Slavery and the Divided Nation explores the explosive decades when the United States was pulled apart by the expansion of slavery, the rise of the cotton kingdom, the courage of abolitionists, and the growing resistance of enslaved people determined to claim freedom. From the brutal daily reality of plantation life to the Underground Railroad, from Frederick Douglass and the abolitionist movement to the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act, Bleeding Kansas, the Dred Scott decision, John Brown's raid, and the election of Abraham Lincoln, this book tells the story of a republic facing its greatest moral and political crisis. This ninth volume reveals how slavery shaped American law, politics, economy, and identity-and how the struggle over human freedom pushed the nation toward Civil War.
Slavery and the Divided Nation explores the explosive decades when the United States was pulled apart by the expansion of slavery, the rise of the cotton kingdom, the courage of abolitionists, and the growing resistance of enslaved people determined to claim freedom. From the brutal daily reality of plantation life to the Underground Railroad, from Frederick Douglass and the abolitionist movement to the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act, Bleeding Kansas, the Dred Scott decision, John Brown's raid, and the election of Abraham Lincoln, this book tells the story of a republic facing its greatest moral and political crisis. This ninth volume reveals how slavery shaped American law, politics, economy, and identity-and how the struggle over human freedom pushed the nation toward Civil War.