Stephen Kantrowitz, Professor of History, UW-Madison
From UW Showcase October 2013
On the eve of the Civil War there were nearly four million slaves in the United States, and the Supreme Court had declared that African Americans were not citizens of the nation. By the end of 1865 slavery was dead; within five years the principle of non-racial citizenship had entered the Constitution. In this talk, Professor Kantrowitz explores these momentous changes, asking how a war to suppress the Confederate rebellion, become a war of emancipation, how freedom became wedded to equality, and what those transformations finally meant.
