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patmcmanamon's review against another edition
5.0
Compelling. Insightful. Revealing. The story of how our country treated runaway slaves, and dealt with slavery. From founding fathers advertising for runaways to the Dred Scott decision to Daniel Webster abandoning principles of humanity in the name of union, this book peels back the onion to show the flawed and racist core of our nation, and its original sin. It’s the kind of book that some nowadays may seek to ban because it’s uncomfortable. But because it’s uncomfortable, it’s the kind of book all should read — to understand who we are as a nation and where we came from. Highly, highly recommend.
poppymonster's review against another edition
5.0
Just… wow. I knew history in my country was whitewashed to hide the complexities of slavery and the response to it throughout the entire country. I knew that slavery had created a hostile environment for black Americans that, in many ways, still exists today.
However, this book added a lot of nuance that I was missing. The author explained the compromises made to hold the country together at the expense of black enslaved people and the plethora of motivations individuals had to either abolish or maintain slavery. No one person was all good or all bad or had the ability to see the future. I appreciate the honest look into many historical figures and at the law that tore the country apart while trying to hold it together.
However, this book added a lot of nuance that I was missing. The author explained the compromises made to hold the country together at the expense of black enslaved people and the plethora of motivations individuals had to either abolish or maintain slavery. No one person was all good or all bad or had the ability to see the future. I appreciate the honest look into many historical figures and at the law that tore the country apart while trying to hold it together.
ifyouhappentoremember's review against another edition
4.0
In high school history class, the Fugitive Slave Act has this feeling of remoteness. The event had happened so long ago and it just feels like another pit stop on the road to The Civil War. But this book made the 19th century come alive. All the different viewpoints on slavery, all of the emotions, the arguing, and the politics are explored and analyzed. It forced me to recognize these events happened to real people, not to names in a textbook.
benlwill's review against another edition
4.0
4.5 stars. A well-written and much needed study of about 1820–60 when people freeing slavery slowly became the focal point of national politics. If you want a fairly quick read that’ll hit highlights of national antebellum slavery politics give this a try.
mkesten's review against another edition
5.0
When 13 dinky colonies in Great Britain’s empire decided to throw off the chains unreasonable taxation and lack of representation in Parliament, many revolutionaries identified themselves with creating an enduring democracy dedicated to equality and the pursuit of liberty.
But those men who were tasked with the job of bringing the colonies together knew that it was a temporary accommodation to last at least until the war with Britain was won. Not all were equal to those signatories of the Declaration of Independence, nor did it become more equal when The Constitution enshrined the property rights of slave-owners.
The revolutionaries from the southern colonies had every intention of maintaining the institution of slavery, while the northern revolutionaries had no intention at all of admitting slavery into their colonies, now “states.”
So from the beginning, the so-called “United” States of America were never “united” on a fundamental tenant of the union, that of all men being equal before the eyes of God.
We assume that the northerners didn’t want slavery because it was an affront to God, but many northerners didn’t want the slaves (read: blacks) among their society. And largely Irish immigrants in New York and Boston didn’t want the competition for jobs. Northerners in fact were great beneficiaries of the system of slavery. Northern mills processed slave-picked cotton. Northern banks loaned money to slave enterprises. And Northern ladies drank coffee with slavemade sugar.
Early in the new United States there were relatively few vocal opponents of slavery on purely religious grounds, but even these people had a hard time convincing themselves that black slaves were the equal of whites.
One bone of contention was whether the blacks were humans or property. If they were human they deserved due process under the new laws of the federation. If they were property, then blacks who escaped slavery were subject to the laws of property.
Generally speaking, property doesn’t run away. But this property did run away. And frequently. Most slaves didn’t get very far. A few did.
This book, “The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War’” by Andrew Delbanco, follows the progress of laws enacted to return slaves to their owners, and laws created by northern states to thwart the intent of fugitive slave laws.
It is a mirror on the times.
There is much debate over what eventually brought about the American Civil War. Professor Delbanco makes a pretty strong case that it was the Mexican-American War that lit the fuse that blew the accommodation apart. America inherited so much land in winning that war. Whether liberated Texas and California should be slave states. And there was the earlier Louisiana Purchase. Whether Kansas should a slave state. Whether Missouri or Nebraska should be free-soil.
The flow of capital and immigrants into the liberated territories fueled discontent. Land speculators in Texas sold cotton-growing land. White prospectors flooded into California. Trying to separate the demands of capital vs. the humanitarian grounds for abolishing slavery becomes complex and maybe ultimately inseparable.
