One of the first books published that didn't kneel in humble homage at the sacred throne of Abraham Lincoln. Masters had the audacity to suggest that according to the Articles of the Confederation, which hadn't been revoked, that the Southern states had an absolute legal right, according to the Constitution, to succeed. For Masters, Lincoln's preserving the Union by force was the act of a tyrant and dictator. Masters felt that slavery was a dying institution and that slavery could have been ended within a few years without war and that the horror and the slaughter of the Civil War could have been averted by a more reasonable, humane , and conciliatory leader. All of which is of course, arguable, but it is an interesting and more realistic view of Lincoln than one usually encounters.