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1 - THE DESTRUCTION OF SLAVERY, 1861–1865

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Ira Berlin
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park
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Summary

The beginning of the Civil War marked the beginning of the end of slavery in the American South. At first, most white Americans denied what would eventually seem self-evident. With President Abraham Lincoln in the fore, federal authorities insisted that the nascent conflict must be a war to restore the national union, and nothing more. Confederate leaders displayed a fuller comprehension of the importance of slavery, which Vice-President Alexander Stephens called the cornerstone of the Southern nation. But if Stephens and others grasped slavery's significance, they assumed that the Confederate struggle for independence would require no change in the nature of the institution. A Southern victory would transform the political status, not the social life, of the slave states; black people would remain in their familiar place. Despite a vigorous dissent from Northern abolitionists, most white people – North and South – saw no reason to involve slaves in their civil war.

Slaves had a different understanding of the sectional struggle. Unmoved by the public pronouncements and official policies of the federal government, they recognized their centrality to the dispute and knew that their future depended upon its outcome. With divisions among white Americans erupting into open warfare, slaves watched and waited, alert for ways to turn the military conflict to their own advantage, stubbornly refusing to leave its outcome to the two belligerents.

Type
Chapter
Information
Slaves No More
Three Essays on Emancipation and the Civil War
, pp. 1 - 76
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1992

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