Join us for our next program, “Steps Toward War: Two Dramatic Rescues That Led to It” presented by Nat Brandt.

While our primary interest and speakers are usually focused on the Civil War, the causes that led to it have stirred debate and deserve attention. Among the most important events leading to the Civil War are the following: the Missouri Compromise and Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, publication in 1852 of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s best selling Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act that led to the violence in “Bleeding Kansas” between the free soilers (including John Brown) and the slave staters, the 1957 Dred Scott decision by the U.S. Supreme Court declaring the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional and denying any legal rights, including citizenship, to African-Americans, the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates, and finally the failed 1859 Harper’s Ferry raid to free slaves by John Brown and his execution, followed by Lincoln’s election as President, the Southern secessions, and the attack on Fr. Sumter.

This month our speaker Nat Brandt will recount two examples of anti-slavery rescue actions by abolitionists that also contributed to the sectional split that would lead to war. Close by was the 1858 Oberlin-Wellington rescue of escaped slave John Price from Kentucky slave catchers by Oberlin area citizens. Oberlin was an Ohio center of abolitionist sentiments and a stop on the underground railroad. This led to a famous trial in Cleveland of Oberlin rescuers. Brandt’s account of this drama and another earlier in Philadelphia will be well worth hearing.

Dennis Keating
CCWRT President

Our speaker: Nat Brandt is a veteran journalist/historian who has been a reporter for the Newark Star-Ledger, an editor for the New York Times, managing editor of American Heritage, editor in chief of Publishers Weekly, and a senior news writer for CBS News. He is the author of eleven nonfiction books-including The Town That Started the Civil War (Oberlin) and In the Shadow of the Civil War: Passmore Williamson and the Rescue of Jane Johnson, as well as two novels. Mr. Brandt is a recipient of the Douglas Southall Freeman Award for Southern History as well as awards from the Illinois State Historical Society and the New Jersey Press Association.

To make a reservation: Use the Dinner Reservation Form on the website, send an email to or call 440-449-9311 and leave a message on the voice mail.

Location:   Meetings are held at Judson Manor at the corner of East 107th Street and Chester on University Circle in downtown Cleveland.

http://clevelandcivilwarroundtable.com/