A New Birth of Freedom: The Republican Party and the Freedmen's Rights

A New Birth of Freedom: The Republican Party and Freedmen's Rights, 1861-1866, is an account of how laws, policies and constitutional amendments defining and protecting the personal liberty and civil rights of the country's African American population were adopted during the Civil War. A study in legal and constitutional history, it complements and forms a necessary predicate to the social history of emancipation that is the principal focus of contemporary Civil War scholarship. The relevance of the legal dimension in the struggle for black freedom is attested by the observation that many slaves learned the letter of the law so they could seemingly recite from memory passages from congressional measures prohibiting the return of escaped slaves to disloyal owners and guaranteeing their personal liberty.

Author: Herman Belz
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Published: 01/01/2000
Pages: 199
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 8.47h x 5.45w x 0.51d
ISBN: 9780823220113

About the Author

Herman Belz is Professor of History at The University of Maryland at College Park and is a leading expert on the constitution and politics in the Civil War Era.