Research Catalog

Title

The struggle for equality : abolitionists and the negro in the Civil War and reconstruction / by James M. McPherson.

Author

McPherson, James M.

Publication

• Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, 2014.
• ©1964

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xv, 474 pages : illustrations; 22 cm.

Summary

Civil War historian James McPherson offers an analysis of the abolitionist movement and the legal basis it provided to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. It demonstrates the successful role played by rights activists during and after the Civil War, as they evolved from despised fanatics into influential spokespersons for the radical wing of the Republican party. Intensely individual efforts characterized the movement, demonstrated by letters and anti-slavery periodicals that let the voices of the abolitionists express for themselves their triumphs and anxieties. Asserting that it was not the abolitionists who failed in their efforts to instill the principles of equality on the state level but rather the American people who refused to follow their leadership, McPherson raises broad questions about the obstacles that have long hindered American reform movements in general.

Series Statement

Princeton classics

Uniform Title

• Project Muse UPCC books
• Princeton classics

Subject

• 1863 - 1877
• Abolitionists
• African Americans > History > 1863-1877
• Enslaved persons > Emancipation > United States
• POLITICAL SCIENCE > Political Process > Political Advocacy
• African Americans
• Enslaved persons > Emancipation
• African Americans
• Abolitionists
• United States
• United States > History > Civil War, 1861-1865

Genre/Form

History

Note

• "With a new preface by the author"--Cover.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

The election of 1860 -- Secession and the coming of war -- The emancipation issue : 1861 -- Emancipation and public opinion : 1861-1862 -- The Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment -- The negro : innately inferior or equal? -- Freedmen's education : 1861-1865 -- The creation of the Freedmen's Bureau -- Men of color, to arms! -- The quest for equal rights in the north -- The ballot and land for the freedmen : 1861-1865 -- The reelection of Lincoln -- Schism in the ranks : 1864-1865 -- Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction : 1865 -- The Fourteenth Amendment and the election of 1866 -- Military reconstruction and impeachment -- Education and Confiscation : 1865-1870 -- The climax of the crusade : the Fifteenth Amendment.

ISBN

• 9780691163901
• 0691163901

LCCN

^^2014944833

OCLC

• 895002427
• SCSB-12361510

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library