The Relations of the Federal Government to Slavery

Joseph Ketchum EdgertonProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.8

Word count: 142K words
Chapters: 15

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Relations of the Federal Government to Slavery by Joseph K. EdgertonAuthor: Edgerton, Joseph K. (Joseph Ketchum), 1818-1893,Language: English, Class: E300: History: America: Revolution to the Civil War (1783-1861), Release Date: Feb 13, 2009

Editor's review

This book is a historical document on the relationship between the U.S. federal government and slavery. Joseph K. Edgerton discusses slavery from the perspective of the boundaries of federal power and constitutional interpretation, reflecting an important dimension of pre-Civil War American political debate. As a public-domain text, it preserves the argumentative modes of the time concerning federal authority, states' rights, and the existence or abolition of slavery, and holds documentary value for the study of nineteenth-century American political and constitutional history. Readers can use it to understand how pre-Civil War political elites invoked the Constitution and the federal system to defend different positions, and how this issue intensified North-South antagonism. The book is written in English, and its arguments carry distinct period positions; readers should maintain a critical awareness, distinguishing the argumentative logic within its historical context from contemporary value judgments. It is suitable as supplementary source material for specialized courses in American history, rather than as an introductory general-history reader.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Researchers in nineteenth-century American political and constitutional history
History students needing pre-Civil War primary political documents
Advanced readers interested in debates over federalism and states' rights
University instructors teaching source analysis in American history courses

Not a good fit for

Introductory readers seeking a general overview of American slavery
Readers with weak English skills who find nineteenth-century political prose difficult
Readers expecting contemporary perspectives on racial justice

Reading tips

Before reading, familiarize yourself with the pre-Civil War North-South political landscape and relevant constitutional provisions to locate the points of contention in the author's argument.
Read this book alongside other political tracts of the same period, noting differences in the author's position and argumentative strategy.
When excerpting source material, note the author's presuppositions to facilitate critical citation in papers.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

What position does the author take on slavery?

This book is a nineteenth-century political tract in which the author discusses slavery from the perspective of federal government authority and constitutional interpretation; its arguments reflect one position in the political debate of the time. Readers should understand its arguments in historical context and should not treat it as a neutral general history.

Is this book suitable for learning about the history of American slavery?

This book is a political text situated in a specific historical context, focusing on the constitutional relationship between the federal government and slavery rather than the full social history of slavery. To systematically understand the history of slavery, one should first read relevant general histories and then use this book as supplementary primary source material.

What is the reading format of the public-domain e-book?

This book is released by Project Gutenberg as a free English electronic text that can be downloaded and read on a computer or e-reader. The text is the original content without modern annotations, so readers may need to consult historical background materials on their own.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Joseph Ketchum Edgerton Author · American · 1818–1893

Joseph Ketchum Edgerton (1818–1893) was an American politician who served as a U.S. Representative from Indiana and later as Commissioner of the United States Patent Office. The library holds one work by him, The Relations of the Federal Government to Slavery, whose title indicates a focus on the institutional relationship between the federal government and slavery, placing it within the nineteenth-century American political and legal debate over slavery. Public information on the details of his life and writing style is limited, so this introduction relies on the offices and work noted above. The book can serve as a reference for understanding how political figures of the period argued about federal power and slavery.