"Rebels in the Making narrates and interprets secession in the fifteen slave states in 1860-1861. It is a political history informed by the socio-economic structures of the South and the varying forms they took across the region. It explains how a small minority of Southern radicals exploited the hopes and fears of Southern whites over slavery after Lincoln's election in November of 1860 to create and lead a revolutionary movement with broad support, especially in the Lower South. It reveals a divided South in which the commitment to secession was tied directly to the extent of slave ownership and the political influence of local planters. White fears over the future of slavery were at the center of the crisis, and the refusal of Republicans to sanction the expansion of slavery doomed efforts to reach a sectional compromise. In January six states in the Lower South joined South Carolina in leaving the Union, and delegates from the seceded states organized a Confederate government in February. Lincoln's call for troops to uphold the Union after the Confederacy fired upon Fort Sumter in April 1861 finally pushed the reluctant states of the Upper South to secede in defense of slavery and white supremacy"--

Includes list of members.