This book presents Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy, views on the constitutional reasons for the Civil War.

Examines the history, events and people that defined the American Civil War and the years of reconstruction proceeding the war.

The book "was a sensation in its day, evoking attacks by Northern and Southern champions of causes upon which it impinged.": Dictionary of American Biography IX:574.

A lucidly written, richly researched, and convincing analysis of the global forces that shaped the politics of the southern slaveholders."—Journal of American History "Schoen has written an immensely important history of southern ...