The war before the war : fugitive slaves and the struggle for America's soul from the Revolution to the Civil War

Author

Andrew Delbanco

Call Number

• 973.7115 D344 (CEN)

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Languages

Text in English.

Publication Information

New York : Penguin Press, 2018.

Physical Description

453 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Summary

Explains how fugitive slaves escaping from the South to the northern states awakened northerners to the true nature of slavery and how the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act divided the nation and set it on the path to civil war.

"For decades after its founding, America was really two nations--one slave, one free. There were many reasons why this composite nation ultimately broke apart, but the fact that enslaved black people repeatedly risked their lives to flee their masters in the South in search of freedom in the North proved that the "united" states was actually a lie. Fugitive slaves exposed the contradiction between the myth that slavery was a benign institution and the reality that a nation based on the principle of human equality was in fact a prison house in which millions of Americans had no rights at all. By awakening northerners to the true nature of slavery, and by enraging southerners who demanded the return of their human "property," fugitive slaves forced the nation to confront the truth about itself. By 1850, with America on the verge of collapse, Congress reached what it hoped was a solution--the notorious Compromise of 1850, which required that fugitive slaves be returned to their masters. Like so many political compromises before and since, it was a deal by which white Americans tried to advance their interests at the expense of black Americans. Yet the Fugitive Slave Act, intended to preserve the Union, in fact set the nation on the path to civil War. It divided not only the American nation but also the hearts and minds of Americans who struggled with the timeless problem of when to submit to an unjust law and when to resist. The fugitive slave story illuminates what brought us to War with ourselves and the terrible legacies of slavery that are with us still."--Dust jacket.

Contents

• Part one: The long fuse. The problem ; Slavery and the Founders ; A compromised Constitution ; The first test ; Caught ; War of words ; Into the courts
• Part two: The fuse is lit. To the brink ; State of the Union ; The last truce ; Explosion ; Trials of conscience ; The end of compromise ; "And the war came".