The Alternative

“Submission or secession?” William H. Holcombe opens with a nation divided—and insists that no new compact can mend the breach.

With Abraham Lincoln about to take office, Southern physician Holcombe casts the crisis as more than a quarrel over territories or constitutional power. This Civil War-era polemic advances a stark pro-slavery case: he claims North and South have become irreconcilable, and warns that ending slavery would destroy the South’s social order and identity. His argument rests on the racist conviction that Black people must be subordinated, dressed in the language of science, religion, and Providence. As secession looms, Holcombe urges Southern unity and presents a separate nation as the only alternative to what he calls “Africanization.” How does he try to make that extreme choice seem inevitable?

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