil War antislavery proponents advocated for peaceful abolition: if slave states were surrounded by free states, mass numbers of slaves would be compelled to escape, the Southern economy would be undermined, and voluntary state abolition would be imminent. Experts offer a fresh account of slavery and the Civil War, exploring the idea that a peaceful path to abolition could have been taken.