The Civil War & Reconstruction

“What This Cruel War Was Over”

An overview of the Civil War from reading Louis Masur’s The Civil WarBecause the class will be ran as a seminar, my

objective for having students read this book is to help them get a basic understanding of the narrative arc of the Civil War so that during our weekly discussions, we can focus on some of the NEW research findings regarding a variety of topics.

At the same time, we will make sure that we are all on the same page regarding some of the academically determined (through research of primary sources) causes of the Civil War tensions about states’ rights and about slavery’s existence in the nation.

This Week

When the constitutional framers decided to create a democratic republic built upon the principles of freedom, liberty, democracy, and equality they made a number of compromises over the issues of states’ rights and slavery.

Although the constitutional convention ended with a constitution that would be ratified by all of the colonies turned states, few Americans were happy with the final product generally and with the compromises made over the power of the federal government v. that of the states and over slavery particularly.

What This Cruel War was Over

They accepted

the

compromises

as a way of

making sure

that they

created a

strong

republic.

Constitutional Convention 1787

Americans living in the early years of the republic embraced a state-based identity more than they embraced a national identity. In other words, they thought of themselves more as

Virginians or New Yorkers than they did as “Americans.”This thinking led to a belief, espoused by Thomas

Jefferson and James Madison, that the U.S. was a “compact” or an agreement between the states to form a nation and that states could break the agreement or leave the nation if they wanted to.

This gives rise to the idea of “nullification,” an ideology that states could reject certain federal policies if they felt it violated their rights. It would also fuel a belief, in some Americans, that states

could leave the Union all together if they chose.

What This Cruel War was Over

Several states would invoke the idea of nullification but none would do so more forcefully than South Carolina.

In 1832, the Palmetto state rejected the high duties that resulted from the 1828 tariff. They adopted an ordinance of nullification. John C. Calhoun argued that the tariff favored northern industry at the expense of the South.

Nullification and South Carolina’s breakaway from the U.S. was averted via compromise on tariffs and the threat of military action.

What This Cruel War was Over

Daniel Webster rebuts nullification

Opposition to

nullification came

from many

corners of the

country.

John Quincy

Adams, Andrew

Jackson, and

Daniel Webster

rejected

nullification.

Americans would spend the next seven decades debating the issues about states’ rights and slavery’s existence. They would continue to make additional compromises until

they reached a point where they could not compromise any more, the result of which was civil war.

Neither the constitutional framers nor the Americans who were living in the antebellum period knew what we know—that they would reach a point where they would no longer hash out the key issues regarding slavery’s existence.

But by examining newspapers, speeches, journals, legislation, court rules, etc., historians have been able to trace the debates over this issue back over time to understand why the war came when it did.This lecture provides a simplified version of the highlights.

What This Cruel War was Over

Slavery is a thriving institution in all of the colonies of North America.

There are several sacred and secular catalysts that transform thinking about natural rights, imperial rule, religious salvation, race, and slavery on the eve of the American Revolution.Britain’s effort to reassert control over its North

American colonies;American colonists’ efforts to maintain the same rights

as Englishmen;Two ideological movements, the English Enlightenment

and the Great Awakening.These ideas and events shape the revolutionary era.

On the Eve of the American Revolution

Throughout the early to mid 18th century, Britain is locked in war with the French and the Spanish. Britain vanquishes its opponents by 1763.The British start enacting policies to reassert control over

increasingly autonomous colonies in North America;American colonists, having enjoyed relative independence

& (after 1763) are now less worried about being attacked by the French or Spanish, begin to resist imperial rule:They claim the new British policies violate their rights as

Englishmen in America.Many are blind (and indifferent) to the contradictions of their

demands for freedom and their enslavement of others (see Edmund Morgan, Peter Kolchin, and David Waldstreicher).

Others are aware of the contradiction and are troubled by demanding freedom while denying it to others.

Two ideological movements would shape their thinking.

On the Eve of the American Revolution

European empires in North America, 1750

Source: Norton website.

