In the book Apostles of Disunion, author Charles B. Dew opens the first chapter with a question the Immigration and Naturalization Service has about an exam administered to potential new American citizens: “The Civil War was fought over what an important issue” (4). Dew responds by noting that “according to the INS, you are correct if you offer one of the following answers: 'slavery or states' rights'” (4). Although this book provides further evidence and documentation that slavery was the cause of the Civil War, there are a few places where states' rights are specifically mentioned. In presenting the results of his extensive research, Dew provides compelling documentation that would allow the reader to conclude that slavery was indeed the cause of both secession and the Civil War. On the question of whether states' rights were the cause of the Civil War, Dew refers to a speech made by Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America, during his inaugural address as one that "remains a classic articulation of the position of South that resistance to Northern tyranny and defense of states' rights were the only reason to secede. Only constitutional differences are at the heart of the sectional dispute, he insisted. 'Our present condition... illustrates the American idea that governments are based on the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish governments whenever they become destructive of the purposes for which they were established' ”(13) .The election of President Abraham Lincoln became the catalyst for the events that led to the Civil War. Lincoln represented the Republican Party which believed that all men should be free and that it was wrong to keep people as slaves,...... middle of paper... extinction of slavery and degradation of the people of the South'” (62) . In Apostles of Disunion, Dew presents compelling documentation that the issue of slavery was indeed the ultimate cause of the Civil War. This book provided much insight into why the South feared the abolition of slavery so much. Reading the letters and speeches of the secession commissioners, it was clear that each of them made impassioned appeals to all slave states in an effort to end the North's, and particularly Lincoln's, push for the abolition of slavery. There should be no doubt that slavery had everything to do with being the cause of the Civil War. In Dew's words, "To put it very simply, slavery and race were absolutely critical elements in the advent of war" (81). This was an excellent book, easy to read and very enlightening.