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   Book Info

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Evil Necessity: Slavery and Political Culture in AnteBellum Kentucky  
Author: Harold D. Tallant
ISBN: 081312252X
Format: Handover
Publish Date: June, 2005
 
     
     
   Book Review


Marion B. Lucas
"The best discussion of the ideology of slavery and politics in Kentucky."


Book Description
In Kentucky, the slavery debate raged for thirty years before the Civil War began. While whites in the lower South argued that slavery was good for master and slave, many white Kentuckians maintained that because of racial prejudice, public safety, and property rights, slavery was necessary but undeniably evil. Harold D. Tallant shows how this view bespoke a real ambivalence about the desirability of continuing slavery in Kentucky and permitted an active abolitionist movement in the state to exist alongside contented slaveholders. Though many Kentuckians were increasingly willing to defend slavery against northern opposition, they did not always see this defense as their first political priority. Tallant explores the way in which the disparity between Kentuckians’ ideals and their actions helped make Kentucky a quintessential border state.


About the Author
Harold D. Tallant is an associate professor of history at Georgetown College in Kentucky.




Evil Necessity: Slavery and Political Culture in AnteBellum Kentucky

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Long before the Civil War began, Kentucky was the quintessential border state. As states in the Lower South embraced a militant proslavery ideology, Kentuckians viewed slavery as an "evil necessity," a harmful institution that was nonetheless necessary for the immediate economic, social, and political survival of the region." "This understanding of slavery as a necessary evil both helped and harmed the cause of antislavery reform. Most immediately, it sparked debate on the subject of slavery. While other southern states were considering secession, Kentuckians were questioning the very existence of slavery in their state during the constitutional reform effort of 1849. This tolerant attitude allowed even radical antislavery activity, including the work of abolitionists like James G. Bimey and John G. Fee, to go forward with comparatively little suppression." "Antislavery reform, however, was ultimately harmed by the necessary evil theory. Despite their reservations about the immorality of slavery, Kentuckians comforted themselves with the idea that they were helpless to do anything about it. Likewise, this belief fostered a more conservative antislavery activism than thrived in other parts of the country. Even those citizens who recognized the human and economic devastation of slavery found it easier to embrace a gradualist antislavery position that would take decades to fully achieve." Antislavery activists were initially drawn to the Commonwealth, thinking it would be one of the first southern states to end slavery. Kentucky actually proved to be one of the last states to do so and the only one to explicitly reject all three Civil War amendments to the Constitution that abolished slavery and gave citizenship rights to the former slaves. Evil Necessity explores this paradox, illustrating how moderation on the slavery issue resulted in a do-nothing policy that preserved human bondage.

     



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