Sprang from the Renaissance era & ideas by John Locke—“Concerning Human Understanding”Human society ran according to natural laws; human laws

were natural rights that all people shared; human beings created govts to protect their natural rights to life, liberty, and private property.

If a govt failed to protect these rights, the people had to right to overthrow it.

American colonists read Locke’s writings (in pamphlet form) & interpreted Britain’s efforts to regain control as violations of their basic, “inalienable” rights as Englishmen.

Historians note that the colonists saw themselves as Englishmen living in America but the British saw them as American colonists, not necessarily entitled to the same rights as Englishmen.

The English Enlightenment

The Awakening was a religious social movement that grew out of the dissatisfaction of American colonists with the style of Protestantism that seemed to deny most people a chance for salvation.

American Protestants began campaigns and a series of revivals to bring more people into the church. They offered/promised salvation to all who believed in Christ (including free and enslaved black people) as opposed to early beliefs that a select few people were worthy of salvation.

The Great Awakening

Though some Africans and African Americans rejected Christianity for their ancestral religions or for no religion at all, others were attracted to evangelical Protestantism & they converted but retained certain features of their traditional practices.

This evangelical movement, with its emphasis of spiritual equality, increased Africans’ and African Americans’ numbers in Protestant churches, which increased black-white cooperation & acculturation.

The Great Awakening, its emphasis of spiritual equality & racial cooperation, eventually nurtured a humanitarian opposition to slavery that would disrupt previous commitments to slavery in the revolutionary era.

Although not necessarily related directly to the causative factors of the Revolution, the Awakening will shape ideas about slavery after the Revolution ends.

The Great Awakening

When Thomas Jefferson wrote “that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” he did not believe that all people should enjoy these rights generally or black people particularly.

Jefferson and others distinguished between the rights of wealthy white men of British descent and a lack of rights for women, blacks, Native Americans, and even poor whites.

Declaration of Independence, 1776

The framers were so convinced that non-wealthy men of English descent could not claim the same rights as wealthy white men that they did not qualify their words trumpeting universal liberty.

The enslaved and free Africans and African Americans who attended white Patriots’ speeches and read their pamphlets interpreted the rhetoric of the revolutionary era differently. They insisted that these principles logically applied to them as they did to the white population.

African and A/Am Patriots forced white Patriots to confront the contradictions in the rhetoric of the revolution.

Declaration of Independence

Both white Patriots and Loyalists tried to protect their slaves while using the promise of freedom to entice their enemies’ slaves to take flight.

Africans and African Americans of the revolutionary era were wedded to principles (freedom and equality) not to a people (Patriots or Loyalists or Americans or British)!

This commitment to principles guided their behavior and strategies during the war.

Slavery & The Revolution

Free and enslaved Africans and A/Ams petitioned northern colonial governments and the British crown for the abolition of slavery. Black people in the southern colonies marched and paraded to show their support and to protest slavery.

Approximately 100,000 slaves fled farms, plantations, homes, and businesses in the North and South during the war. They headed to British lines (in response to Dunmore’s Proclamation), to the western and southern frontier, and to cities where they could go unnoticed.

White Patriots and Loyalists initially rejected black service in the war but both eventually conceded. Africans and African Americans served both sides:

Most worked as servants/laborers, growing food, building dikes, etc. Some fought in major battles—Lexington & Concord, Bunker Hill,

Saratoga, Yorkton, Savannah, Monmouth, Princeton.

Slavery & The Revolution

Peace of Paris (1783), Britain recognized the independence of the U.S., acceded control of land. See map here.

Americans left to:Honor promises of freedom;Establish a new nation;Resolve the contradictions over slavery.

Outcome of the Revolution

Land Holdings 1783

Source: Norton website.

Of the escaped slaves, 20,000 left with the British. Most were resettled in Nova Scotia, Sierra Leone, and Britain, but others were re-enslaved in the British colonies in the Caribbean—Jamaica in particular.

