Book contents
- The Cambridge History of the American Civil War
- The Cambridge History of the American Civil War
- The Cambridge History of the American Civil War
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors to Volume II
- Note on the Text
- Part I Causes
- Part II Managing the War
- Part III The Global War
- Part IV Politics
- 18 Radicals and Republicans
- 19 Northern Democrats
- 20 Confederate Politics
- 21 Lincoln and the War
- 22 Peace and Dissent in the North
- 23 African American Political Activism
- 24 Davis and the War
- 25 Peace and Dissent in the South
- Index
- References
23 - African American Political Activism
from Part IV - Politics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2019
Edited by
Book contents
- The Cambridge History of the American Civil War
- The Cambridge History of the American Civil War
- The Cambridge History of the American Civil War
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors to Volume II
- Note on the Text
- Part I Causes
- Part II Managing the War
- Part III The Global War
- Part IV Politics
- 18 Radicals and Republicans
- 19 Northern Democrats
- 20 Confederate Politics
- 21 Lincoln and the War
- 22 Peace and Dissent in the North
- 23 African American Political Activism
- 24 Davis and the War
- 25 Peace and Dissent in the South
- Index
- References
Summary
The Civil War, Frederick Douglass knew, began “in the interests of slavery on both sides. The South was fighting to take slavery out of the Union, and the North fighting to keep it in the Union; the South fighting to get it beyond the limits of the United States Constitution, and the North fighting for the old guarantees;– both despising the Negro, both insulting the Negro.” Nearly all African American political activists of the Civil War era would have agreed with Douglass, not only for his analysis of the terms on which the war began, but also for the way his words captured these activists’ twin and inseparable struggles: the battle to abolish slavery, and the struggle to overcome white hostility and transform the United States into a nonracial republic.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of the American Civil War , pp. 480 - 500Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019
References
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