Eighty-eight Years: The Long Death Of Slavery In The United States, 1777-1865 (race In The Atlantic World, 1700-1900)
by Patrick Rael /
2015 / English / PDF
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Why did it take so long to end slavery in the United States, and
what did it mean that the nation existed eighty-eight years as a
“house divided against itself,” as Abraham Lincoln put it? The
decline of slavery throughout the Atlantic world was a protracted
affair, says Patrick Rael, but no other nation endured anything
like the United States. Here the process took from 1777, when
Vermont wrote slavery out of its state constitution, to 1865,
when the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery nationwide.
Why did it take so long to end slavery in the United States, and
what did it mean that the nation existed eighty-eight years as a
“house divided against itself,” as Abraham Lincoln put it? The
decline of slavery throughout the Atlantic world was a protracted
affair, says Patrick Rael, but no other nation endured anything
like the United States. Here the process took from 1777, when
Vermont wrote slavery out of its state constitution, to 1865,
when the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery nationwide.
Rael immerses readers in the mix of social, geographic, economic,
and political factors that shaped this unique American
experience. He not only takes a far longer view of slavery’s
demise than do those who date it to the rise of abolitionism in
1831, he also places it in a broader Atlantic context. We see how
slavery ended variously by consent or force across time and place
and how views on slavery evolved differently between the centers
of European power and their colonial peripheries―some of which
would become power centers themselves.
Rael immerses readers in the mix of social, geographic, economic,
and political factors that shaped this unique American
experience. He not only takes a far longer view of slavery’s
demise than do those who date it to the rise of abolitionism in
1831, he also places it in a broader Atlantic context. We see how
slavery ended variously by consent or force across time and place
and how views on slavery evolved differently between the centers
of European power and their colonial peripheries―some of which
would become power centers themselves.
Rael shows how African Americans played the central role in
ending slavery in the United States. Fueled by new Revolutionary
ideals of self-rule and universal equality―and on their own or
alongside abolitionists―both slaves and free blacks slowly turned
American opinion against the slave interests in the South.
Secession followed, and then began the national bloodbath that
would demand slavery’s complete destruction.
Rael shows how African Americans played the central role in
ending slavery in the United States. Fueled by new Revolutionary
ideals of self-rule and universal equality―and on their own or
alongside abolitionists―both slaves and free blacks slowly turned
American opinion against the slave interests in the South.
Secession followed, and then began the national bloodbath that
would demand slavery’s complete destruction.