Mr. Book just finished Decade Of Disunion: How Massachusetts And South Carolina Led The Way To Civil War, 1849-1861, by Robert W. Merry.

The author’s theses was Massachusetts and South Carolina were the leading states in the dozen years leading up to the Civil War. But, while this book was interesting and had some good information in it, the author failed to prove that case. The case seems to be based on the fact that John C. Calhoun and Daniel Webster, who died in 1850 and 1852, respectively, were from those states. Also, South Carolina was the first to decide to secede from the union.

The highlight of this book was a look at the election for Speaker of the House in December 1849, which took 63 ballots before Howell Cobb was eventually elected after the House abandoned the requirement of majority vote and selected him by plurality. Cobb would eventually become one of the founders of the Confederacy. And, for the record, Cobb was from Georgia. Now, I’m really bad at geography, but even I know that Georgia is neither Massachusetts nor South Carolina.

I’d be willing to overlook the lack of proving his theses if the book was interesting enough. I could just reclassify this as an interesting book on the years leading up to the Civil War rather than one on why those two states led the way. But, in terms of how interesting it was, this would deserve a B. I’ll drop it a grade for failing to prove his case on those two states, leaving it with a C.

Goodreads requires grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, a C equates to 2 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).

This review has been posted at my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews, and Goodreads.

Mr. Book originally finished reading this on July 30, 2024.