In part one of our six-part episode on Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, we look at the evolution of historical thinking about the Civil War, slavery, and the emancipation proclamation. We discover why the moral objections to slavery held by ordinary people has become the chief driver in interpreting the war and emancipation.

Part 1: Slavery and Capitalism

Music Clips

"Battle Hymn of the Republic," Reinald Werrenrath (Viktor, 1917):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUPPr_AilTM
"Battle Cry of Freedom" (US Everlasting, date unknown): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRHdcn-bIb4
"Old Kentucky Home," Harry Macdonald (Victor Monarch,1901): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaNzDpLtWIo

Bibliography

Edward Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism (Basic Books, 2016)
Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton: A Global History (Knopf, 2014)
Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman, editors, Slavery's Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development (University of Pennsylvania, 2014)
Caitlin Rosenthal, Accounting for Slavery (Harvard, 2018)
Calvin Schmerhorn, Unrequited Toil: A History of United States Slavery (Cambridge University Press, 2018)

Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, Part One: Slavery and Capitalism