The slaveholding republic : an account of the United States government's relations to slavery /
"Many leading historians have argued that the Constitution of the United States was a proslavery document. But this book refutes this claim in a landmark history that stretches from the Continental Congress to the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln. The book shows that the Constitution itself was mo...
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York :
Oxford University Press,
2001.
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | "Many leading historians have argued that the Constitution of the United States was a proslavery document. But this book refutes this claim in a landmark history that stretches from the Continental Congress to the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln. The book shows that the Constitution itself was more or less neutral on the issue of slavery and that, in the antebellum period, the idea that the Constitution protected slavery was hotly debated (many Northerners would concede only that slavery was protected by state law, not by federal law). Nevertheless, it also reveals that US policy abroad and in the territories was consistently proslavery. The book makes clear why Lincoln's election was such a shock to the South and shows how Lincoln's approach to emancipation, which seems exceedingly cautious by modern standards, quickly evolved into a “Republican revolution” that ended the anomaly of the United States as a “slaveholding republic”."--Provided by publisher. |
|---|---|
| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xiv, 467 pages) |
| Format: | Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780198032472 0198032471 9781280655395 1280655399 9780199849475 6610655391 9786610655397 0199849471 |