Busy in the cause Iowa, the free-state struggle in the west, and the prelude to the Civil War

Soike examines Iowa's role in the sectional crisis that led to the Civil War, describing Iowa as a hardened western state completely indifferent to slavery that offered full acceptance of the Black Laws adopted by neighboring states determined to discourage black migration. According to Soike, Iowa made a dramatic transformation regarding slavery in the 1850s, especially regarding the Kansas-Nebraska Act. During the 1850s, abolitionists turned the tide in Iowa. Antislavery men took key positions in state government. Iowa also provided the antislavery cause with abolitionists who were eager to fight for free soil. Soike points to Iowa's proximity to Missouri and the Kansas Territory as a contributing factor to the state's involvement in the crisis of the 1850s. Moreover, Iowa also served as a midway point for fugitive slaves on their way to Canada and other points north. Though the author successfully proves Iowa's relevance to the slavery debate, he seems to stretch evidence thin at times in his attempt to link the state to well-known events elsewhere. Nevertheless, the book succeeds in demonstrating how slavery affected the social and political climate of the trans-Mississippi West. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. --Dino Lamount Bryant, Saint Augustine's University