After the outbreak of civil war, many northern citizens demanded that slaves be seized as contraband without necessarily endorsing their emancipation. Siddali examines the public and political debates in the North over southerners’ private property rights and explains how these deliberations set in motion the first major reconsideration of the Constitution since the Bill of Rights. Fundamental questions arose: Who had the right to control the war effort? What were the rights of rebellious citizens in a democratic Republic? How did one define human bondage that is implicitly protected in the nation’s founding documents? Would the destruction of slavery irreparably damage the Constitution? Through the two Confiscation Acts of 1861 and 1862, the author argues, Americans worked out a conundrum between property rights and constitutionally protected civil liberties. The right of all human beings to freedom now trumped white southerners’ right to human property. In a rich analysis of editorials, pamphlets, letters, and congressional speeches, From Property to Person reveals the swift transformation in rhetoric concerning the Constitution and its protection of private property rights. The Confiscation Acts paved the way for the Reconstruction Amendments by fostering support for a broader reach by the federal government into private property rights and envisioning a new interpretation of an individual citizen’s rights and obligations.
Book Description
Most historians accept the proposition that in the first two years of the Civil War the North’s primary aim was to reestablish the Union and the Constitution, not to emancipate slaves. But when northerners began clamoring for the confiscation of southern land and slaves as a punitive, military, and revenue-raising tactic, the constitutional right to personal property, particularly human property, came into question. In From Property to Person, Silvana R. Siddali traces the resulting discourse among northern voters, politicians, military leaders, and President Lincoln, elucidating how emancipation ultimately became an essential political cause in the North.
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About the Author
Silvana R. Siddali is an assistant professor of history at St. Louis University.
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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confiscation act, border state slaveowners, border state residents, militant northerners, confiscation legislation, widespread emancipation, northern home front, border state slaveholders, loyal slaveowners, confiscation bill, confiscated slaves, constitutional war powers, congressional moderates, confiscation law, emancipation clauses, border state representatives, rebellious southerners, moderate northerners, rebel property, individual southerners, punitive sentiment, conservative northerners, rebel citizens, rem proceedings, northern public Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Union Army, John Sherman, Chicago Tribune, Sherman Papers, Elihu Washburne, Lyman Trumbull, New York Times, Abraham Lincoln, President Lincoln, United States, Civil War, Boston Daily Evening Transcript, Washburne Papers, Trumbull Papers, South Carolina, Bull Run, Daily Republican, Louisville Daily Democrat, Cleveland Daily Plain Dealer, Charles Sumner, Trial of Our Constitution, Fort Sumter, Dawes Papers, Constitutional Problems, Zachariah Chandler Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
confiscation act, border state slaveowners, border state residents, militant northerners, confiscation legislation, widespread emancipation, northern home front, border state slaveholders, loyal slaveowners, confiscation bill, confiscated slaves, constitutional war powers, congressional moderates, confiscation law, emancipation clauses, border state representatives, rebellious southerners, moderate northerners, rebel property, individual southerners, punitive sentiment, conservative northerners, rebel citizens, rem proceedings, northern public Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Union Army, John Sherman, Chicago Tribune, Sherman Papers, Elihu Washburne, Lyman Trumbull, New York Times, Abraham Lincoln, President Lincoln, United States, Civil War, Boston Daily Evening Transcript, Washburne Papers, Trumbull Papers, South Carolina, Bull Run, Daily Republican, Louisville Daily Democrat, Cleveland Daily Plain Dealer, Charles Sumner, Trial of Our Constitution, Fort Sumter, Dawes Papers, Constitutional Problems, Zachariah Chandler Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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