Refined, highfalutin’ principles’

The northern public, the constitution, and slavery, 1861–62

Bibliographic Data

ID16769368
AuthorsSilvana R Siddali (Illinois State University, corresponding author)
Year2001
Volume2
Issue2
Pages60-81
Publication date2001-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Nineteenth Century History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1466-4658 • E-ISSN: 1743-7903
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14664650108567039
OpenAlexW1970496110
LanguageEN
References cited16

Early in the Civil War an anticonstitutional rhetoric arose on the Northern home front in response to military delays and defeats as well as congressional debates over the constitutionality of punitive actions against rebel citizens. This critique was based in part on the Constitution's protections of rebel citizens’ rights, especially their disputed right to hold human property. Impatient Northerners also perceived the political compromises with slavery throughout the sectional conflict as based on constitutional principles. As a result, some Northerners began to equate the Constitution with slavery, and began to demand that the document be revised or even rewritten. This essay argues, however, that in spite of their critique of the Constitution's perceived protections of slavery, war‐minded Northern citizens did not advocate immediate or widespread emancipation

Constitution · Constitutionality · Emancipation · Political science · Politics · Rhetoric · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Law · Philosophy · Race, History, and American Society

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