'' Underground Airlines '' is a 2016 novel by Ben Winters which is set in a contemporary alternate-history United States where the American Civil War never occurred because Abraham Lincoln was assassinated prior to his 1861 inauguration and a version of the Crittenden Compromise was adopted instead . As a result , slavery has remained legal in the " Hard Four " ( a group of southern states which have kept slavery ) : Alabama , Louisiana , Mississippi and a unified Carolina . Its name evokes the Underground Railroad in relations to its setting . The novel attracted praise for exploring racism through the alternate-history mechanism
assassinated
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Underground Airlines