The Civil War Confiscation Acts : : Failing to Reconstruct the South / / John Syrett.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Fordham University Press Complete eBook-Package Pre-2014
• VerfasserIn: Syrett, John,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : Fordham University Press, , [2022]; ©2005
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: Reconstructing America
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (300 p.)

This book is the first full account in more than 20 years of two significant, but relatively understudied, laws passed during the Civil War. The Confiscation Acts (1861–62) were designed to sanction slave holding states by authorizing the Federal Government to seize rebel properties (including land and other assets held in Northern and border states) and grant freedom to slaves who fought with or worked for the Confederate military. Abraham Lincoln objected to the Acts for fear they might push border states, particularly Missouri and Kentucky, into secession. The Acts were eventually rendered moot by the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment. John Syrett examines the political contexts of the Acts, especially the debates in Congress, and demonstrates how the failure of the confiscation acts during the war presaged the political and structural shortcomings of Reconstruction after the war.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- 1 The First Confiscation Act -- 2 The Second Confiscation Act: The Act and Its Opponents -- 3 The Second Act: Divided Republican Support and Flawed Result -- 4 Enforcement of the Second Act: Lincoln and Bates -- 5 Early Military Confiscation -- 6 Rules of War and Later Military Confiscation -- 7 The Treasury’s Part in Confiscation -- 8 The Politics of Confiscation -- 9 Andrew Johnson and the End of Confiscation -- 10 Confiscation and the Courts: Jurisdiction and Procedures -- 11 Confiscation and the Courts: Constitutionality and Duration -- 12 Conclusion -- Appendix -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography -- Index