The History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America is a historically significant book about the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 by Vice President

Vice President of the United States

The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...

 Henry Wilson

Henry Wilson

Henry Wilson was the 18th Vice President of the United States and a Senator from Massachusetts...

, who had been a Senator

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 from Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

 during the war.

The book was published in three volumes by J.R. Osgood

James R. Osgood

James R. Osgood was an American publisher probably best known for his partnership with Mark Twain and his involvement with the publishing company that would become Houghton Mifflin.-Life and work:...

 and Company of Boston, Massachusetts. The first two volumes appeared in 1872, the year Wilson ran for vice president on the winning Republican ticket headed by Ulysses S. Grant

Ulysses S. Grant

Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th President of the United States as well as military commander during the Civil War and post-war Reconstruction periods. Under Grant's command, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military and ended the Confederate States of America...

. The last volume appeared in 1877, two years after the author's death in office.

Wilson's history went through several more Osgood editions, and was also published by Houghton Mifflin

Houghton Mifflin

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is an educational and trade publisher in the United States. Headquartered in Boston's Back Bay, it publishes textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults.-History:The company was...

 in the 1870s and afterward. A three-volume reprint was published in 1969 by Negro Universities Press. The work has also appeared in microform

Microform

Microforms are any forms, either films or paper, containing microreproductions of documents for transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about one twenty-fifth of the original document size...

.

The book's title contains a relatively late usage of the term "Slave Power

Slave power

The Slave Power was a term used in the Northern United States to characterize the political power of the slaveholding class of the South....

" for the politically powerful slaveholding class in the American South before the Civil War.