ASH3002y Reading Assignment
April 26, 1999

Slavery, the Slave Power, and Abolition: Politics and
Configurations of Power

Required reading:

• The chapter on the politics of this period in a good college Ameican history textbook.   I'll be reading Chapter 17, "Compromise and Conflict," in Bernard Bailyn's The Great Republic, of which there are several copies in the Barnard library, but you may consult just about any good American history textbook.  Try to get a good sense of the various intersecting issues, and of the constituencies, parties, and factions involved.
• The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850
• Frederick Douglass, "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro:  Speech at Rochester, New York, July 5, 1852," The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 5th ed., vol. 1, pp. 2057-2076.
• Henry David Thoreau, "Slavery in Massachusetts," The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 5th ed., vol. 1, pp. 1943-1953.
• Abolition  and   Conflict of Abolition and Slavery in the Library of Congress's exhibit on the African-American Mosaic

Those of you who read texts about slavery for your second project should come prepared to share your expertise as well.