The Critical Signpost on the Journey Toward Secession.

The article presents a speech by historian William J. Cooper Jr., delivered at the annual meeting of the Southern Historical Association held in Charlotte, North Carolina on November 5, 2010, in which he discussed the secession crisis of 1860 and 1861, focusing especially on the book "The Road to Disunion, Volume 2: Secessionists Triumphant, 1854-1861," by William W. Freehling, as well as providing a historiography of studies of the crisis of the Union.