The Political Worlds of Slavery and Freedom

Steven Hahn

March 31, 2009

The Political Worlds of Slavery and Freedom, a book by Steven Hahn, is an astonishingly detailed examination of the politics of slavery, coexistence, and emancipation during the nineteenth century in America. It offers us an insight into the complex arrangements of power and domination that existed in a society with entrenched yet constantly disputed ideas of rights and obligations vis-á-vis the rights of enslaved people.The book begins with a masterful outline of the legal, ideological, and economic context of slavery on the eve of the Civil War and then examines the capacity of enslaved people to ‘make freedom’. Through case studies, Hahn traces the formation of ‘critical political moments’ in which ideas of freedom, rights and justice continued to struggle in the wake of emancipation. The struggles for anti-slavery in the states of Kentucky, Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi are all examined in depth, and through these cases we are offered a more nuanced understanding of the forces at play within the politics of freedom in nineteenth-century America.The Political Worlds of Slavery and Freedom documents how the freedom experienced by emancipated people was both contested and inextricably linked with the nature and arrangement of power in the post-war South. The book also explores the circulation of anti-slavery thought and activism, as well as its limitations. Hahn offers an exhaustive exploration of the complex power relationships prevalent throughout the 19th century, exposing the contradictions and limitations of any attempt to secure freedoms historically denied to African American people. In the end, The Political Worlds of Slavery and Freedom remains an essential source for those seeking to comprehend the continued struggle for justice, rights and freedoms in contemporary America.