Review by Booklist Review
Casual American-history buffs will quietly lay this book aside, while serious students of the events and attitudes toward slave emancipation in the decades before the outbreak of the Civil War will find it, pick it up, and enthusiastically consider its provocative arguments. Esteemed historian Oakes' basic premise is this: abolitionists did not plan on a war to effect the end of slavery. They believed that a cordon of freedom, a ring of slave-free states and territories surrounding slave-holding areas, would exert enough antislavery pressure to eventually bring about slavery's abolition. Why that concept did not work and why, once secession pulled the nation apart, and warfare erupted, what indeed worked was military emancipation are great and greatly complicated ideas Oakes airs with clear thinking and precise prose. One particularly fascinating aspect of his presentation is his recapitulation of the prewar disagreement over a fundamental question that greatly impacted one's view of slavery, Did the natural right of property take precedence over the natural right to freedom? --Hooper, Brad Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Oakes (Freedom National) takes an in-depth look at political attitudes toward slavery at the brink of the Civil War. His title refers to a strategy most Republicans-sometimes overtly, sometimes secretly-supported, of gradual abolition by surrounding slave states with a "cordon of freedom" so that eventually slavery would "sting itself to death," like a scorpion in a circle of fire. As any American with a basic knowledge of history knows, however, what actually occurred was the outbreak of Civil War and, in time, the Emancipation Proclamation. Oakes examines the latter document in the context of the tradition of military emancipation, as well as the philosophical arguments underlying debates about slavery-of the right to freedom versus the right to property. While occasionally repetitive, Oakes is thorough in his explanations and research. Since the book focuses on such a narrow moment in American history, however, it works best for those already well-versed in Civil War and American history. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Civil War historian and two-time Lincoln Prize winner Oakes examines the strategies abolitionists employed to discourage and eventually destroy slavery. In the book, the institution is symbolized by a scorpion which, trapped on all sides, stings itself to death. (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Addresses Oakes (Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865, 2012, etc.) delivered for the Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures at Louisiana State University are the basis for this book about the attempts to eliminate slavery while avoiding war in the United States.The metaphor of the scorpion stinging itself to death when surrounded by fire was widely used, but that doesn't bear repeating it quite so frequently. A good deal of this book is unnecessarily repetitious but still worth the read. Abolitionists felt that surrounding the slave states with a cordon of free states would destroy slavery. Since the Constitution forbade federal interference in state policies such as slavery, no one ever stated that the Civil War was fought over slavery; it was fought to prevent its expansion into the free territories. The author ably explores the history of the basic difference between the abolitionists and pro-slavers: the view that slaves are mere items of property. All sides accepted the fact of military emancipation under which freedom was promised to slaves who would change loyalties. During the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Seminole Wars and the Civil War, it was accepted that the laws of war entitled belligerents to free slaves. The question was: What was allowed by the treaty that ended each war? The Treaty of Paris of 1783 contained an article requiring the English not to carry away "Negroes or other property." The debate revolved around the fact that the "property to be returned" after the conflict included slaves who had been granted freedom. To return slaves "still on shore" for re-enslavement was considered unacceptable, but demands for compensation were still debated years afterward.A wordy yet interesting book that clearly shows the deep divisions that were the real causes of the Civil War. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
