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Bibliography Information:
Collection: Adult Nonfiction
Call Number: 326.8 Brands
Author: Brands, H. W.,
Title: The zealot and the emancipator :
Remainder of title: John Brown, Abraham Lincoln and the struggle for American freedom /
Summary, etc. note: "What do moral people do when democracy countenances evil? The question, implicit in the idea that people can govern themselves, came to a head in America at the middle of the nineteenth century, in the struggle over slavery. John Brown's answer was violence--violence of a sort some in later generations would call terrorism. Brown was a deeply religious man who heard the God of the Old Testament speaking to him, telling him to do whatever was necessary to destroy slavery. When Congress opened Kansas territory to slavery, the eerily charismatic Brown raised a band of followers to wage war against the evil institution. One dark night his men tore several proslavery settlers from their homes and hacked them to death with broadswords, as a bloody warning to others. Three years later Brown and his men assaulted the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, with the goal of furnishing slaves with weapons to murder their masters in a race war that would cleanse the nation of slavery once and for all. Abraham Lincoln's answer was politics. Lincoln was an ambitious lawyer and former office-holder who read the Bible not for moral guidance but as a writer's primer. He disliked slavery yet didn't consider it worth shedding blood over. He distanced himself from John Brown and joined the moderate wing of the new, antislavery Republican party. He spoke cautiously and dreamed big, plotting his path to Washington and perhaps the White House. Yet Lincoln's caution couldn't preserve him from the vortex of violence Brown set in motion. Arrested and sentenced to death, Brown comported himself with such conviction and dignity on the way to the gallows that he was canonized in the North as a martyr to liberty. Southerners responded in anger and horror that a terrorist was made into a saint. Lincoln shrewdly threaded the needle of the fracturing country and won election as president, still preaching moderation. But the time for moderation had passed. Slaveholders lumped Lincoln with Brown as an enemy of the Southern way of life; seven Southern states left the Union. Lincoln resisted secession, and the Civil War followed. At first a war for the Union, it became the war against slavery Brown had attempted to start. Before it was over, slavery had been destroyed, but so had Lincoln's faith that democracy can resolve its moral crises peacefully"--

International Standard Book Number: 9780385544009
: (ebook)
: (hardcover)
Canceled/invalid ISBN: 9780385544016
Description conventions: rda
Authentication code: pcc
Geographic area code: n-us---
Geographic area code: n-us-wv
Classification number: E451
Item number: .B795 2020
Edition number: 23
Classification number: 326/.80922
Classification number: B
Relator term: author.
Statement of responsibility, etc.: H.W. Brands.
Edition statement: First edition.
Place of publication: New York, NY
Name of publisher: Doubleday
Date of publication: 2020
Projected publication date: 2010
: New York :
: Doubleday,
: [2020]
Extent: 445; 24 cm.
Other physical details: 16 p. plates; Maps
: rdacontent
: text
: txt
: rdamedia
: unmediated
: n
: rdacarrier
: volume
: nc
Bibliography, etc. note: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted contents note: Pottawatomie -- Springfield -- Harpers Ferry -- The telegraph office.
: Provided by publisher.
Source of acquisition: Donated by The Rotary Club of Damariscotta/Newcastle; 11/20/2020
Purchase price: $ 30.00
Personal name: Brown, John,
Personal name: Lincoln, Abraham,
Dates associated with a name: 1800-1859.
Dates associated with a name: 1809-1865.
Subject: Abolitionists
Subject: Presidents
Subject: Antislavery movements
Form subdivision: Biography.
Form subdivision: Biography.
General subdivision: History
Chronological subdivision: 19th century.
Geographic subdivision: United States
Geographic subdivision: United States
Geographic subdivision: United States
Geographic name: Harpers Ferry (W. Va.)
Geographic name: United States
Geographic name: United States
General subdivision: History
General subdivision: History
General subdivision: Causes.
General subdivision: History
Chronological subdivision: John Brown's Raid, 1859.
Chronological subdivision: Civil War, 1861-1865
Chronological subdivision: 19th century.
Main entry heading: Brands, H. W.
Edition: First edition
Place, publisher, and date of publication: New York : Doubleday, [2020]
Display text: Online version:
Title: Zealot and the emancipator.
Record control number: (DLC) 2019036371
International Standard Book Number: 9780385544016
: acquire
: 2 shelf copies
: policy default
: LBSOR 2020-05-09
: rf06 2020-05-19 (TW Situational) to Dewey
: xm09 2020-06-03 (TW situational)
: LBSORCIP
: 2020-05-09

Bibliography Copy Information:

Barcode # Description Status Status Dt Due Back
51601 326.8 Brand checked in 2021-02-22 11:17:03