This volume investigates the political disintegration of the United States during the late 1850s and the subsequent rise of Abraham Lincoln as a national figure. Allan Nevins, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, utilizes extensive archival research and primary source correspondence to document the collapse of the Whig party and the rise of the Republican party. He argues that the inability of the Buchanan administration to manage the sectional crisis over slavery made the eventual conflict inevitable. The text provides a rigorous examination of the legislative and social pressures that defined the pre-war era.

Historians frequently cite this work as a foundational text for understanding the political complexities leading to the American Civil War. Readers often note the dense, academic prose style that requires a high level of familiarity with 19th-century American political figures.