| Edition |
First edition. |
| Description |
xxi, 456 pages, 12 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, portraits, facsimiles ; 25 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Contents |
"On the grounds of expediency and good policy" free-state antiblack laws in the early republic -- "A free man of color, and a citizen of this state" the privileges and immunities of citizenship in the 1820s -- "The sacred doctrine of equal rights" Ohio abolitionists in the 1830s -- "The rights of the citizens of Massachusetts" African American sailors in southern ports in the 1830s -- "Self-preservation is the first law of nature" state-to-state conflict and the limits of congress in the 1840s -- "That all men are created free and equal" The Liberty Party And repeal of the Ohio Black Laws in the 1840s -- "Injustice and oppression incarnate" Illinois and a nation divided in the 1850s -- "Establishing one law for the white and colored people alike" Republicans in power during the Civil War, 1861- 1865 -- "To restrain the power of the states" the Civil Rights Act and the fourteenth amendment. |
| Summary |
"A groundbreaking history of the antebellum movement for equal rights that reshaped the institutions of freedom after the Civil War. The half century before the Civil War was beset with conflict over freedom as well as slavery: what were the arrangements of free society, especially for African Americans? Beginning in 1803, many free states enacted black codes that discouraged the settlement and restricted the basic rights of free black people. But claiming the equal-rights promises of the Declaration and the Constitution, a biracial movement arose to fight these racist state laws. Kate Masur's magisterial history delivers this pathbreaking movement in vivid detail. Its advocates battled in state legislatures, Congress, and the courts, and through petitioning, party politics and elections. They visited slave states to challenge local laws that imprisoned free blacks and sold them into slavery. Despite immovable white majorities and unfavorable court decisions, their vision became increasingly mainstream. After the Civil War, their arguments shaped the Civil Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment, the pillars of our second founding."-- Provided by publisher. |
| Subject(S) |
African Americans -- Civil rights -- History -- 19th century.
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Civil rights movements -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
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African Americans -- Politics and government -- 19th century.
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African Americans -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- History -- 19th century.
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| Added Title |
America's first civil rights movement, from the revolution to reconstruction |
| ISBN |
9781324005933 (hardcover) |
|
1324005939 (hardcover) |
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