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Author Bonner, Christopher James, author.

Title Remaking the Republic : Black politics and the creation of American citizenship / Christopher James Bonner
Published Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2020]
©2020

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Description 1 online resource (246 pages)
Series America in the nineteenth century
America in the nineteenth century.
Contents Introduction : making Black citizenship politics -- An integral portion of this republic -- "Union is strength" : building an American citizenship -- Nations, revolutions, and the borders of citizenship -- Runaways, or citizens claimed as such -- Contesting the "foul and infamous lie" of Dred Scott -- Black politics and the roots of reconstruction -- Epilogue : the enduring search for home
Summary "Citizenship in the nineteenth-century United States was an ever-moving target. The Constitution did not specify its exact meaning, leaving lawmakers and other Americans to struggle over the fundamental questions of who could be a citizen, how a person attained the status, and the particular privileges citizenship afforded. Indeed, as late as 1862, U.S. Attorney General Edward Bates observed that citizenship was "now as little understood in its details and elements, and the question as open to argument and speculative criticism as it was at the founding of the Government." Black people suffered under this ambiguity, but also seized on it in efforts to transform their nominal freedom. By claiming that they were citizens in their demands for specific rights, they were, Christopher James Bonner argues, at the center of creating the very meaning of American citizenship. In the decades before and after Bates's lament, free African Americans used newspapers, public gatherings, and conventions to make arguments about who could be a citizen, the protections citizenship entailed, and the obligations it imposed. They thus played a vital role in the long, fraught process of determining who belonged in the nation and the terms of that belonging. Remaking the Republic chronicles the various ways African Americans from a wide range of social positions throughout the North attempted to give meaning to American citizenship over the course of the nineteenth century. Examining newspapers, state and national conventions, public protest meetings, legal cases, and fugitive slave rescues, Bonner uncovers a spirited debate about rights and belonging among African Americans, the stakes of which could determine their place in U.S. society and shape the terms of citizenship for all Americans"-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Online resource; title from resource home page (ProQuest Ebook Central, viewed September 14, 2020)
Subject African Americans -- Political activity -- History -- 19th century
African Americans -- Politics and government -- History -- 19th century
Citizenship -- United States -- History -- 19th century
African Americans -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- History -- 19th century
African Americans -- Civil rights -- History -- 19th century
African Americans -- Civil rights
African Americans -- Legal status, laws, etc.
African Americans -- Politics and government
Citizenship
United States
USA
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780812296860
0812296869
Other Titles Black politics and the creation of American citizenship