The Promises of Liberty - The History and Contemporary Relevance of the Thirteenth Amendment

Erscheinungsjahr 2010
ISBN: 978-0-231-14144-4
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 368 Seiten, Format (B × H): 163 mm x 238 mm, Gewicht: 624 g

In these original essays, America's leading historians and legal scholars reassess the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment and its relevance to issues of liberty, justice, and equality. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States, reasserting the radical, egalitarian dimensions of the Constitution. It also laid the foundations for future civil rights and social justice legislation. Yet subsequent reinterpretation and misappropriation have curbed more substantive change. With constitutional jurisprudence undergoing a revival, The Promises of Liberty provides a full portrait of the Thirteenth Amendment and its potential for ensuring liberty.

The collection begins with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Brion Davis, who discusses the failure of the Thirteenth Amendment to achieve its framers' objectives. The next piece, by Alexander Tsesis, provides a detailed account of the Amendment's revolutionary character. James M. McPherson, another Pulitzer recipient, recounts the influence of abolitionists on the ratification process, and Paul Finkelman focuses on who freed the slaves and President Lincoln's commitment to ending slavery. Michael Vorenberg revisits the nineteenth century's understanding of freedom and citizenship and the Amendment's surprisingly small role in the Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction periods. William M. Wiecek shows how the Supreme Court's narrow interpretation once rendered the guarantee of freedom nearly illusory, and the collection's third Pulitzer Prize winner, David M. Oshinsky, explains how peonage undermined the prohibition against compulsory service.

Subsequent essays relate the Thirteenth Amendment to congressional authority, hate crimes legislation, the labor movement, and immigrant rights. These chapters analyze unique features of the amendment along with its elusive meanings and affirm its power to reform criminal and immigration law, affirmative action policies, and the protection of civil liberties.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Tsesis, Alexander

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Soziologie von Migranten und Minderheiten
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Minderheiten, Interkulturelle & Multikulturelle Fragen
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Zentralregierung

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Foreword: The Rocky Road to Freedom Crucial Barriers to Abolition in the Antebellum Years, by David Brion Davis1. Introduction: The Thirteenth Amendment's Revolutionary Aims, by Alexander TsesisPart 1: Historical Settings 2. In Pursuit of Constitutional Abolitionism, by James M. McPherson3. The Civil War, Emancipation, and the Thirteenth Amendment: Understanding Who Freed the Slaves, by Paul Finkelman4. Citizenship and the Thirteenth Amendment: Understanding the Deafening Silence, by Michael Vorenberg5. Emancipation and Civic Status: The American Experience, 1865;1915, by William M. Wiecek6. Convict Labor in the Post;Civil War South: Involuntary Servitude After the Thirteenth Amendment, by David M. Oshinsky7. The Thirteenth Amendment and a New Deal for Civil Rights, by Risa L. Goluboff8. The Workers' Freedom of Association Under the Thirteenth Amendment, by James Gray PopePart 2: Current Legal Landscapes 9. The Badges and Incidents of Slavery and the Power of Congress to Enforce the Thirteenth Amendment, by George A. Rutherglen10. The Promise of Congressional Enforcement, by Rebecca E. Zietlow11. Protecting Full and Equal Rights: The Floor and More, by Aviam Soifer12. Forced Labor Revisited: The Thirteenth Amendment and Abortion, by Andrew Koppelman13. The Slave Power Undead: Criminal Justice Successes and Failures of the Thirteenth Amendment, by Andrew E. Taslitz14. Toward a Thirteenth Amendment Exclusionary Rule as a Remedy for Racial Profiling, by William M. Carter15. Immigrant Workers and the Thirteenth Amendment, by Maria L. Ontiveros16. A Thirteenth Amendment Agenda for the Twenty-first Century: Of Promises, Power, and Precaution, by Darrell A. H. Miller17. Epilogue: The Enduring Legacy of the Thirteenth Amendment, by Robert J. KaczorowskiAcknowledgmentsList of ContributorsIndex

Über Autor(innen)

Alexander Tsesis is a professor at the Loyola University School of Law. He is the author of We Shall Overcome: A History of Civil Rights and the Law; The Thirteenth Amendment and American Freedom; and Destructive Messages: How Hate Speech Paves the Way for Harmful Social Movements.