Download or read book Lincoln s Last Speech written by Louis P. Masur and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-02 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What did Abraham Lincoln envision when he talked about "reconstruction?" Assassinated in 1865, the president did not have a chance to begin the work of reconciling the North and South, nor to oversee Reconstruction as an official postwar strategy. Yet his final speech, given to thousands gathered in the rain outside the White House on April 11, 1865, gives a clear indication of what Lincoln's postwar policy might have looked like-one that differed starkly from what would emerge in the tumultuous decade that followed. In Lincoln's Last Speech, renowned historian and author Louis P. Masur offers insight into this critical address and its vision of a reconstructed United States. Coming two days after Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox and a week after the fall of Richmond, Lincoln's speech was expected to be a victory oration. Instead, he looked to the future, discussing how best to restore the seceded states to the national government, and even endorsing limited black suffrage. Delving into the language and arguments of Lincoln's last address, Masur traces the theme of reconstruction as it developed throughout his presidency, starting with the very earliest days of the war. Masur illuminates the evolution of Lincoln's thinking and the national debate around reconstruction, touching on key moments such as the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction on December 8, 1863, and Lincoln's pocket veto of the Wade-Davis bill in July 1864. He also examines social reconstruction, including the plight of freedmen and the debate over the place of blacks in society; and considers the implications of Lincoln's speech after April 1865, when Andrew Johnson assumed office and the ground was laid for the most radical phases of the postwar policy. A nuanced study of Lincoln's views on national reconciliation, this work gives us a better understanding of the failures that occurred with postwar Reconstruction and the eventual path that brought the country to reunion.
Download or read book Speeches and Papers Relating to the Rebellion and the Overthrow of Slavery written by George Sewall Boutwell and published by University of Michigan Library. This book was released on 1867 with total page 636 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book From Oligarchy to Republicanism written by Forrest A. Nabors and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2017-12-19 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On December 4, 1865, members of the 39th United States Congress walked into the Capitol Building to begin their first session after the end of the Civil War. They understood their responsibility to put the nation back on the path established by the American Founding Fathers. The moment when the Republicans in the Reconstruction Congress remade the nation and renewed the law is in a class of rare events. The Civil War should be seen in this light. In From Oligarchy to Republicanism: The Great Task of Reconstruction, Forrest A. Nabors shows that the ultimate goal of the Republican Party, the war, and Reconstruction was the same. This goal was to preserve and advance republicanism as the American founders understood it, against its natural, existential enemy: oligarchy. The principle of natural equality justified American republicanism and required abolition and equal citizenship. Likewise, slavery and discrimination on the basis of color stand on the competing moral foundation of oligarchy, the principle of natural inequality, which requires ranks. The effect of slavery and the division of the nation into two “opposite systems of civilization” are causally linked. Charles Devens, a lawyer who served as a general in the Union Army, and his contemporaries understood that slavery’s existence transformed the character of political society. One of those dramatic effects was the increased power of slaveowners over those who did not have slaves. When the slave state constitutions enumerated slaves in apportioning representation using the federal three-fifths ratio or by other formulae, intra-state sections where slaves were concentrated would receive a substantial grant of political power for slave ownership. In contrast, low slave-owning sections of the state would lose political representation and political influence over the state. This contributed to the non-slaveholders’ loss of political liberty in the slave states and provided a direct means by which the slaveholders acquired and maintained their rule over non-slaveholders. This book presents a shared analysis of the slave South, synthesized from the writings and speeches of the Republicans who served in the Thirty-Eighth, Thirty-Ninth or Fortieth Congress from 1863-1869. The account draws from their writings and speeches dated before, during, and after their service in Congress. Nabors shows how the Republican majority, charged with the responsibility of reconstructing the South, understood the South. Republicans in Congress were generally united around the fundamental problem and goal of Reconstruction. They regarded their work in the same way as they regarded the work of the American founders. Both they and the founders were engaged in regime change, from monarchy in the one case, and from oligarchy in the other, to republicanism. The insurrectionary states’ governments had to be reconstructed at their foundations, from oligarchic to republican. The sharp differences within Congress pertained to how to achieve that higher goal.
