Emancipation War - by Damon Root (Hardcover)

About the Book

Emancipation War shines light on the origins and meaning of the Thirteenth Amendment and chronicles the great legal, political, and military struggle to amend the U.S. Constitution to outlaw slavery once and for all.

Book Synopsis

Speaking to a fractured country for the first time as president, Abraham Lincoln endorsed a constitutional amendment designed to permanently safeguard slavery in every state in which the institution already existed. If that proslavery provision had been ratified, it would have become the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Three years later, Lincoln again threw his support behind a constitutional amendment to address slavery: this time to abolish it. Formally ratified in 1865, this is the Thirteenth Amendment we know today.

What happened in those intervening years that led Lincoln to switch from supporting a proslavery amendment to embracing the antislavery provision that ultimately became enshrined in the Constitution? Why did the Thirteenth Amendment of 1864-65 win out over that of 1861? Lincoln himself provided a key to understanding: "I claim not to have controlled events," he said, "but confess plainly that events have controlled me."

In Emancipation War award-winning journalist Damon Root chronicles the great legal, political, and military struggle to amend the U.S. Constitution to outlaw slavery once and for all. It is the story of canny political tacticians and unyielding radicals; of famous orators and unsung pamphleteers; of liberty-minded Union officers and enslaved persons who liberated themselves by following the North Star to freedom, and who then, in some cases, donned uniforms and took up arms against their former enslavers. It was this wide-ranging movement against slavery--operating both inside and outside the halls of government power, fighting both on and off the battlefield--that made an antislavery constitutional amendment possible.

Telling the story from both the top down and the bottom up, Emancipation War provides a gripping and revealing new history of the Thirteenth Amendment.

Review Quotes

"Damon Root masterfully weaves together a range of historical voices to illustrate President Abraham Lincoln's adoption of an antislavery stance in the Civil War that culminated in his famed Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment ending slavery in the United States. Using concise and readable prose, this work is a welcome addition for general readers and specialists alike."--Eugene S. Van Sickle, coeditor of Waging War for Freedom with the 54th Massachusetts: The Civil War Memoir of John W. M. Appleton

"In Emancipation War Damon Root tells the riveting story of how freedom was fought for and won--not just by Lincoln but by countless unsung heroes. Runaway slaves, radical reformers, and Black soldiers helped shape a president's conscience and a nation's laws. It's a powerfully written book--and a genuine joy to read."--Greg Lukianoff, CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and coauthor of The Coddling of the American Mind

"It has been well-said that the purpose of education is to learn to praise--to learn standards of excellence, and honor those who achieve them. Damon Root, whose education has made him one of the most consistently illuminating writers of constitutional questions, demonstrates how 'heroism, fellowship, and dignity' produced a noble deed: the Thirteenth Amendment."--George F. Will, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and author of American Happiness and Discontents: The Unruly Torrent, 2008-2020

About the Author

Damon Root is an award-winning legal affairs journalist and the author of A Glorious Liberty: Frederick Douglass and the Fight for an Antislavery Constitution (Potomac Books, 2023) and Overruled: The Long War for Control of the U.S. Supreme Court. His writing has also appeared in the Los Angeles Daily News, Chicago Sun-Times, Newsweek, New York Post, New York Daily News, New York Press, Washington Times, Wall Street Journal, Globe and Mail, and other publications.