South2Freedom, Calhoun versus Morrison

ALICE L. BAUMGARTNER — SOUTH TO FREEDOM — 2020

This book is essential on the fight against slavery in the USA and south of it in Mexico. People who are educated in the subject of the Civil War, what came before and what came after? know Mexico had played a role in the struggle. But it is mostly neglected, and mostly, if not only, the underground railroad goes north and to Canada. The book which is very well documented and tries to be exhaustive, was a real necessity for us to really understand how the USA got into their Civil War and how the constitution was from the very start crooked because it did not settle the problem of slavery, considering that it was a question to be answered at state-level, which meant there was no possible constitutional solution without an amendment specifying the fundamental answer to the problem because it was a problem, in the Southern states, in the USA, in the world, and first of all at this last level in Mexico.

Imagine it actually led to an invasion of Mexico by some French army sent by Napoleon III, a French emperor who was elected president of the French republic in 1848 but then seized power in December 1851 and got rid of the republic and replaced it with an empire. Victor Hugo, in a pamphlet, called him, The Little Napoleon, as opposed to the Great one, Napoleon 1st. And he went into exile for twenty years. And that French emperor sent some Austrian prince to become the emperor of Mexico. Simply ridiculous. But it shows how hot the debate on slavery was, with Mexico who had gotten rid of it, and the USA who could not find a solution. The present book gives all the details of this long history from the independence of Mexico in 1821 to just after the end of the Civil War.

Only maybe one shortcoming due to the modernity of the treatment of this past historical situation. The author assumes that it is simply accepted by everyone that slavery is a barbaric act, but she should have definitely given more flesh to the slavery camp in the USA and actually quoted with more emphasis a man like John C. Calhoun who theorized the possibility of having a democratic society with the…