Others blended into the free black populations of the North and South, while still others headed southern, western, and northern frontiers of what had been British Colonial North America.

Some slaves who fought for Patriots gained their freedom.

Emancipation & The Revolution

Inspirations for Manumission (freeing enslaved people)Africans’ and A/Ams’ willingness to fight;The ideals of the Enlightenment, the Great Awakening,

and he War;A decreased economic investment in slavery

throughout the North, triggered a decline in the commitment to slavery;

Petitions demanding abolition flooded legislators;Quakers, often interpreting human rights as not only a

political issue but also a religious one, begin to lead the charge against slavery in the North. They establish Anti-Slavery Societies, and give speeches and pamphlets to spread the word.

Emancipation & The Revolution

People living in northern states end slavery for a combination of ideological, religious, and economic reasons.Many remain economically committed and tied to the

institution (they are slave traders, economic investors, absentee planters)

Some states abolish slavery immediately while others adopt gradual abolition laws, releasing slaves from slavery after they completed a set period of service (18-25 years) and then an apprenticeship period.

Ira Berlin calls the first emancipation (of the North) a “slow and tortuous process.”

Northern Emancipation

The Abolition of Slavery in the North

1777 Vermont prohibits slavery via constitutional convention

1780 Pennsylvania begins to abolish slavery gradually

1783 Massachusetts Supreme Court abolishes slavery

1784 Connecticut and Rhode Island pass gradual abolition legislation

1785 New Jersey and New York legislatures defeat efforts to pass gradual abolition laws

1799 New York legislature passes gradual abolition bill

1804 New Jersey enacts gradual abolition

Some southern slaveholders honor their promise to free enslaved people who served in the war (many do not).

Some southern states relax manumission laws, allowing slaveholders to free their slaves without an act of law and allow slaves to purchase their freedom.

Some slaveholders, especially in the Chesapeake (Maryland, Delaware, Washington, D.C., and Virginia), who shift from tobacco & indigo to wheat, orchards, cattle, etc. have less of a need for slave labor and shift to hiring slaves.

However, other slaveholders, particularly those in the lowcountry (Georgia, the Carolinas, Florida, Louisiana), remain committed to slavery and to expanding the institution into the newly acquired territories in the West.

Southern Emancipation

As the new nation tries to gain its bearings, one of the issues they had to address was slavery.Could they establish a nation built on ideas of liberty,

freedom, equality, and property rights while holding a fifth of the population as slaves? How could they retain credibility before the world and in the face of history?

Could the individual states remain united if some of them abolished slavery while others retained it?

If they decided to end slavery (and truly honor principles of revolution and the nation’s founding), how would the nation compensate slaveholders (English law, the roots of U.S. law, requires the govt compensate property owners for loss of land, goods, property)?

How would freed black people fit into the nation?

Constitutional Settlement

Although northerners’ commitment to slavery puts the institution on a slow path toward death, most southerners continue to support slavery.

Many working class white southerners and new immigrants want to become slaveholders.

Easier cultivation of cotton and global demand for it intensifies the commitment to slavery.

Slaveholders demand that slave trade be reopened.

They demand the right to move their slaves West.

Slavery Renewed

While northern states were creating steps to end slavery, southern states were creating steps to retain slavery. At the same time, westward expansion sparked one of the first federal debates about slavery.

Americans were moving into the northwestern territories, migrants with slaves naturally wanted to take their human property with them, migrants opposed to slavery for economic (white laborers afraid of competition w/ slave labor) and ideological reasons, wanted the western spaces to remain free of slavery.

Jefferson proposed a way to turn these territories in the west into states and to address the issue of slavery there. He called for the ban of slavery in the entire area. His measure failed but the debate over it prompted Congress to take action.

Constitutional Settlement

To address the demands of slaveholders and those opposed to slavery, Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance in 1787.

The ordinance Redefined future of slavery in the West:Banned slave owners from taking slaves north of Ohio RiverGave slave owners permission to migrate south of the Ohio

RiverSee the map here.