Download or read book The Equality of All Men Before the Law written by William Darrah Kelley and published by . This book was released on 1865 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book LITTELL S LIVING AGE written by and published by . This book was released on 1868 with total page 1108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Congressional Globe written by United States. Congress and published by . This book was released on 1844 with total page 1524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Speeches of Glenni W Scofield written by Glenni William Scofield and published by . This book was released on 1892 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Lincoln s Last Months written by William C. Harris and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lincoln Prize winner William C. Harris turns to the last months of Abraham Lincoln's life in an attempt to penetrate this central figure of the Civil War, and arguably America's greatest president. Beginning with the presidential campaign of 1864 and ending with his shocking assassination, Lincoln's ability to master the daunting affairs of state during the final nine months of his life proved critical to his apotheosis as savior and saint of the nation. In the fall of 1864, an exhausted president pursued the seemingly intractable end of the Civil War. After four years at the helm, Lincoln was struggling to save his presidency in an election that he almost lost because of military stalemate and his commitment to restore the Union without slavery. Lincoln's victory in the election not only ensured the success of his agenda but led to his transformation from a cautious, often hesitant president into a distinguished statesman. He moved quickly to defuse destructive partisan divisions and to secure the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment. And he skillfully advanced peace terms that did not involve the unconditional surrender of Confederate armies. Throughout this period of great trials, he managed to resist political pressure from Democrats and radical Republicans and from those seeking patronage and profit. By expanding the context of Lincoln's last months beyond the battlefield, Harris shows how the events of 1864-65 tested the president's life and leadership and how he ultimately emerged victorious, and became Father Abraham to a nation.
Download or read book Bibliography of American Imprints to 1901 Date index written by and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Practice of Justice Our Only Security for the Future written by William Darrah Kelley and published by . This book was released on 1865 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Lincoln the President written by J. G. Randall and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1999-12 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fourth volume in a multivolume work considered to be useful to Lincoln scholars. Completed by Richard N Current using the notes and drafts Randall left at his death, this book describes the key events of Lincoln's administration from December 1863 to April 1865. It is a Bancroft Prize-winning history of Lincoln's last year in office.
Download or read book Statesmanship and Reconstruction written by Philip B. Lyons and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2014-10-24 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Besides massive race prejudice and the perceived vindictiveness of the radical Republicans, another factor that contributed strongly to the derailment of reconstruction after the Civil War was the conflicting decisions taken by the political leaders. Lincoln warned against differences between the friends of freedom, and to overcome these, took charge of the reconstruction of Louisiana and showed how it should be done by pitting benefits of enlightened free government against the prejudices of the populace. Unfortunately, his example was lost on his successor, Andrew Johnson, whose encouragement of Southern resistance to the North’s terms aggravated factionalism within the Republican party. The moderates dominated in the drafting of the Fourteenth Amendment, where they incorporated the statesmanlike principle of a benefit, self-government in exchange for Southerners protecting the rights of all their citizens, black and white. However, this statesmanlike bargain was practically abandoned in Congress’s response to the Southern states’ rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Congressional Reconstructions Act. The fears of the moderates that the new state governments would not protect rights led them to propose universal suffrage, while the fears of the radicals that disloyal men would rule led them to provide for the disfranchisement of many ex-rebels and to hold any governments established, provisional only, subject to congressional change at will. As result the incentive for native white Southerners to participate in the new state governments in exchange for rights protection was drastically weakened. The consequences of this legislative "straight jacket" made it extremely difficult for Republicans in the defeated states to establish permanent political footholds. Some tried to hold onto power without attempting to cultivate native white support and lost their states for the Republicans. Three other leaders’ efforts to strike a balance between radicals and Democrats fell flat. Imprudent decisions of the Grant Administration shattered the attempts of three more states to establish a common ground with moderate Democrats. On the positive side, there was a leader in Virginia who figured out the kind of political arrangement necessary for Republicans to survive, and in Florida, a moderate Republican Governor, Ossian Bingley Hart, exercised real statesmanship to lead the most successful of all reconstruction governments. Statesmanship in reconstruction could have spared the South some severe hardships. Despite the vast change in public opinion on race relations over the last nearly 150 years, there are still lessons drawn from this study that can be applied to present day Civil Rights Policy.
Download or read book The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln written by Abraham Lincoln and published by Wildside Press LLC. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The collected letters, speeches, etc. written by Abraham Lincoln.
Download or read book A Bibliography of Nineteenth Century Legal Literature A G written by John Adams and published by Avero Publications. This book was released on 1992 with total page 1096 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book States at War written by Richard F Miller and published by University of MICHIGAN REGIONAL. This book was released on 2020-04-15 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unlike most books about the Civil War, which address individual battles or the war at the national level, States at War: A Reference Guide for Michigan in the Civil War chronicles the actions of an individual state government and its citizenry coping with the War and its ramifications, from transformed race relations and gender roles, to the suspension of habeas corpus, to the deaths of over 10,000 Michigan fathers, husbands, sons, and brothers who had been in action. The book compiles primary source material—including official reports, legislative journals, executive speeches, special orders, and regional newspapers—to provide an exhaustive record of the important roles Michigan and Michiganders had in the War. Though not burdened by marching armies or military occupation like some states to the southeast, Michigan nevertheless had a fascinating Civil War experience that was filled with acute economic anxieties, intense political divisions, and vital contributions on the battlefield. This comprehensive volume will be the essential starting point for all future research into Michigan’s Civil War-era history.
Download or read book The Congressional Globe written by United States. Congress and published by . This book was released on 1868 with total page 972 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Bibliotheca Americana written by Joseph Sabin and published by . This book was released on 1936 with total page 602 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
