Ballots For Freedom: Antislavery Politics in the United States, 1837-1860

“If one wishes to read only a single book on antislavery politics before the Civil War, this is the book to read.” J.M. McPherson, Political Science Quarterly At first a voice in the wilderness, then the rallying cry of a new morality, abolitionism became the springboard to power of a major national party. Ballots for Freedom recapitulates the political war against slavery, from the first debates over the creation of an abolitionist third party to the election of Abraham Lincoln on an essentially antislavery Republican platform.