Struggle for Equality

James M. McPherson is the George Henry Davis '86 Professor of History Emeritus at Princeton University. His many books include the Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom and the New York Times bestseller Crossroads of Freedom.

• 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

Winner of the Warren F. Kuehl Prize, Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations "Must surely be assigned an important place in the literature of the history of ideas and of race relations in the United States."--The Times Literary Supplement "The Abolitionist Legacy shows many of the same graces as its predecessor: wide-ranging and careful research, a strong sense of story line, an eye for good quotations, unyielding sympathy for those who devoted their lives to uplifting the freedmen."--Reviews in American History "In addition to discussing the complex blend of egalitarianism and paternalism in the thought of white proponents of black advancement, McPherson offers suggestions of the intricate mixture of racial consciousness, individual ambition, and racial romanticism that continues to fuel modern black separatism."--Political Science Quarterly