Before the Civil War, slaveholders made themselves into the most powerful, most deeply rooted, and best organized private interest group within the United States. Not only did slavery represent the national economy's second largest capital investment, exceeded only by investment in real estate, but guarantees of its perpetuation were studded throughout the U.S. Constitution. The vast majority of white Americans, in North and South, accepted the institution, and pro-slavery presidents and congressmen consistently promoted its interests. In Abolitionist Politics and the Coming of the Civil War, James Brewer Stewart explains how a small group of radical activists, the abolitionist movement, played a pivotal role in turning American politics against this formidable system. He examines what influence the movement had in creating the political crises that led to civil war and evaluates the extent to which a small number of zealous reformers made a truly significant political difference when demanding that their nation face up to its most excruciating moral problem. In making these assessments, Stewart addresses a series of more specific questions: What were the abolitionists actually up against when seeking the overthrow of slavery and white supremacy? What motivated and sustained them during their long and difficult struggles? What larger historical contexts (religious, social, economic, cultural, and political) influenced their choices and determined their behavior? What roles did extraordinary leaders play in shaping the movement, and what were the contributions of abolitionism's unheralded "foot soldiers"?? What factors ultimately determined, for better or worse, the abolitionists' impact on American politics and the realization of their equalitarian goals?

In an almost unprecedented career move, a Senior Yorkshire Judge has turned himself into a prolific novelist. James Stewart, the well-known former Recorder of Bradford, has this month published his fourth novel in just a year. James, who as a QC worked out of the top Leeds Chambers at Park Court, was involved in many high profile criminal cases all over the UK and in the South Pacific. Then, as a judge, he presided over some of the notorious murder cases that came before the Bradford and Leeds Courts. The experience of these cases lies behind all his novels. The first, The Honour Killing, came out in late 2017 (under the pseudonym J S Hamilton), to be followed by Missing, about a vanished au pair girl, and then Slaughter, soon to be followed by Ripper2 (all written under the name James Stewart).