"What shall we do with the Negro?" : Lincoln, white racism, and Civil War America / Paul D. Escott.
2009
E457.2 .E73 2009 (Mapit)
Available at General Collection
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Details
Title
"What shall we do with the Negro?" : Lincoln, white racism, and Civil War America / Paul D. Escott.
Author
Escott, Paul D., 1947-
ISBN
9780813927862 (alk. paper)
0813927862 (alk. paper)
0813927862 (alk. paper)
Publication Details
Charlottesville : University of Virginia Press, 2009.
Language
English
Description
xviii, 304 p., [10] p. of plates : ill., ports. ; 24 cm.
Call Number
E457.2 .E73 2009
Dewey Decimal Classification
973.7092
Summary
"Throughout the Civil War, newspaper headlines and stories repeatedly asked some variation of the question posed by the New York Times in 1862, "What shall we do with the negro?" The future status of African Americans was a pressing issue for Northern and Southern whites alike. Consulting a broad range of contemporary newspapers, magazines, books, army records, government documents, publications of citizens' organizations, letters, diaries, and other sources, Paul D. Escott examines the attitudes and actions of Northerners and Southerners regarding the future of African Americans after the end of slavery. "What Shall We Do with the Negro?" demonstrates how historians together with our larger national popular culture have wrenched the history of this period from its context in order to portray key figures as heroes or exemplars of national virtue. Escott gives special critical attention to Abraham Lincoln. Since the civil rights movement, many popular books have treated Lincoln as an icon, a mythical leader with thoroughly modern views on all aspects of race. But, focusing on Lincoln's policies rather than attempting to divine Lincoln's intentions from his often ambiguous or cryptic statements, Escott reveals a president who placed a higher priority on reunion than on emancipation, who showed an enduring respect for states' rights, who assumed that the social status of African Americans would change very slowly in freedom, and who offered major incentives to white Southerners at the expense of the interests of blacks"--Book jacket.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Linked Resources
Table of contents only
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Table of Contents
The North confronts the question
War's proving ground
Amnesty, apprenticeship, and the freedmen's future
Politics, emancipation, and Black rights
Slavery, war, and the slaveholder's mind
Heresy, dogma, and the Confederate debate
The Hampton Roads conference
1865 and beyond
Appendix: a brief, additional note on a vast historiography.
War's proving ground
Amnesty, apprenticeship, and the freedmen's future
Politics, emancipation, and Black rights
Slavery, war, and the slaveholder's mind
Heresy, dogma, and the Confederate debate
The Hampton Roads conference
1865 and beyond
Appendix: a brief, additional note on a vast historiography.