Book contents
- Freedom’s Crescent
- Cambridge Studies on the American South
- Freedom’s Crescent
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Additional material
- Introduction
- Prologue Life – and Labor – on the Mississippi
- Part I From War for Union to Military Emancipation, 1860–1862
- Part II From Military Emancipation to State Abolition, 1863
- Part III Abolition: State and Federal, 1864
- 10 “Slavery Is Incompatible with a Republican Form of Government”
- 11 Of Foul Combinations and the Common Object
- 12 “The Jewel of Liberty”
- 13 “The Virus of Slavery Is As Virulent As It Ever Was”
- 14 “No Longer Slaves but Freedmen”
- 15 “So Long As a Spark of Vitality Remains in the Institution of Slavery”
- 16 “Freedom, Full, Broad and Unconditional”
- 17 “To Resolve Never Again to Be Reduced to Slavery”
- Part IV The Destruction of Slavery, 1865
- Epilogue Memphis and New Orleans: May 1–3 and July 30, 1866
- Bibliography
- Index
15 - “So Long As a Spark of Vitality Remains in the Institution of Slavery”
from Part III - Abolition: State and Federal, 1864
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 January 2023
- Freedom’s Crescent
- Cambridge Studies on the American South
- Freedom’s Crescent
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Additional material
- Introduction
- Prologue Life – and Labor – on the Mississippi
- Part I From War for Union to Military Emancipation, 1860–1862
- Part II From Military Emancipation to State Abolition, 1863
- Part III Abolition: State and Federal, 1864
- 10 “Slavery Is Incompatible with a Republican Form of Government”
- 11 Of Foul Combinations and the Common Object
- 12 “The Jewel of Liberty”
- 13 “The Virus of Slavery Is As Virulent As It Ever Was”
- 14 “No Longer Slaves but Freedmen”
- 15 “So Long As a Spark of Vitality Remains in the Institution of Slavery”
- 16 “Freedom, Full, Broad and Unconditional”
- 17 “To Resolve Never Again to Be Reduced to Slavery”
- Part IV The Destruction of Slavery, 1865
- Epilogue Memphis and New Orleans: May 1–3 and July 30, 1866
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Focusing much attention on Unionist governments in Arkansas and Louisiana, congressional Republicans emphasize – in debating the Wade–Davis bill during spring 1864 – that Lincoln’s Reconstruction policy might allow the rebellious states to return to the Union without abolishing slavery. The US Senate also refuses to seat claimants from Arkansas’s Unionist government. The Republican national convention nominates Lincoln for reelection and endorses the Thirteenth Amendment, but the amendment fails to secure approval in the House of Representatives. Lincoln pocket vetoes the Wade–Davis bill, fearing it will invalidate Louisiana and Arkansas governments. The vitriolic language of the Wade–Davis manifesto disguises the substantive point – which historians almost always overlook – that the ten-percent plan might allow for the preservation of slavery. With the war stalled, it appears by August 1864 that Lincoln will lose the presidential election.
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- Freedom's CrescentThe Civil War and the Destruction of Slavery in the Lower Mississippi Valley, pp. 297 - 317Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023