On page 8 of The Problem of Emancipation, Rugemer references Edward Ayers, the historian who advanced the idea that the origin of the Civil War could be described as a “deep contingency.” In his book, What Caused the Civil War? Reflections on the South and Southern History, Ayers lays out in a series of essays what he means by deep contingency. After an initial autobiographical essay about his own upbringing in the South, Ayers illuminates the uniqueness of the region and the deep complexity of Southern history, including slavery. The complexity of the region meant that there was not any great, universal enthusiasm for secession, and there was little rhetoric for war that directly cited the threat of ending of slavery. According to Ayers, one of the dominant beliefs among historians for the cause of the Civil War was the South’s fear over the economy and growing industrialism. This belief was in opposition to the traditional narrative that the Confederacy went to war over the issue of slavery primarily, the former making the Civil War avoidable and the latter inevitable. PBS specials and works of popular history have portrayed the Civil War as unavoidable yet ultimately good for the nation. Ayers argues that the views of both sides swing too far to the extremes, and that historians should adopt a new theory based on each side. From this, Ayers calls for deep contingency, claiming that the Civil War was very likely to happen but for numerous reasons. The question of whether or not the Civil War was inevitable is not as important as the reasons that led to the war.
Rugemer uses the idea of deep contingency throughout The Problem of Emancipation, for there were a number of influences that led to a very likely war. He expands the work of Ayers, however, to shift the focus to largely Caribbean and Atlantic ideas and influences, rather than domestic ones. A key element of the “deep” part of contingency must lie abroad, according to Rugemer. Breaking down those foreign reasons, the first part of Rugemer’s book examines rebellions in the West Indies and their portrayal in the American media. Slaveholding Americans believed that abolitionist activity directly led to slave revolts, as evidenced in the Caribbean. The second part of the book focuses on the effect of British abolition on the issue of slavery in America. The emancipation of the British Caribbean greatly influenced both American abolitionists and slaveholders, each using the British example for their own cause. Abolitionists pointed to the relative social and political stability in the West Indies as proof that the eradication of slavery was a good and safe thing to do. Slaveholders argued that emancipation would aid a supposed British conspiracy to split the United States, a view that Southern intellectuals articulated after West Indian emancipation.
The complex international influences and ideas circulating in the antebellum United States serve to reinforce the deep contingency theory by adding the Atlantic element. “This book explores this notion of ‘deep contingency’ by focusing not only on the long-term development of American ideas about emancipation in the Caribbean but also on how those ideas intersected with some of the key events in the coming of the Civil War.” (p.8) On this point, Rugemer does well.