Download or read book Slavery s Constitution written by David Waldstreicher and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2010-06-15 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A historian finds the seeds of an inevitable civil war embedded in the ‘contradictions, ambiguities, and silences’ about slavery in the Constitution.” —Kirkus Reviews Taking on decades of received wisdom, David Waldstreicher has written the first book to recognize slavery’s place at the heart of the US Constitution. Famously, the Constitution never mentions slavery. And yet, of its eighty-four clauses, six were directly concerned with slaves and the interests of their owners. Five other clauses had implications for slavery that were considered and debated by the delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention and the citizens of the states during ratification. Slavery was as important to the making of the Constitution as the Constitution was to the survival of slavery. By tracing slavery from before the revolution, through the Constitution’s framing, and into the public debate that followed, Waldstreicher rigorously shows that slavery was not only actively discussed behind the closed and locked doors of the Constitutional Convention, but that it was also deftly woven into the Constitution itself. For one thing, slavery was central to the American economy, and since the document set the stage for a national economy, the Constitution could not avoid having implications for slavery. Even more, since the government defined sovereignty over individuals, as well as property in them, discussion of sovereignty led directly to debate over slavery’s place in the new republic. Finding meaning in silences that have long been ignored, Slavery’s Constitution is a vital and sorely needed contribution to the conversation about the origins, impact, and meaning of our nation’s founding document.
Download or read book The Broken Constitution written by Noah Feldman and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice An innovative account of Abraham Lincoln, constitutional thinker and doer Abraham Lincoln is justly revered for his brilliance, compassion, humor, and rededication of the United States to achieving liberty and justice for all. He led the nation into a bloody civil war to uphold the system of government established by the US Constitution—a system he regarded as the “last best hope of mankind.” But how did Lincoln understand the Constitution? In this groundbreaking study, Noah Feldman argues that Lincoln deliberately and recurrently violated the United States’ founding arrangements. When he came to power, it was widely believed that the federal government could not use armed force to prevent a state from seceding. It was also assumed that basic civil liberties could be suspended in a rebellion by Congress but not by the president, and that the federal government had no authority over slavery in states where it existed. As president, Lincoln broke decisively with all these precedents, and effectively rewrote the Constitution’s place in the American system. Before the Civil War, the Constitution was best understood as a compromise pact—a rough and ready deal between states that allowed the Union to form and function. After Lincoln, the Constitution came to be seen as a sacred text—a transcendent statement of the nation’s highest ideals. The Broken Constitution is the first book to tell the story of how Lincoln broke the Constitution in order to remake it. To do so, it offers a riveting narrative of his constitutional choices and how he made them—and places Lincoln in the rich context of thinking of the time, from African American abolitionists to Lincoln’s Republican rivals and Secessionist ideologues. Includes 8 Pages of Black-and-White Illustrations
Download or read book A Slaveholders Union written by George William Van Cleve and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-10-15 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After its early introduction into the English colonies in North America, slavery in the United States lasted as a legal institution until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1865. But increasingly during the contested politics of the early republic, abolitionists cried out that the Constitution itself was a slaveowners’ document, produced to protect and further their rights. A Slaveholders’ Union furthers this unsettling claim by demonstrating once and for all that slavery was indeed an essential part of the foundation of the nascent republic. In this powerful book, George William Van Cleve demonstrates that the Constitution was pro-slavery in its politics, its economics, and its law. He convincingly shows that the Constitutional provisions protecting slavery were much more than mere “political” compromises—they were integral to the principles of the new nation. By the late 1780s, a majority of Americans wanted to create a strong federal republic that would be capable of expanding into a continental empire. In order for America to become an empire on such a scale, Van Cleve argues, the Southern states had to be willing partners in the endeavor, and the cost of their allegiance was the deliberate long-term protection of slavery by America’s leaders through the nation’s early expansion. Reconsidering the role played by the gradual abolition of slavery in the North, Van Cleve also shows that abolition there was much less progressive in its origins—and had much less influence on slavery’s expansion—than previously thought. Deftly interweaving historical and political analyses, A Slaveholders’ Union will likely become the definitive explanation of slavery’s persistence and growth—and of its influence on American constitutional development—from the Revolutionary War through the Missouri Compromise of 1821.
