The Era of Slavery

Paper Summary:

This paper compares the way in which Stanley Elkins, in "Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life", and James McPherson, in "Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction", both introduce their works and how both works deal with the subject of church influence, slaves' autonomy over their lives and the laissez faire form of capitalism. The paper then examines both authors' evidence and compares which work is the more accurate one.

Outline:
Introduction
Religion
Slaves and Masters
Laissez Faire Capitalism
Evidence Presented for Their Books
Which Author is More Accurate

From the Paper:

"Prior to discussing the agreements and disagreements between the two authors chosen for this paper, it is worth examining - and this gives readers a clue as the thinking of the two authors - how the two introduce their subjects. In his book Slavery, Stanley Elkins insists that the same moral arguments - right or wrong - have existed for as long as slavery has been around both as a cruel reality and as a historical and economic fact of American life. "It continues to be the same debate," he writes (Elkins, 1968, I); all the sources that historians and journalists use to explore the history of slavery "have now been mined and re-mined." So a reader wonders why a historian would delve into a subject that has hitherto been "mined and re-mined" (Elkins, 2). Elkins' introduction sets up a challenge for him to deliver a book that doesn't just repeat what others have already written, which is an interesting approach."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Elkins, Stanley M. (1968). Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life.Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
• McPherson, James M. (1982). Ordeal By Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction. New York:Alfred A. Knopf.

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