Conference Program

Wednesday, October 13
Holman Auditorium

Opening of the Conference, 6:00

Welcome
Lacy K. Ford, University of South Carolina
"'A Soul of Priceless Value': The Ideological Reconfiguration of Slavery in the Lower South on the Eve of the Civil War"

Special Collections, J. D. Williams Library
Reception and Exhibit, 7:00

"This Fiery Trial: Exhibit on Mississippi and the American Civil War"

Thursday, October 14
Butler Auditorium, Triplett Alumni House

First Panel, 8:30-10:00:  A Decade of Turmoil

John C. Waugh, Independent Scholar
“On the Brink of the Civil War: The Compromise of 1850”

Eric Walther, University of Houston
"William Lowndes Yancey and the Conventions of 1860"

Second Panel, 10:30-12:00: Southern Perspectives on Secession

Lawrence T. McDonnell, Iowa State University
“Toward a Microhistory of Disunion: The View from Charleston – and Kaohsiung”

Christopher Olsen, Indiana State University
"Masculinity, Political Culture, and Secesion in Mississippi"

Third Panel, 2:00-3:30:  Leadership in the Midst of Crisis

Russell McClintock, St. Johns High School, Shrewsbury, Mass.
“‘Shall it be Peace, or a Sword?’: Lincoln, Seward, and the Struggle over the First Inaugural”

Michael Powell, Frederick Community College, Frederick, Maryland
“‘To be Governor Means Something:’ Southern Governors and the Secession Crisis”

Fourth Panel, 4:00-5:30:  Religion and Disunion

April Holm, Eugene Lang College, New York, N.Y.
“‘The Great Secession:’ Disunion, Slavery, and Conflict on the Religious Border”

Sean A. Scott, The Papers of Abraham Lincoln
“‘Like the Voice of God’ or ‘Prostituting the Bible’?  Civilian Responses to Henry Van Dyke’s The Character and Influence of Abolitionism”

Friday, October 15
E. F. Yerby Conference Center

First Panel, 8:30-10:00: Economics of Disunion

Brian Schoen, Ohio University
"'The Inevitable Reslt of Our History:' Political Realism, Historical Revisionism, and the Secessionist Cause"

Marc-William Palen, University of Texas at Austin
“The Forgotten Transatlantic Tariff Debate: Great Britain, the Morrill Tariff, and the Confederacy’s Free Trade Diplomacy”

Second Panel, 10:30-12:00: Disputing the Founding Documents

H. Robert Baker, Georgia State University
"Better Stories: Constitutional Law and the Constitution's History in Antebellum America"

Michael Conlin, Eastern Washington University
“‘All Men Are Created Free and Equal:’ The Radicalization of the Declaration of Independence by Slaves, Abolitionists and Slavemasters, 1840-1861”

Third Panel, 2:00-3:30:  Territorial Expansion and National Schism

Steven Woodworth, Texas Christian University
"The Liberty Party and the Election of 1844"

Kristin Oertel, University of Tulsa
“‘The Suicide of Slavery’? Bleeding Kansas and the Causes of Secession”

Fourth Panel, 4:00-5:30: Sources of Friction

Dwight Teeter, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
"The Antebellum Press in the Kaleidoscope of Causes of the Civil War"

Keri Leigh Merritt, University of Georgia
“Class Crisis and the Civil War: Poor Whites, Slaves and the Southern Labor Problem”