Few images of early America were more striking, and jarring, than that of slaves in the capital city of the world's most important free republic. Black slaves served and sustained the legislators, bureaucrats, jurists, cabinet officials, military leaders, and even the presidents who lived and worked there. While slaves quietly kept the nation's capital running smoothly, lawmakers debated the place of slavery in the nation, the status of slavery in the territories newly acquired from Mexico, and even the legality of the slave trade in itself.
This volume, with essays by some of the...
Few images of early America were more striking, and jarring, than that of slaves in the capital city of the world's most important free republic. B...
During the long decade from 1848 to 1861 America was like a train speeding down the track, without an engineer or brakes. The new territories acquired from Mexico had vastly increased the size of the nation, but debate over their status-and more importantly the status of slavery within them-paralyzed the nation. Southerners gained access to the territories and a draconian fugitive slave law in the Compromise of 1850, but this only exacerbated sectional tensions. Virtually all northerners, even those who supported the law because they believed that it would preserve the union, despised...
During the long decade from 1848 to 1861 America was like a train speeding down the track, without an engineer or brakes. The new territories acqui...
When Lincoln took office, in March 1861, the national government had no power to touch slavery in the states where it existed. Lincoln understood this, and said as much in his first inaugural address, noting: I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. How, then, asks Paul Finkelman in the introduction to "Lincoln, Congress, and Emancipation, " did Lincoln who personally hated slavery lead the nation through the Civil War to January 1865, when Congress passed the constitutional amendment that ended slavery...
When Lincoln took office, in March 1861, the national government had no power to touch slavery in the states where it existed. Lincoln understood t...
0n July 24, 1989, the Committee on Ways and Means celebrates its bicentennial. The Committee on Ways and Means is the oldest committee of the Congress. Its history is a large part of our nation's history. The responsibilities vested in the committee have placed it at the center of some of the most critical legislative decisions faced by the Congress. The prestige accorded the committee is due in part, of course, to the breadth of its legislative jurisdiction: all revenues, the management of the public debt, tariff and trade laws, the Social Security and Medicare systems. These...
0n July 24, 1989, the Committee on Ways and Means celebrates its bicentennial. The Committee on Ways and Means is the oldest committee of the Congress...
When Lincoln took office, in March 1861, the national government had no power to touch slavery in the states where it existed. Lincoln understood this, and said as much in his first inaugural address, noting: I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. How, then, asks Paul Finkelman in the introduction to "Lincoln, Congress, and Emancipation, " did Lincoln who personally hated slavery lead the nation through the Civil War to January 1865, when Congress passed the constitutional amendment that ended slavery...
When Lincoln took office, in March 1861, the national government had no power to touch slavery in the states where it existed. Lincoln understood t...