This ordinance was the 1st of many compromises the framers would make about slavery in the new republic generally and about where slavery could exist particularly.

It set a precedent for excluding slavery from the U.S. territories.

The Northwest Ordinance

Northwest Ordinance

(1787) declared that no

new enslaved people

could be admitted to

the land north of the

Ohio River (dark green)

and that enslaved

people could be taken

to the land south of the

Ohio River, (pink).

Established a

precedent for

congressional

governance of slavery

in a territory.

Northwest Ordinance

Why the silence on slavery? Why the ambiguities and contradictions of the U.S.’s founding principles and slavery?Slavery had to be protected and governed so it was a

constitutional matter. The Founders understood the contradictions and the

competing beliefs re: slavery in the nation.They tried to sidestep slavery in the constitutional

convention but they couldn’t.Waldstreicher argues that there are less than 6 degrees of

separation between every issue discussed at the constitutional convention and slavery.

They used euphemisms, silence, ambiguous language to get the Constitution passed and ratified.

“Slavery’s Constitution”

To address the questions related to slavery, the constitutional framers instituted a series of the compromises.

In the end, the U.S. Constitution, which went into effect in 1789, became a major force in the continued existence of slavery and its legal protections.

The Constitution gave the central govt power to regulate commerce, to tax, and to have its laws enforced in the states. However, to create a powerful central govt the framers had to make concessions to slaveholders whose economic power translated into political influence.

The U.S. Constitution does not include the words “slavery” or “slaves,” in large part because the framers recognized the contradictions, didn’t want slavery to stain the founding documents of the first democratic republic, and some believed slavery would eventually die a natural death.

Thus, the framers included clauses to maintain slavery.

Creating a “More Perfect Union”

Enumeration or 3/5 Clause to determine representation in the U.S. House of Representatives; Article 1, sec 2: counted 3/5 of “all other persons”; It enhanced representation for slaveholders in Congress (especially

in the House) & in the electoral college that elected the President. It allowed northern states to maintain a temporary numerical edge in

the Senate.Fugitive Slave Clause;

Article 4, sec 2: says that “persons” held to service or labor who ran away (slaves) should be returned.

Delayed ban of the Transatlantic slave trade for 20 years; Article 1, sec 9: importation of “such persons” (slaves) shall not be

prohibited before 1808; Response to growing international concerns about the horrors of the

trade and economic shift in England to industrial expansion & imperial exploits that did not require African slaves;

In 1807, Congress revisits the question about banning the trade.

“Slavery’s Constitution”

“Full Faith and Credit”Non-slaveholding states must respect the

rights of slaveholding states and of slaveholders.

Slaveholders’ property rights to and over their human chattel crosses state lines.

“No persons held to service or labor…may be discharged…shall be delivered up on Claim of the party to whom service or labor is due”Fugitive slaves cannot be freed, they must be

returned to their masters.

“Slavery’s Constitution”

The result of these compromises of 1787 is the establishment of a nation and a constitution that protect the interests of the slaveholding class. As Peter Kolchin points out in American Slavery, slaveholders used ideas of Enlightenment re: right to life, liberty, and personal property, to lobby for these concessions.

Creating a “More Perfect Union”

What some historians call the “compromises of 1787,” shaped the nation and ongoing debates over slavery.

Historians debate the outcome:Some argue the compromises strengthened the Union.

The new republic was fragile and vulnerable to disunion.Under British rule, the colonies had a tradition of acting

independently and they were guided by distinctly local/regional priorities and beliefs. Creating a United States enabled the centralization of power that allowed the U.S. to become a strong country.

Others argue that ending slavery would have addressed the issue once and for all and that the Union would have been stronger, able to practice and honor the ideological principles on which the nation was founded. Any society, in which a people’s behavior is aligned with their ideals

is stronger.

