The Struggle for Equality

Originally published in 1964, The Struggle for Equality presents an incisive and vivid look at the abolitionist movement and the legal basis it provided to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James McPherson explores the role played by rights activists during and after the Civil War, and their evolution from despised fanatics into influential spokespersons for the radical wing of the Republican Party. Asserting that it was not the abolitionists who failed to instill principles of equality, but rather the American people who refused to follow their leadership, McPherson raises questions about the obstacles that have long hindered American reform movements.

Preface to the Princeton Classics Edition ix
Preface xiii
Key to Abbreviations xvii
Introduction 3
I The Election of 1860 9
II Secession and the Coming of War 29
III The Emancipation Issue: 1861 52
IVEmancipation and Public Opinion: 1861-1862 75
V The Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment 99
VI The Negro: Innately Inferior or Equal? 134
VII Freedmen's Education: 1861-1865 154
VIII The Creation of the Freedmen's Bureau 178
IX Men of Color, to Arms! 192
X The Quest for Equal Rights in the North 221
XI The Ballot and Land for the Freedmen: 1861-1865 238
XII The Reelection of Lincoln 260
XIII Schism in the Ranks: 1864-1865 287
XIV Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction: 1865 308
XV The Fourteenth Amendment and the Election of 1866 341
XVI Military Reconstruction and Impeachment 367
XVII Education and Confiscation 1865-1870 386
XVIII The Climax of the Crusade: the Fifteenth Amendment 417
Bibliographical Essay 433
Index 451