Jeffrey Rogers Hummel - Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War, 2nd Edition

This book is different! Hummels Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men challenges both time-worn and current interpretations of the Civil War era. Not every reader will agree with his fresh interpretations, but they are thoroughly grounded in the facts and the literature of the period.

ERIC WALTHER

Professor of History,

University of Houston

Author of The Fire-Eaters

Jeffrey Rogers Hummel has mastered an astonishing range of material in constructing his provocative interpretation of the Civil War as a watershed in shaping the meanings of freedom in the United States. Even veteran students of the conflict will find much to challenge their thinking in this forcefully argued and clearly written study. Apart from Hummels engaging text, the perceptive bibliographical essays alone make the book well worth reading.

GARY W. GALLAGHER

Professor of American History,

Penn State University

Author of Stephen Dodson Ramseur: Lees Gallant General

Hummel presents a very lucid history of the Civil War era, enlivened by his own subtle interpretation. Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men is immeasurably enhanced by the comprehensive bibliographical essays that follow each chapter, providing the scholar with invaluable historiographical information. The book should appeal to the general reader with its colorful quotes and anecdotes that capture the feel of the times it surveys so well. At the same time the authors vast knowledge of the literature makes his work a priceless resource for students and professional historians.

JANET SHARP HERMANN

Author of The Pursuit of a Dream and Joseph E. Davis, Pioneer Patriarch

This is a lucid, edifying account of the Civil War era. Mr. Hummel has an impressive command of the relevant contemporary literature. His interpretations are thoughtful, often provocative, always well worth considering. Civil War buffs will want this book on their shelves.

KENNETH M. STAMPP

Morrison Professor of History Emeritus,

University of California, Berkeley

Author of The Peculiar Institution

In this fresh, provocative survey, Jeff Hummel combines synthesis and interpretation in admirable fashion. Not everyone will agree with his arguments, but they will stimulate discussion as they challenge orthodoxy.

BROOKS D. SIMPSON

Professor of History, Arizona State University

Author of Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 18611868

Jeffrey Hummels book Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men is a very stimulating and original analysis of slavery and the American Civil War. Stimulating because it incorporates an exceptional blend of economic and political analysis; original because the bibliographic essays at the end of each chapter alone are worth the price of the book.

DOUGLASS NORTH

1993 Nobel Prize in Economics for work in economic history of the United States

Author of The Economic Growth of the United States, 17901860

Hummels Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men is a work of importance. It will be of interest to general readers and to historians of the United States. Its command of the scholarship of the Civil War period is especially impressive and its insight is extraordinarily valuable.

ROBERT MIDDLEKAUFF Professor of History,

University of California, Berkeley

Author of The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 17631789

Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men is an admirable achievement and all readers interested in this seminal period in American history owe Jeffrey Hummel a great debt. He has managed, in comparatively short compass, to distill the essential substance of this great conflict and the issues that surround it in an informative and arresting manner, and has provided insights that one is unlikely to find anywhere else on the broader issues at stake in this critical struggle between North and South.

RONALD HAMOWY

Professor of History, University of Alberta

Jeffrey Hummel has masterfully shown how the coercive power of the state strengthened the institution of slavery and deprived African-Americans of the opportunities to share in the expanding American material bounty. He offers a provocative new vision of the antebellum South that cries for attention from scholars and laypersons alike.

RICHARD VEDDER

Distinguished Professor of Economics, Ohio University

This book will take its place in the pantheon of Civil War books. A remarkable new synthesis.

BARRY R. WEINGAST

Professor of Political Science, Stanford University

EMANCIPATING

SLAVES,

ENSLAVING

FREE MEN

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Open Court Publishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company, dba ePals Media.

Copyright 1996 by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel

Copyright 2014 by Carus Publishing Company, dba ePals Media

First printing 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, Open Court Publishing Company, a division of Carus Publishing Company, 70 East Lake Street, Suite 800, Chicago, Illinois 60601.

ISBN: 9780-81269844-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data (for the First Edition)

Hummel, Jeffrey Rogers.

Emancipating slaves, enslaving free men: a history of the American Civil War/Jeffrey Rogers Hummel.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

(paper: alk. paper)

1. United StatesHistoryCivil War, 18611865. 2. United StatesPolitics and government18151861. 3. United StatesHistoryCivil War, 18611865 Causes. 4. United StatesHistoryCivil War, 18611865Influence. 5. State rightsHistory19th century. 6. Reconstruction. I. Title.

E468.H94 1996

973.7dc20

9619332

DEDICATED TO:

Brevet Brigadier General James C. Rogers

Commander: 123rd Regiment, New York State Volunteers my great-grandfather, whom I never had the opportunity to meet

Tom Rogers

my grandfather, whom I was fortunate enough to know

and Susan Rogers Hummel

my mother, who has long awaited this book

CONTENTS

A s the nation marks the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the literature covering slavery, secession, Civil War, and Reconstruction continues to expand rapidly. Whether detailed monographs or general histories, the outpouring of new studies adds to a huge body of scholarship that already consists of many thousands of books and articles. To write a truly original Civil War work is thus an extraordinarily difficult undertaking. Jeffrey Rogers Hummels Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men stands out as a particularly rich and creative interpretation of the War and its aftermath. I am delighted that Open Court is now reissuing Hummels work to make it readily available to a new audience of Civil War students.