The fragile fabric of Union: cotton, federal politics, and the global origins of the Civil War

Introduction

Prologue, 1787

The threads of a global loom : cotton, slavery, and union in an interdependent Atlantic, 1789-1820

Calculating the cost of union : nationalism and sectionalism in a Republican era, 1796-1818

Protecting slavery and free trade : the political economy of cotton, 1818-1833

Building bridges to the West and the world : empowerment and anxiety in the Second Party System, 1834-1848

An unnatural union : King Cotton and the lower South secession, 1849-1860

Epilogue, 1861.