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Michael Holt The Fate Of Their Country Summary

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The fate of their country by Michael Holt is a book made up of 3 to 4 sections, titled Pandora's Box, The Wilmot Proviso, The Compromise of 1850, The Kansas-Nebraska Act. Author Michael Holt examines what caused the Civil War and the Pandora’s Box of sectional dissent territorial slavery issue over slavery into all current and future western territories also the Missouri crisis debate. It wasn’t slavery per the book but the debates about the extension of slavery into new territories and states that sent the nation careening into civil war, argues writer Michael Holt. He gives his readers an analysis of the partisan political forces, on the great debate over the extension of slavery into the American West. Michael Holt also writes how partisan politics lead to the Civil War partisans of all sides sought to define their opponents. In the book Holt contends that political decisions made from 1846 to 1858 had played a critical role in intensifying sectional hostility prior to secession and the Civil War. (Pandora's Box, Pages 3-16) Holt states that the Whig party Democrats and politicians maneuvered for a short term …show more content…

The Whig Party was immensely important in bringing about the Civil War. In this same chapter holt goes on to write how many northern whites wanted to keep slaves out of the west in order to keep blacks out. The North was pervasively racist. Blacks that were free sadly suffered social, economically, and politically. Politicians fanned a dying flame when necessary for political benefit. This premise is undeniably true. As support for his thesis, Holt looks at the final formation of the two party system, the Wilmot Proviso, the Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act to show how politicians used the issue of slavery to gain political

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