Race : the eight-hundred pound gorilla of American history -- The German Forty-Eighters : Lincoln's indispensable allies -- Lincoln's call for troops : six governors say "No" -- Secession, the Constitution, and law -- Sovereignty and the historical context of secession -- War crimes : Lincoln prosecutes the war on the South -- Secession : legal in 1860, legal today -- One nation under surveillance : will the Republic terminate in an empire?