From oligarchy to republicanism : the great task of reconstruction / Forrest A. Nabors.

"The key to understanding the antebellum South and the Civil War is not slavery per se, but the anti-republican ethos that permeated the beliefs, habits, and way of life of the Southern Oligarchy and set them at odds with not only Northerners, but middle class, poor, and enslaved Southerners as well...

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