Comments on: The Power of the Slaves http://cwemancipation.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/the-power-of-the-slaves/ remembering freedom for the slaves ... Tue, 14 May 2013 02:27:43 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Donald R. Shaffer http://cwemancipation.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/the-power-of-the-slaves/#comment-1007 Fri, 03 Aug 2012 21:43:08 +0000 http://cwemancipation.wordpress.com/?p=3381#comment-1007 Hi Richard. Glad to be of service. :-)

Don

]]> By: Richard McCormick http://cwemancipation.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/the-power-of-the-slaves/#comment-1004 Fri, 03 Aug 2012 21:02:54 +0000 http://cwemancipation.wordpress.com/?p=3381#comment-1004 Ironically, I just picked up a book “Lincoln Lessons” edited by Frank Williams and William Pederson. Chapter (or essay) 10 is “Lincoln and African American Memory” by edan Green Medford.

One line brought back memory of this post: “Even the suggestion that enslaved people may have played a prominent role in their own liberation has invited an intense debate in recent years, with certain scholars hastening to defend Lincoln’s position as the ‘Great Emancipator.’” (p. 93 in this book)

I looked at her end notes and it referred to both McPherson (mentioned “Drawn with the Sword” a book I read years ago and which should be on my shelf” and Allan Guelzo as well. I may not have paid attention to that line had I not read this post.

Thanks again

]]> By: Richard McCormick http://cwemancipation.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/the-power-of-the-slaves/#comment-975 Fri, 27 Jul 2012 19:52:24 +0000 http://cwemancipation.wordpress.com/?p=3381#comment-975 I’ve noted those and will hopefully get to them soon

Thanks again

]]> By: Donald R. Shaffer http://cwemancipation.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/the-power-of-the-slaves/#comment-962 Thu, 26 Jul 2012 01:01:30 +0000 http://cwemancipation.wordpress.com/?p=3381#comment-962 Richard: A good place to start would be James McPherson, “Who Freed the Slaves?” and Ira Berlin, “Emancipation and Its Meaning in American Life,” both in Reconstruction 2 (1994): 35-44. Berlin was my mentor at the University of Maryland, and is one of main scholars advancing the idea of slaves taking an active role in their own liberation during the Civil War.

]]> By: Richard McCormick http://cwemancipation.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/the-power-of-the-slaves/#comment-961 Wed, 25 Jul 2012 23:17:26 +0000 http://cwemancipation.wordpress.com/?p=3381#comment-961 Thanks. I’m sorry I missed reading that before, but I do lean towards your viewpoint. I’ll have to go back and look over some McPherson writing someday and pay more attention to his comments on this subject.

]]> By: Donald R. Shaffer http://cwemancipation.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/the-power-of-the-slaves/#comment-950 Tue, 24 Jul 2012 22:40:10 +0000 http://cwemancipation.wordpress.com/?p=3381#comment-950 Hi Richard. Try James McPherson or Allen Guelzo. You might want to read Guelzo, myself, and a couple of other academic historians debate this very issue in the comments to my last post (“Allen Guelzo — July 22, 1862″).

Don

]]> By: Richard McCormick http://cwemancipation.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/the-power-of-the-slaves/#comment-949 Tue, 24 Jul 2012 22:32:47 +0000 http://cwemancipation.wordpress.com/?p=3381#comment-949 I enjoyed the entry. Do you mind me asking who the historians you referred to at the beginning of it are? If you don’t wish to, that is fine, but the concept of slave self-emancipation or helping themselves be free seems like a pretty basic aspect of the war and emancipation and it does seem strange that some people as you describe might not see that. Clearly it was not one person or one group who “freed” so many people.

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