A Disease in the Public Mind

This book troubles me as few books have. The author has had a distinguished career as an author and historian. The book is very well written (as most of his books are) which is a challenge when it comes to history. Just because the author has a large following and is well respected does not make this a good book nor does his fluid writing style. How about content? That's the rub with this book: the shallow content and the flimsy theory that the Civil War can be so easily explained by something the author refers to as a disease in the public mind. This book masquerades as an important, significant contribution to the pre-war literature about the Civil War. Unfortunately the book is an impostor. Whether you know something about the Civil War or are reacquainting yourself with the topic this book will do you a disservice. Don't waste your money or your time. You are getting ripped off whether you know it or not. I suggest three books at the end of my review that you might want to read if you are interested in getting an accurate portrayal of the causes of the Civil War.If you know your Civil War history especially the pre-war period you are going to feel cheated because Fleming's book has no new insights into the cause(s) of the Civil War. In fact you may be annoyed if not downright outraged because you will find his view of history highly selective and borderline spurious. The author carefully selects nuggets of history to prove his preposterous assertion that the Civil War was caused by a disease of the public mind. Just as annoying is the claim on the cover of the book that the book offers a new understanding of why we fought the Civil War. Baloney.Shame on Thomas Fleming. No new insights here unless you count the author's clever assertion that there were not one but three emancipation proclimations in the history of our country. And get this--that James Buchanan was not as bad a president as most historians believe he was. Most historians rank Buchanan as the worst president of the 43 men who held the office (remember Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms and is usually counted as our 22nd and 24th president). Buchanan is considered worse than George W. Bush; yes, worse than GW. Thomas Fleming tries to resurrect Buchanan's reputation with the claim that President Buchanan is responsible for coining the phase a disease in the public mind. This is the guy who fiddled why Rome (read the Union) burned. He's the gutless one who told Lincoln he couldn't wait to get out of town and lead the divided union to A. Lincoln. It's this sort of clever writing and distortion of the historical record that disturbs me the most about this book. The author takes these kinds of liberties with the histoical record throughout this book. It's not that what he says is not true; it's that what he claims to be of the most importance is just one more aspect of a very, very complicated topic, that is, what is/are the causes of the Civil War.Thomas Fleming is a distinguished historian. Based on his reputation a novice reader is likely to believe that whatever someone with the pedigree of Mr. Fleming writes must be the gospel truth. In this instance it is not. The author does a disservice to readers, other historians and the holiest of American topics when he puts forth such an amaterish hypothesis. To boot he claims he has stumbled onto the here-to-now unknown and actual cause of the Civil War a cause that historians have missed for the past 150 years. The seeds for this disease of the public mind goes something like this: Northerners hated Southerners because the first 4 of 6 presidents were from Virginia and therefore those Virginians were taking over the country. Southerners on the other hand were looking for some Northern empathy because of Southerners' incessant fear of the next slave revolt. Those two attitudes/forces were the seeds for this primary disease of the mind that led Northerners to hate Southerners and Southerners to despise Northerners.Mr. Fleming's expertise is history of the Revolutionary Period. He should stick to a period of U. S. history he knows well and leave the Civil War to the experts.The best book I've ever read about the causes of the Civil War is The Impending Crisis by David M. Potter The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861 . He posthumously received the Pulitzer Prize for history in 1977 for this book. Even though it was written over 30 years ago it's as up-to-date as ever with respect to the basic nuts and bolts about the causes of the Civil War. As Porter so aptly says:The centrality of the slavery issue appears clear. Slavery, in one aspect or another pervaded all of the aspects of sectionalism. I might add the choice came down to how much the North wanted to tolerate slavery for the sake of the Union and likewise how badly the South wanted to give up slavery to preserve the Confederation. Although Potter's writing doesn't read as smoothly as Fleming's I wouldn't hesitate to give it an B compared to an A for Fleming. A short, very readable book about the entire Civil War from the causes to most of the battles is Bruce Catton's The Civil War (1960)  The Civil War (American Heritage Books) . Dated but highly readable and extremely informative for such a short book ( 278 pages). A more recent book on the Civil War that is considered the best one volume history of the Civil War is James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom (1988  Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States) ).

In this excellent book, Thomas Fleming makes the case that even without the slavery question, there were fast differences in religion, culture and economics leading to animosity dating back to even before the revolutionary war. In the end, Slavery was the issue that brought on the war, but even without it, these two regions did not need much of an excuse to go after each other. Starting with George Washington, there was a succession of mainly southern presidents with views and policies not well received in the North such as favoring France vs. England after the revolution. Northerners resented what they saw as southern power. The embargo before the war of 1812 and the results of the war also caused bitter divisions between North and South.In other regions of the world, slavery was ended without bloodshed. Why not here? Fleming makes use of a phrase coined by President Buchanan after John Brown’s raid. There exists “A disease in the Public Mind.” Neither side was willing to compromise. The abolitionists demanded immediate freedom with the right to vote without compensation. Anyone who suggested that slaves should be freed over time or that slave owners should be compensated was ridiculed. In addition, the abolitionists saw slaves as equal to whites so compromises such as moving slaves back to Africa were unacceptable. The abolitionists did everything in their power to try to influence public opinion. In many cases truth need not apply. Southerners were portrayed as degenerates who were lazy, drunk and violent and sexually depraved having abused and even raped their female slaves. Southerners saw immediate emancipation as leading to a race war. This had happened in Saint-Dominique and this was their greatest fear. In the end, most everyone was hurling invective at each other and no one was listening to the voice of compromise. There was “A disease in the public mind” rushing us to war.The book does a good job of describing the activities of people and events in the lead up to the war. I personally think that the author makes his case, but even if you do not buy in to Fleming’s premise that the North and the South disliked each other even without the question of slavery, the book presents a good overview of important people and events in the years before the war.

Winter reading