Download or read book The Crooked Path to Abolition Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution written by James Oakes and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist for the 2022 Lincoln Prize An award-winning scholar uncovers the guiding principles of Lincoln’s antislavery strategies. The long and turning path to the abolition of American slavery has often been attributed to the equivocations and inconsistencies of antislavery leaders, including Lincoln himself. But James Oakes’s brilliant history of Lincoln’s antislavery strategies reveals a striking consistency and commitment extending over many years. The linchpin of antislavery for Lincoln was the Constitution of the United States. Lincoln adopted the antislavery view that the Constitution made freedom the rule in the United States, slavery the exception. Where federal power prevailed, so did freedom. Where state power prevailed, that state determined the status of slavery, and the federal government could not interfere. It would take state action to achieve the final abolition of American slavery. With this understanding, Lincoln and his antislavery allies used every tool available to undermine the institution. Wherever the Constitution empowered direct federal action—in the western territories, in the District of Columbia, over the slave trade—they intervened. As a congressman in 1849 Lincoln sponsored a bill to abolish slavery in Washington, DC. He reentered politics in 1854 to oppose what he considered the unconstitutional opening of the territories to slavery by the Kansas–Nebraska Act. He attempted to persuade states to abolish slavery by supporting gradual abolition with compensation for slaveholders and the colonization of free Blacks abroad. President Lincoln took full advantage of the antislavery options opened by the Civil War. Enslaved people who escaped to Union lines were declared free. The Emancipation Proclamation, a military order of the president, undermined slavery across the South. It led to abolition by six slave states, which then joined the coalition to affect what Lincoln called the "King’s cure": state ratification of the constitutional amendment that in 1865 finally abolished slavery.
Download or read book The Unconstitutionality of Slavery written by Lysander Spooner and published by . This book was released on 1845 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Antebellum Origins of the Modern Constitution written by Simon J. Gilhooley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-29 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that conflicts over slavery and abolition in the early American Republic generated a mode of constitutional interpretation that remains powerful today: the belief that the historical spirit of founding holds authority over the current moment. Simon J. Gilhooley traces how debates around the existence of slavery in the District of Columbia gave rise to the articulation of this constitutional interpretation, which constrained the radical potential of the constitutional text. To reconstruct the origins of this interpretation, Gilhooley draws on rich sources that include historical newspapers, pamphlets, and congressional debates. Examining free black activism in the North, Abolitionism in the 1830s, and the evolution of pro-slavery thought, this book shows how in navigating the existence of slavery in the District and the fundamental constitutional issue of the enslaved's personhood, Antebellum opponents of abolition came to promote an enduring but constraining constitutional imaginary.
Download or read book A Necessary Evil written by John P. Kaminski and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 1995 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Necessary Evil? is divided into seven chapters: the first establishes the background for slavery in the new nation and sets the stage for the debate while the second chapter records the arguments over slavery from the Constitutional Convention. Chapters three, four, and five turn to the New England, Middle, and Southern states respectively and present the complete record of slavery and the ratification debate in these regions.
Download or read book An Inquiry Into the Law of Negro Slavery in the United States of America written by Thomas Read Rootes Cobb and published by . This book was released on 1858 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Runaway America written by David Waldstreicher and published by Hill and Wang. This book was released on 2005-08-10 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientist, abolitionist, revolutionary: that is the Benjamin Franklin we know and celebrate. To this description, the talented young historian David Waldstreicher shows we must add runaway, slave master, and empire builder. But Runaway America does much more than revise our image of a beloved founding father. Finding slavery at the center of Franklin's life, Waldstreicher proves it was likewise central to the Revolution, America's founding, and the very notion of freedom we associate with both. Franklin was the sole Founding Father who was once owned by someone else and was among the few to derive his fortune from slavery. As an indentured servant, Franklin fled his master before his term was complete; as a struggling printer, he built a financial empire selling newspapers that not only advertised the goods of a slave economy (not to mention slaves) but also ran the notices that led to the recapture of runaway servants. Perhaps Waldstreicher's greatest achievement is in showing that this was not an ironic outcome but a calculated one. America's freedom, no less than Franklin's, demanded that others forgo liberty. Through the life of Franklin, Runaway America provides an original explanation to the paradox of American slavery and freedom.
Download or read book Reflections on Slavery and the Constitution written by George Anastaplo and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2012-01-16 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this insightful book about constitutional law and slavery, George Anastaplo illuminates both how the history of race relations in the United States should be approached and how seemingly hopeless social and political challenges can be usefully considered through the lens of the U.S. Constitution. He examines the outbreak of the American Civil War, its prosecution, and its aftermath, tracing the concept of slavery and law from its earliest beginnings and slavery’s fraught legal history within the United States. Anastaplo offers discussions that bring into focus discussions of slavery in Ancient Greece and within the Bible, showing their influence on the Constitution and the subsequent political struggles that led to the Civil War.
