Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865

by James Oakes,
The Florida Courier, January 11, 2013

As we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, Americans continue to fight about the causes and consequences of the Civil War. Was the conflict “irrepressible,” some ask, or the result of the actions and inactions of a “blundering generation”? Did the North fight to eradicate slavery or to preserve the Union? Was Abraham Lincoln a Great – or a Reluctant – Emancipator?