Product Overview

This case considers the association between a financial crisis and regime change. The setting for this case is 1861, when Virginians debate the question of secession from the United States, and when northwestern Virginians contemplated secession from Virginia. The proximate financial crisis was the Panic of 1857.

Learning Objectives

The main objective of this case is to support a discussion about the role of the panic of 1857 in stimulating the sectional antagonisms that led to the Civil War. At the heart of the case is a debate over the relative importance of three main causes of the war: (a) the abolition of slavery; (b) states' rights; and (c) the different trends of economic development in the North and the South.