Moral Contagion
eBook - PDF

Moral Contagion

Black Atlantic Sailors, Citizenship, and Diplomacy in Antebellum America

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Moral Contagion

Black Atlantic Sailors, Citizenship, and Diplomacy in Antebellum America

About this book

Between 1822 and 1857, eight Southern states barred the ingress of all free black maritime workers. According to lawmakers, they carried a 'moral contagion' of abolitionism and black autonomy that could be transmitted to local slaves. Those seamen who arrived in Southern ports in violation of the laws faced incarceration, corporal punishment, an incipient form of convict leasing, and even punitive enslavement. The sailors, their captains, abolitionists, and British diplomatic agents protested this treatment. They wrote letters, published tracts, cajoled elected officials, pleaded with Southern officials, and litigated in state and federal courts. By deploying a progressive and sweeping notion of national citizenship - one that guaranteed a number of rights against state regulation - they exposed the ambiguity and potential power of national citizenship as a legal category. Ultimately, the Fourteenth Amendment recognized the robust understanding of citizenship championed by Antebellum free people of color, by people afflicted with 'moral contagion'.

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Yes, you can access Moral Contagion by Michael A. Schoeppner in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & North American History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Half-title
  3. Series information
  4. Title page
  5. Copyright information
  6. Dedication
  7. Table of contents
  8. List of Tables
  9. Acknowledgments
  10. List of Abbreviations
  11. Introduction
  12. 1 The Atlantic’s Dangerous Undercurrents
  13. 2 Containing a Moral Contagion, 1822–1829
  14. 3 The Contagion Spreads, 1829–1833
  15. 4 Confronting a Pandemic, 1834–1842
  16. 5 “Foreign” Emissaries and Rights Discourse, 1842–1847
  17. 6 Sacrificing Black Citizenship, 1848–1859
  18. 7 Black Sailors, their Communities, and the Fight for Citizenship
  19. Epilogue
  20. Appendix
  21. Bibliography
  22. Index