Ever since the Southern states actually withdrew from the Union in 1861, the work has been viewed as a window into the development of secessionist thought, and, in some ways, a preview of the American Civil War. In 1861, it was reprinted in New York City with the title A Key to the Disunion Conspiracy.[1] A Confederate edition was published in Richmond in 1862.
The novel was noted for its uncharacteristically negative depiction of the Supreme Court of the United States for its time, depicting Van Buren as using "the servile Judge Baker of the Supreme Court" as a tool through which to exercise power.[2]
^Kermit L. Hall, James W. Ely Jr., and Joel B. Grossman, Eds., The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States, Second Edition (2005), p. 760-64.
Bibliography
Robert J. Brugger, Beverley Tucker: Heart over Head in the Old South (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977).
Beverley D. Tucker, Nathaniel Beverley Tucker: Prophet of the Confederacy, 1784-1851 (Tokyo: Nan'undo, 1979).
