Lincoln and Emancipation

Erscheinungsjahr 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8093-3363-9
Verlag: Southern Illinois University Press

Buch, Englisch, 160 Seiten, Hardback, Format (B × H): 127 mm x 203 mm, Gewicht: 272 g

Reihe: Concise Lincoln Library

In this succinct study, Edna Greene Med­ford examines the ideas and events that shaped President Lincoln’s responses to slavery, following the arc of his ideo­logical development from the beginning of the Civil War, when he aimed to pur­sue a course of noninterference, to his championing of slavery’s destruction before the conflict ended. Throughout, Medford juxtaposes the president’s mo­tivations for advocating freedom with the aspirations of African Americans, restoring African Americans to the cen­ter of the story about the struggle for their own liberation.

Lincoln and African Americans, Medford argues, approached emanci­pation differently, with the president moving slowly and cautiously in order to save the Union, while the enslaved and their supporters pressed more ur­gently for an end to slavery. Despite their differences, an undeclared part­nership existed between the president and the enslaved that led to both pres­ervation of the Union and freedom for those in bondage. While Lincoln re­mains central to the story, the author argues that many players—including the abolitionists and Radical Republi­cans, War Democrats, and black men and women—participated in the drama through agitation, military support of the Union, and destruction of the insti­tution from within. By including African American voices in the emancipation narrative, this insightful volume offers a fresh and welcome perspective on Lincoln’s America.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Medford, Edna Greene

Über Autor(innen)

Edna Greene Medford is an associate professor of history and the depart­ment chair at Howard University, USA. She is a coauthor, with Frank J. Williams and Harold Holzer, of The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views. She served as director for History of New York’s African Burial Ground Project and edited Histor­ical Perspectives of the African Burial Ground: New York Blacks and the Diaspora.