The Land­scape of Fear presents a vivid por­tray­al of the grow­ing ten­sions in 1860, espe­cial­ly in the mind of Edmund Ruf­fin, a staunch advo­cate for South­ern seces­sion. Ruf­fin, dis­heart­ened by Abra­ham Lincoln’s nom­i­na­tion as the Repub­li­can can­di­date, had hoped for some­one more vehe­ment and divi­sive, such as William H. Seward, to take the lead for the Repub­li­cans. He believed that Seward’s rhetoric would inflame South­ern sen­ti­ment and pro­pel the region toward seces­sion. Instead, Ruf­fin was left with the belief that Lincoln’s mod­er­ate approach would not pro­voke enough of a response to ignite the nec­es­sary out­rage for seces­sion. As he trav­eled through Vir­ginia, en route to meet­ing his daugh­ter Mil­dred, Ruf­fin found him­self engulfed by a wide­spread fear of slave upris­ings, fueled by recent inci­dents like John Brown’s raid and unset­tling rumors of poi­son­ings and revolts cir­cu­lat­ing through the South. These fears seemed to echo the grow­ing sense of inse­cu­ri­ty, as South­ern lead­ers grew increas­ing­ly con­vinced that their way of life was under direct threat.

Through­out his trav­els, Ruf­fin encoun­tered a series of unset­tling events that seemed to cor­rob­o­rate his worst fears. One par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­turb­ing inci­dent involved the mur­der of Con­gress­man Keit­t’s broth­er by enslaved indi­vid­u­als, fur­ther exac­er­bat­ing the per­va­sive fear that slave revolts were immi­nent. Along­side these vio­lent events, nat­ur­al dis­as­ters such as a severe drought in the South were affect­ing crops and food sup­plies, which height­ened the region’s anx­i­ety and dis­tress. The eco­nom­ic strain added to the pres­sure of the already tense polit­i­cal envi­ron­ment, as Ruf­fin, like many oth­ers in the South, believed that these dis­as­ters were har­bin­gers of the destruc­tion of the region’s future pros­per­i­ty. The South­ern states, already grap­pling with fears about Lincoln’s elec­tion, now faced addi­tion­al threats, both real and imag­ined, that only served to fuel the grow­ing ten­sion. These com­pound­ed anx­i­eties placed the South in a height­ened state of fear, con­vinced that their way of life and the insti­tu­tion of slav­ery were on the brink of extinc­tion.

When Ruf­fin final­ly reached White Sul­phur Springs in Vir­ginia, he found him­self in a bustling resort, tra­di­tion­al­ly fre­quent­ed by South­ern elites seek­ing refuge from the ten­sions of every­day life. How­ev­er, he was struck by the indif­fer­ence of the oth­er guests, who seemed more inter­est­ed in leisure than in engag­ing with the press­ing polit­i­cal issues of the day. Ruffin’s impas­sioned advo­ca­cy for seces­sion was met with lit­tle enthu­si­asm, leav­ing him feel­ing increas­ing­ly iso­lat­ed and frus­trat­ed. His hopes of reunit­ing with his daugh­ter, Mil­dred, were dashed when he learned she would not be join­ing him at the resort, fur­ther deep­en­ing his sense of soli­tude. This real­iza­tion prompt­ed a shift in his jour­ney, as he then trav­eled to Frank­fort, Ken­tucky, where he encoun­tered even more oppo­si­tion. There, he was con­front­ed by strong Union sen­ti­ments, even from his son-in-law, fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing his already tense polit­i­cal envi­ron­ment. His attempts to sway oth­ers toward the cause of seces­sion through let­ters to South­ern news­pa­pers went large­ly ignored, and the release of his own book, Antic­i­pa­tions of the Future, was met with com­plete silence. This lack of sup­port from both with­in and out­side his imme­di­ate cir­cle only inten­si­fied his feel­ings of alien­ation and solid­i­fied his grow­ing belief that the South was on the verge of an irre­versible shift.

As Elec­tion Day loomed, Ruffin’s con­vic­tion that Lincoln’s pres­i­den­cy would sig­nal the end of slav­ery and the South’s pros­per­i­ty deep­ened. His iso­la­tion grew as the South appeared divid­ed and unwill­ing to stand unit­ed in the face of what he saw as a grave threat. The chap­ter under­scores the grow­ing frus­tra­tion and anx­i­ety felt by South­ern lead­ers like Ruf­fin, who viewed Lincoln’s elec­tion as the final nail in the cof­fin for their way of life. Yet, despite his mount­ing sense of iso­la­tion, Ruf­fin remained unyield­ing in his com­mit­ment to the cause of seces­sion, stead­fast in the belief that the South must act in order to pre­serve its hon­or and its insti­tu­tions. The emo­tion­al ten­sion of this peri­od is pal­pa­ble, as Ruf­fin and oth­ers like him grap­pled with the dif­fi­cult real­i­ty that the nation was tee­ter­ing on the brink of civ­il war. The grow­ing divide between the North and South was becom­ing more evi­dent with each pass­ing day, and Ruffin’s reflec­tions cap­ture the sense of urgency and fear that per­me­at­ed the South as it faced an uncer­tain and poten­tial­ly dis­as­trous future.

Ruffin’s jour­ney through the polit­i­cal­ly charged land­scape of 1860 encap­su­lates the deep­en­ing divide in the nation. His own per­son­al frus­tra­tions with the lack of sup­port for seces­sion in the South mir­ror the larg­er frus­tra­tion felt by many South­ern lead­ers who saw them­selves as fight­ing a los­ing bat­tle. Their belief that the North’s vic­to­ry in the elec­tion of Lin­coln was the begin­ning of the end for their way of life was cou­pled with an increas­ing sense of dread about the future of slav­ery and South­ern sov­er­eign­ty. As Ruf­fin and oth­ers like him wait­ed for the inevitable to unfold, their actions and words became a reflec­tion of the intense emo­tion­al tur­moil that gripped the South. Their belief that Lincoln’s pres­i­den­cy marked the begin­ning of the end was only solid­i­fied by their grow­ing sense of fear, which was ampli­fied by the per­ceived indif­fer­ence of the North and the unyield­ing atti­tude of the Union’s gov­ern­ment. This sense of impend­ing doom, com­bined with the desire for seces­sion, would lead the South down a path from which there would be no return.