Creating a “More Perfect Union”

All Americans paid a high price for ignoring the principles of the Revolution.These compromises do not settle the debate over

slavery. Indeed, the new republic would have to revisit the question of slavery and where it can and cannot exist again and again.

Americans develop new compromises until the debates over slavery and westward expansion become the catalyst for civil war.

When the matter is finally resolved, more than 750,000 American soldiers are dead, 1 million of them are maimed and incapacitated, and some 50,000 civilians lose their lives.

Creating a “More Perfect Union”

Although slavery survived the revolutionary era and the first emancipation (in the North) and the institution would grow significantly in the first years of the republic, some slavery historians argue that the institution suffered a serious blow during and after the Revolution and the Constitutional Convention.

Many Americans objected not only to the treatment of slaves but also to having slavery in the nation.

In creating the republic and giving states the authority to establish many policies regarding slavery, Waldstreicher argues that the framers embedded into the Constitution, ways to abolish it: State governments could pass laws to abolish the institution. The electorate could elect enough members to Congress to abolish

the institution by constitutional amendment. Some of the women and men who are opposed to slavery recognize

this opening and begin to mobilize to end the institution.

Seeds of Anti-Slavery Sentiment

This opposition to slavery and willingness to mobilize to end it will factor significantly in the sectional crisis that ends in war. Paul Finkelman has identified several threads of anti-slavery sentiment that won’t come together until the late 1850s.

Ideological ArgumentsRhetoric of Revolution (liberty, freedom, etc.) makes

some Americans question slavery. The PA (1780) Grad Abolition Law linked their decision to

end slavery to ending British tyranny and because slavery “deprived [blacks]…of the common blessings that they are naturally entitled to.”

Individual Americans have similar ideas about slavery and manumit the people they enslaved.

Seeds of Anti-Slavery Sentiment

Political ArgumentsWith independence from the Crown, opponents can

now use the franchise to elect people to enact policies to end slavery at the local and national levels.

The new state governments take action.First Emancipations-MA, NH, VT, PA, CT, RI, NY, NJThis statewide legislation put some southern slaveholders

on notice of the political opposition to slavery.The new national government takes action.

More than half of the seats for Congress would represent districts where there were few if any slaves or slaveholders.

Southerners recognize that they are increasingly at risk being outvoted over passing legislation, Supreme Court justices, or even changing the U.S. Constitution.

Without Britain, the southern states have to fight for themselves (and fight they will!).

Seeds of Anti-Slavery Sentiment

Social ArgumentsReligion

Great Awakening inspires many (on both sides of the Atlantic) to agitate against the slave trade and against slavery itself.

Abolition societies advocated for gradual abolition laws throughout the nation, for the end of the slave trade, and great rights for free blacks.

MilitaryBlack military service (they enlisted, most worked

as laborers and some were armed, and served well) during the American Revolution provided white Americans and some slaveholders with proof that blacks could be useful members of society.

Seeds of Anti-Slavery Sentiment

New legislation against slavery also present the possibility that many Americans would accept the equality of blacks to whites.

If all people were entitled to “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” then blacks must also be entitled to these rights. If so, then enslaving them is wrong.

In sum, before the revolutionary era, few Americans (other than enslaved people and their free black allies, of course,) questioned slavery; slavery simply existed. After the revolutionary era, more Americans questioned slavery, even if they believed that black people were inferior to white people.

These new threats activated a movement to defend slavery.

Threats to White Racial Solidarity

Starts with some of the argument for slavery that appeared at the constitutional convention, namely that slavery, according to Paul Finkelman, wasPracticalEconomicPoliticalHistorical

Slavery’s defenders did not ask their opponents to support slavery or to like the institution but to accept most southerners’ belief in its necessity and the fact that the institution had constitutional protection.

Proslavery Movement

Speeches;Books—histories of the Bible, of great

civilizations;Journals—pseudo-scientific theories, slave

management, crop cultivation;Sermons—given at churches and around the

country;Legal treatises;Judicial Opinions; andLiterature—texts that romanticize the South

Proslavery Sources

Historical ArgumentsSlavery is an old institution.All great civilizations accepted and relied on

slavery, especially Greece (the first democracy) and Rome (the first republic).

