ISBN:
9781108784344
Language:
English
Pages:
1 Online-Ressource (xxii, 376 pages)
Additional Information:
Rezensiert in Gutacker, Paul [Rezension von: Watkins, Jordan, 1983-, Slavery and sacred texts] 2022
Series Statement:
Cambridge historical studies in American law and society
Parallel Title:
Erscheint auch als Watkins, Jordan, 1983 - Slavery and sacred texts
DDC:
973.8092
Keywords:
United States
;
Bible
;
Slavery and the church History 19th century
;
Slavery History 19th century
;
Slavery Religious aspects
;
USA
;
Sklaverei
;
USA The United States Constitution 1787
;
Bibel
;
Interpretation
;
Geschichtsbewusstsein
;
Geschichte 1830-1861
Abstract:
In the decades before the Civil War, Americans appealed to the nation's sacred religious and legal texts - the Bible and the Constitution - to address the slavery crisis. The ensuing political debates over slavery deepened interpreters' emphasis on historical readings of the sacred texts, and in turn, these readings began to highlight the unbridgeable historical distances that separated nineteenth-century Americans from biblical and founding pasts. While many Americans continued to adhere to a belief in the Bible's timeless teachings and the Constitution's enduring principles, some antislavery readers, including Theodore Parker, Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln, used historical distance to reinterpret and use the sacred texts as antislavery documents. By using the debate over American slavery as a case study, Jordan T. Watkins traces the development of American historical consciousness in antebellum America, showing how a growing emphasis on historical readings of the Bible and the Constitution gave rise to a sense of historical distance.
Note:
Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 11 Jun 2021)
DOI:
10.1017/9781108784344
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