Download or read book Slavery Abortion and the Politics of Constitutional Meaning written by Justin Buckley Dyer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-06-28 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the past forty years, prominent pro-life activists, judges and politicians have invoked the history and legacy of American slavery to elucidate aspects of contemporary abortion politics. As is often the case, many of these popular analogies have been imprecise, underdeveloped and historically simplistic. In Slavery, Abortion, and the Politics of Constitutional Meaning, Justin Buckley Dyer provides the first book-length scholarly treatment of the parallels between slavery and abortion in American constitutional development. In this fascinating and wide-ranging study, Dyer demonstrates that slavery and abortion really are historically, philosophically and legally intertwined in America. The nexus, however, is subtler and more nuanced than is often suggested, and the parallels involve deep principles of constitutionalism.
Download or read book The Sources of Anti Slavery Constitutionalism in America 1760 1848 written by William M. Wiecek and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No detailed description available for "The Sources of Anti-Slavery Constitutionalism in America, 1760-1848".
Download or read book No Property in Man written by Sean Wilentz and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Wilentz brings a lifetime of learning and a mastery of political history to this brilliant book.” —David W. Blight, author of Frederick Douglass A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year Americans revere the Constitution even as they argue fiercely over its original toleration of slavery. In this essential reconsideration of the creation and legacy of our nation’s founding document, Sean Wilentz reveals the tortured compromises that led the Founders to abide slavery without legitimizing it, a deliberate ambiguity that fractured the nation seventy years later. Contesting the Southern proslavery version of the Constitution, Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass pointed to the framers’ refusal to validate what they called “property in man.” No Property in Man has opened a fresh debate about the political and legal struggles over slavery that began during the Revolution and concluded with the Civil War. It drives straight to the heart of the single most contentious issue in all of American history. “Revealing and passionately argued...[Wilentz] insists that because the framers did not sanction slavery as a matter of principle, the antislavery legacy of the Constitution has been...‘misconstrued’ for over 200 years.” —Khalil Gibran Muhammad, New York Times “Wilentz’s careful and insightful analysis helps us understand how Americans who hated slavery, such as Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, could come to see the Constitution as an ally in their struggle.” —Eric Foner
Download or read book The Constitution a Pro slavery Compact written by Wendell Phillips and published by . This book was released on 1845 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Second Founding How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution written by Eric Foner and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2019-09-17 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Gripping and essential.”—Jesse Wegman, New York Times An authoritative history by the preeminent scholar of the Civil War era, The Second Founding traces the arc of the three foundational Reconstruction amendments from their origins in antebellum activism and adoption amidst intense postwar politics to their virtual nullification by narrow Supreme Court decisions and Jim Crow state laws. Today these amendments remain strong tools for achieving the American ideal of equality, if only we will take them up.
Download or read book Dred Scott and the Problem of Constitutional Evil written by Mark A. Graber and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-07-03 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dred Scott and the Problem of Constitutional Evil , first published in 2006, concerns what is entailed by pledging allegiance to a constitutional text and tradition saturated with concessions to evil. The Constitution of the United States was originally understood as an effort to mediate controversies between persons who disputed fundamental values, and did not offer a vision of the good society. In order to form a 'more perfect union' with slaveholders, late-eighteenth-century citizens fashioned a constitution that plainly compelled some injustices and was silent or ambiguous on other questions of fundamental right. This constitutional relationship could survive only as long as a bisectional consensus was required to resolve all constitutional questions not settled in 1787. Dred Scott challenges persons committed to human freedom to determine whether antislavery northerners should have provided more accommodations for slavery than were constitutionally strictly necessary or risked the enormous destruction of life and property that preceded Lincoln's new birth of freedom.
Download or read book Slavery by Another Name written by Douglas A. Blackmon and published by Icon Books. This book was released on 2012-10-04 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the mistreatment of black Americans. In this 'precise and eloquent work' - as described in its Pulitzer Prize citation - Douglas A. Blackmon brings to light one of the most shameful chapters in American history - an 'Age of Neoslavery' that thrived in the aftermath of the Civil War through the dawn of World War II. Using a vast record of original documents and personal narratives, Blackmon unearths the lost stories of slaves and their descendants who journeyed into freedom after the Emancipation Proclamation and then back into the shadow of involuntary servitude thereafter. By turns moving, sobering and shocking, this unprecedented account reveals these stories, the companies that profited the most from neoslavery, and the insidious legacy of racism that reverberates today.