Slavery was a prerequisite for the ruling elite (as in, only men free of the obligations of menial work could establish and run a great civilization).

Constitutional framers, later presidents, Supreme Court justices, members of Congress, etc. could devote themselves to public service because they had slaves.

Proslavery Defense

Source: Finkelman, Defending Slavery, 29.

Religious ArgumentsSlavery is endorsed by the Old & New

Testaments (because neither document condemns the institution).Both assume the existence of slavery and offer

insight on how to regulate it. Indeed, many look to the Bible for recommendations of how masters are supposed to treat the people they enslave.

“Curse of Ham”-invented idea that Africans were Ham’s descendants and therefore destined to be enslaved for his sin against Noah.

Racist argument that slavery is a civilizing institution for “savages.”

Proslavery Defense

Source: Finkelman, Defending Slavery, 31-32.

Scientific & Medical ArgumentsBlacks are a separate species.They are biologically, culturally, physically

inferior.They were “made” for slave labor.If freed they could not provide for themselves

and would starve to death.They were too dangerous to free.Slavery protects black people.

Proslavery Defense

Source: Finkelman, Defending Slavery, 32-33.

Economic ArgumentsSlavery was vital to the entire colonial economy

therefore it would be vital to the U.S. economy.Some estimated that 2/3 of economy was tied to exports

produced by enslaved people’s labor or manufactured goods that were tied to slavery.

There was no alternative for cheap source of labor.Northerners, while not living with slavery, are

invested in the institution—cotton, tobacco, hemp, rice, sugar consumed and manufactured in factories.

Slavery is more humane than free labor.Slavery was extremely profitable.

Proslavery Defense

Source: Finkelman, Defending Slavery, 32-33.

Legal and Constitutional ArgumentsSlaves were chattel (human property) that is

protected by the Constitution.Constitutional framers gave states power to pass

their own laws so if the people in one state want slavery vote on it, they should have it.

The power of the master is absolute.Congress cannot pass any law restricting it.Blacks are inferior to whites so there needed to be

laws in place to regulate and separate both groups.Courts & legislatures established laws to punish

people who interfered with slavery.

Proslavery Defense

Source: Finkelman, Defending Slavery, 33-34.

PoliticalAny attack on slavery or effort to interfere with the

masters’ authority would lead to civil war.The entire U.S. system was built on the principle that

slavery was sacred or untouchable.The enslavement of blacks made it possible for whites

(esp working class whites and new immigrants) to be free.

Proslavery defenders attacked anyone who questioned slavery.

George Fitzhugh and others argued against the Declaration of Independence’s rhetoric of “all men” and were very specific in their advocacy of the the rights of English descended men with property over all other men.

Proslavery Defense

Source: Finkelman, Defending Slavery, 37-38.

Main Theme: RaceAlmost every single proslavery defense came

down to the issue of race.Only race could contradict principles of

nation’s founding.If race wasn’t at the heart of slavery then

every argument made for enslaving blacks could be applied to poor whites or to immigrants.

Proslavery Defense

Source: Finkelman, Defending Slavery, 39-40.

Blacks are inferior;

Their bodies are different;

They are not artistic;

They don’t understand

love;

Slavery is an on

institution;

Blacks and whites can’t

co-exist;

Fear of interracial sex;

Who else would do the

work?

Thomas JeffersonNotes on the State of Virginia 1787

Slavery is

defended by

Constitution.

Congress can’t

touch it.

“Abolition and

Union cannot co-

exist.”

Talks about anti-

slavery as though

it was a cancer

that will destroy

the Union.

Slavery is good.

John C. Calhoun, 1837 Speech before Senate

Slavery existed in

great civilizations.

Free labor is cheaper

than slave labor

(because of care. Etc.)

but slave labor is

better.

Slavery is good for the

slaves.