Southern states initially planned on the Federal Government guaranteeing their property rights with runaways. Northerners didn’t want the federal government interfering in what they saw as state matters. (Sounds eerily familiar, no?)
Moreover, the revolutionary government created the Senate as a balance to the popular sovereignty of northerners. As long as there were equal representation between slave and non-slave states in the union, southerners had no fear of losing their birthright. Thus the pressure to create an equal number of slave states in the new territories. If the north, with their vastly growing populations were given more free states, then they would create more legislation favourable to their ends, and keep the Supreme Court packed with nominees to uphold decisions friendly to their objectives. (This also sounds eerily familiar.)
Anybody familiar with Isabel Wilkerson’s outstanding “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration” knows that when large numbers of the ex-slaves and their progeny finally made their way to the northeast, to the northern Midwest and to California, white communities reacted by building societal walls to their integration: separate schools, separate housing, and whites-only unions. That is where the more modern version of equal before the law and the eyes of God eventually led America.
Much of this story is told from the side of the northern sensibility, as in: it was obvious that slavery was morally wanting and that northern expansion was pressuring the south to acquiesce. What shouldn’t be lost on the reader is that the North agreed and benefitted by the confederation with the south. In a very clear way the North owed its freedom to the south. Without demanding the end to slavery.
America's curious libertarian streak ends these days when the talk turns toward reproductive rights. The very same people who champion "states rights" and hands-off government demand the state outlaw abortion. In the antebellum south, landowners wanted to preserve their independence AND gov't intervention to preserve their rights.
Much is made today of the political divide between urban and rural voters, perhaps the coastal elites vs. the heartland if you believe in it. It is directly analogous with North vs. South in antebellum America. But that would obscure the similarities in their attitudes toward the real disenfranchised.
The Civil War ended the precincts of slavery, but America still wrestles with the aftermath.
But those men who were tasked with the job of bringing the colonies together knew that it was a temporary accommodation to last at least until the war with Britain was won. Not all were equal to those signatories of the Declaration of Independence, nor did it become more equal when The Constitution enshrined the property rights of slave-owners.
The revolutionaries from the southern colonies had every intention of maintaining the institution of slavery, while the northern revolutionaries had no intention at all of admitting slavery into their colonies, now “states.”
So from the beginning, the so-called “United” States of America were never “united” on a fundamental tenant of the union, that of all men being equal before the eyes of God.
We assume that the northerners didn’t want slavery because it was an affront to God, but many northerners didn’t want the slaves (read: blacks) among their society. And largely Irish immigrants in New York and Boston didn’t want the competition for jobs. Northerners in fact were great beneficiaries of the system of slavery. Northern mills processed slave-picked cotton. Northern banks loaned money to slave enterprises. And Northern ladies drank coffee with slavemade sugar.
Early in the new United States there were relatively few vocal opponents of slavery on purely religious grounds, but even these people had a hard time convincing themselves that black slaves were the equal of whites.
One bone of contention was whether the blacks were humans or property. If they were human they deserved due process under the new laws of the federation. If they were property, then blacks who escaped slavery were subject to the laws of property.
Generally speaking, property doesn’t run away. But this property did run away. And frequently. Most slaves didn’t get very far. A few did.
This book, “The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War’” by Andrew Delbanco, follows the progress of laws enacted to return slaves to their owners, and laws created by northern states to thwart the intent of fugitive slave laws.
It is a mirror on the times.
There is much debate over what eventually brought about the American Civil War. Professor Delbanco makes a pretty strong case that it was the Mexican-American War that lit the fuse that blew the accommodation apart. America inherited so much land in winning that war. Whether liberated Texas and California should be slave states. And there was the earlier Louisiana Purchase. Whether Kansas should a slave state. Whether Missouri or Nebraska should be free-soil.
The flow of capital and immigrants into the liberated territories fueled discontent. Land speculators in Texas sold cotton-growing land. White prospectors flooded into California. Trying to separate the demands of capital vs. the humanitarian grounds for abolishing slavery becomes complex and maybe ultimately inseparable.
Southern states initially planned on the Federal Government guaranteeing their property rights with runaways. Northerners didn’t want the federal government interfering in what they saw as state matters. (Sounds eerily familiar, no?)
