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An undated portrait of Louis Hughes found in his autobiography. (By Mary Chobanian, Dickinson College, Class of 2012) Louis Hughes was born in 1832 to a white plantation owner and black slave in Charlottesville, Virginia. His autobiography entitled Thirty Years a Slave: … Continue reading
(By Mary Chobanian, Dickinson College, Class of 2012) Thomas Almond Ashby describes his experience at the moment of slave emancipation in his memoir, The Valley Campaigns. While living on his family’s plantation in Front Royal, Virginia, at age seventeen, Ashby witnessed his … Continue reading
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In what was arguably the best-known speech of the antebellum era, Senator Daniel Webster (Whig, Mass.) provided a stirring attack on extreme southern states’ rights in his “Second Reply to Hayne,” delivered on the Senate floor, January 26-27, 1830, in … Continue reading
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Historian James Oakes argues that there was a “federal consensus” about slavery in the years between 1787 and 1861 that has too often been overlooked in examinations of emancipation’s origins. Oakes believes that a careful reading of some important primary … Continue reading