Committed suicide in

1865, reportedly

because he could not

live in a world without

slavery.

Edmund Ruffin, 1853 Essay

Used Haiti and

British former West

Indian colonies to

argue that blacks

suffered in freedom.

Refused to

acknowledge

Success of some free blacks

The role of legal, social, political, and economic discrimination in postemancipation hardship.

Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb

Slavery is good, it

creates wealth and

allows white men to

prosper.

“Mudsill speech”-

blacks provide a

natural floor for

American civilization.

Southern cotton

controlled world

economy (not so

much).

James Henry Hammond

God ordained

slavery.

Slaveholding was

a duty.

Masters could

convert enslaved

people and treat

them humanely.

Thornton Stringfellow

Well known “Negro

doctor” who

“diagnosed”

problems for

slaveholders.

Drapetomania

Makes slaves runaway

Dysaethesia

Aethiopis

Makes slaves disobey their masters

Dr. Samuel Cartwright

Advocates of slavery and opponents of slavery will clash over vision of the nation and slavery’s role in it.

The intensity of the debates about states’ rights and slavery heat up and, in several decades, they will escalate to the point of war.

One nagging issue will be whether or not states may leave the “Union” if they are dissatisfied with policies established by Congress. Some southerners say yes, many presidents as well as northerners say no.

Antebellum Struggles

Civil War historians have been able to identify debates over states’ rights v. national rights as well as over slavery and its expansion into the western territories as some of the causative factors of the war.

They have also been able to trace them back to the founding era when the constitutional framers negotiated and compromised to establish the United States after the American Revolution.

Slavery survives the American Revolution.The Constitution protects slavery.This protection will help to launch the anti-slavery and

abolitionist movements.The opposition to slavery by some northerners fuels the

proslavery movement.These competing ideals will put the nation on a collision

course to civil war.

Take Away

Louis Masur, The Civil War: A Concise History David Waldstreicher, Slavery’s Constitution Paul Finkelman, Defending Slavery Robin Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution Merton Dillon, Slavery Attacked Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution Douglas Egerton, Death or Liberty: African Americans in

Revolutionary America Paul Finkelman, Slavery and the Founders: Race and Liberty in the

Age of Jefferson Sylvia Frey, Water from the Rock: Black Resistance in a

Revolutionary Age David Herbert Donald, et al eds., The Civil War and Reconstruction Gordon Wood, The Ideas of America and Empire of Liberty

Sources & Recommended Readings

Peter Kolchin, American Slavery, 1619-1865Donald MacLeod, Slavery, Race, and the American

RevolutionDonald Nieman, Promises to Keep: African

Americans and the Constitutional OrderBenjamin Quarles, The Negro in the American

Revolution Simon Schama, Rough Crossings: The Slaves, the

British, and the American RevolutionLarry Tise, Proslavery: A History of the Defense of

Slavery in AmericaShane White, Somewhat More Independent: The End

of Slavery in New York City

Sources & Recommended Readings

Constitutional Convention: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Washington_Constitutional_Convention_1787.jpg

European claims in North America: http://wwnorton.com/college/english/naal8/section/volA/maps.aspx .

U.S. 1783: http://wwnorton.com/college/english/naal8/section/volA/maps.aspx Northwest and Southwest Territory Maps:

http://faculty.umf.maine.edu/walter.sargent/public.www/web%20103/western-possessions-map.jpg

Thomas Jefferson: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson John C. Calhoun: http://www.nps.gov/resources/person.htm?id=55 Edmund Ruffin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Ruffin Thomas R. R. Cobb: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Reade_Rootes_Cobb James Henry Hammond: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Henry_Hammond Stringfellow’s Favor of Slavery: http://docsouth.unc.edu/church/string/string.html Samuel Cartwright: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_A._Cartwright

Image sources. Accessed 6/8/2012

Next?Antebellum Upheaval

The NorthThe SouthThe beginnings of the Sectional Conflict that

will descend into civil war.