Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment

Front Cover
Cambridge University Press, May 21, 2001 - History - 305 pages
This book examines emancipation after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. Focusing on the making and meaning of the Thirteenth Amendment, Final Freedom looks at the struggle among legal thinkers, politicians, and ordinary Americans in the North and the border states to find a way to abolish slavery that would overcome the inadequacies of the Emancipation Proclamation. The book tells the dramatic story of the creation of a constitutional amendment and reveals an unprecedented transformation in American race relations, politics, and constitutional thought. Using a wide array of archival and published sources, Professor Vorenberg argues that the crucial consideration of emancipation occurred after, not before, the Emancipation Proclamation; that the debate over final freedom was shaped by a level of volatility in party politics underestimated by prior historians; and that the abolition of slavery by constitutional amendment represented a novel method of reform that transformed attitudes toward the Constitution.
 

Contents

V
8
VI
9
VII
18
VIII
23
IX
36
XI
41
XII
46
XIII
48
XXVIII
127
XXIX
136
XXX
141
XXXII
142
XXXIII
146
XXXIV
152
XXXV
160
XXXVI
167

XIV
53
XV
61
XVI
63
XVII
71
XVIII
79
XIX
89
XX
90
XXI
94
XXII
99
XXIII
107
XXIV
112
XXV
115
XXVI
116
XXVII
121
XXXVII
176
XXXVIII
180
XXXIX
185
XL
197
XLI
212
XLII
222
XLIII
233
XLIV
239
XLV
244
XLVI
251
XLVII
253
XLVIII
297
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About the author (2001)

Michael Vorenberg is Assistant Professor of History at Brown University.