Volume 36, Number 20 · December 21, 1989
Upward in Slavery
By Michael P. Johnson
The following companion volumes are to be published by Norton in
Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery
by Robert William Fogel
Norton, 539 pp., $22.50
Without Consent or Contract: Evidence and Methods
edited by Robert W. Fogel, edited by Ralph A. Galantine, edited by Richard L. Mannings
Without Consent or Contract: Technical Papers Volume I: Markets and Productions Volume II: Conditions of Slave Life and the Transition to Freedom
edited by Robert W. Fogel, edited by Stanley L. Engerman
Slavery has come under intense scrutiny during two periods of American history: from the Revolution through 1865, and since the 1950s. During the antebellum years, when the question was what to do about slavery, constitutional concerns about the property rights of slave owners and the extent of congressional authority defined the limits of the dispute until the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Southern planters then decided that secession was the only way to guarantee that nothing would be done about slavery. Four years of warfare disproved their judgment. Slavery disintegrated in the Confederacy and died in the months following Appomattox. The end of slavery helped to make four years of carnage a noble cause, and it seemed to eliminate the most formidable barrier confronting American blacks.
Review, 5335 words
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