In the book Apostles of Disunion, author Charles B. Dew opens the first chapter with a question that the Immigration and Naturalization Service asks when an exam he gives to potential new Americans. citizens: “The civil war was fought over an important issue” (4). Dew responds by noting that "according to the INS, you are correct if you propose either of the following: 'slavery or state rights'" (4). Although this book provides more 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 the speech given by Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, during his inaugural address, as being a speech that "remains a classic articulation of the Southern position that resistance to Northern tyranny and defense of states' rights was the sole reason for secession. Only constitutional differences are at the heart of the sectoral controversy, he insisted. “Our present condition…illustrates the American idea that governments rest on the consent of the governed and that the people have the right 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 events leading 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 ...... the extinction of slavery and the degradation of the peoples 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 a lot of 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 the slave states in an effort to put an end to the efforts of the North, and particularly Lincoln, for of the abolition of slavery. There is no doubt that slavery had everything to do with the cause of the Civil War. In Dew's words: "Simply put, slavery and race were absolutely critical elements in the outbreak of war" (81). This was an excellent book, easy to read and very informative..