Freedom in a Slave Society Stories from the Antebellum South [Hardcover]

This book explores the relationship between freedom and slavery in the antebellum American South, studying authors who spoke for the Southwest's educated classes.This book explores the relationship between freedom and slavery in the antebellum American South, studying authors who spoke for the Southwest's educated classes but often reached national readerships. Instead of treating freedom as an abstraction, this book analyzes the practical meanings attached to liberty by people who treasured it, even as they defended slavery. Juxtaposing what these Southerners wrote for a burgeoning print market with how they lived, in private and in public, this study sheds new light on the ethical paradox that plunged the United States into war.This book explores the relationship between freedom and slavery in the antebellum American South, studying authors who spoke for the Southwest's educated classes but often reached national readerships. Instead of treating freedom as an abstraction, this book analyzes the practical meanings attached to liberty by people who treasured it, even as they defended slavery. Juxtaposing what these Southerners wrote for a burgeoning print market with how they lived, in private and in public, this study sheds new light on the ethical paradox that plunged the United States into war.Before the Civil War, most Southern white people were as strongly committed to freedom for their kind as to slavery for African Americans. This study views that tragic reality through the lens of eight authors  representatives of a South that seemed, to them, destined for greatness but was, we know, on the brink of destruction. Exceptionally able and ambitious, these men and women won repute among the educated middle classes in the Southwest, South, and the nation, even amid sectional tensions. Although they sometimes described liberty in the abstract, more often these authors discussed its practical significance: what it meant for people to make life's important choices flc%