Moreover, the revolutionary government created the Senate as a balance to the popular sovereignty of northerners. As long as there were equal representation between slave and non-slave states in the union, southerners had no fear of losing their birthright. Thus the pressure to create an equal number of slave states in the new territories. If the north, with their vastly growing populations were given more free states, then they would create more legislation favourable to their ends, and keep the Supreme Court packed with nominees to uphold decisions friendly to their objectives. (This also sounds eerily familiar.)
Anybody familiar with Isabel Wilkerson’s outstanding “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration” knows that when large numbers of the ex-slaves and their progeny finally made their way to the northeast, to the northern Midwest and to California, white communities reacted by building societal walls to their integration: separate schools, separate housing, and whites-only unions. That is where the more modern version of equal before the law and the eyes of God eventually led America.
Much of this story is told from the side of the northern sensibility, as in: it was obvious that slavery was morally wanting and that northern expansion was pressuring the south to acquiesce. What shouldn’t be lost on the reader is that the North agreed and benefitted by the confederation with the south. In a very clear way the North owed its freedom to the south. Without demanding the end to slavery.
America's curious libertarian streak ends these days when the talk turns toward reproductive rights. The very same people who champion "states rights" and hands-off government demand the state outlaw abortion. In the antebellum south, landowners wanted to preserve their independence AND gov't intervention to preserve their rights.
Much is made today of the political divide between urban and rural voters, perhaps the coastal elites vs. the heartland if you believe in it. It is directly analogous with North vs. South in antebellum America. But that would obscure the similarities in their attitudes toward the real disenfranchised.
The Civil War ended the precincts of slavery, but America still wrestles with the aftermath.
jeremyanderberg's review against another edition
4.0
Right from the nation's founding, tensions simmered between North and South, largely about the issue of slavery. Would new states be free or slaveholding? What would happen to runaway slaves who ended up in the North? Compromise after compromise was reached, including a number of resolutions regarding runaways.
Those runaways — fugitives in the eyes of the South — numbered only in the thousands out of millions of slaves. So as a pure percentage, it wasn't a huge issue. But those runaways had an outsized impact on the national discourse.
Delbanco covers that aspect of slavery, while also giving broader context to how baked-in the system was into our founding, including the Constitution. Chapters on the power of slave narratives (including Northup's), the literal fighting in Congress, and the tense years right before the Civil War were particularly interesting. A few chapters dealing with detailed legal matters and interpretations were a little dry, but still not too hard to get through.
The real strength of the book is in Delbanco's ability to relate these issues to our modern day context. He notes that political discourse was far more intense 200 years ago than it is today, that runaway slaves were basically illegal immigrants, etc.
Overall, it's a book that really deepened my understanding of slavery in America. While it's probably not a book for every reader out there, if this is a topic of interest, it's sure to keep your attention and expand your view of America's history.
Those runaways — fugitives in the eyes of the South — numbered only in the thousands out of millions of slaves. So as a pure percentage, it wasn't a huge issue. But those runaways had an outsized impact on the national discourse.
Delbanco covers that aspect of slavery, while also giving broader context to how baked-in the system was into our founding, including the Constitution. Chapters on the power of slave narratives (including Northup's), the literal fighting in Congress, and the tense years right before the Civil War were particularly interesting. A few chapters dealing with detailed legal matters and interpretations were a little dry, but still not too hard to get through.
The real strength of the book is in Delbanco's ability to relate these issues to our modern day context. He notes that political discourse was far more intense 200 years ago than it is today, that runaway slaves were basically illegal immigrants, etc.
Overall, it's a book that really deepened my understanding of slavery in America. While it's probably not a book for every reader out there, if this is a topic of interest, it's sure to keep your attention and expand your view of America's history.
shiradest's review against another edition
4.0
This book presents a truly frightening idea. The idea that emancipation did not in fact have to be the outcome of the war, is truly unsettling.
The idea that the separation could have continued and made slavery even worse is a terrifying idea.
I will let the reader refer to updates I made as I read this book but leave with the last page of comments from Frederick Douglass and from Nathaniel Hawthorne that the war had "made attainable" freedom but those freed slaves would indeed " face a hard battle with the world, on very unequal terms."
And still do.
Shira Destinie Jones
The idea that the separation could have continued and made slavery even worse is a terrifying idea.
I will let the reader refer to updates I made as I read this book but leave with the last page of comments from Frederick Douglass and from Nathaniel Hawthorne that the war had "made attainable" freedom but those freed slaves would indeed " face a hard battle with the world, on very unequal terms."
And still do.
Shira Destinie Jones