Books by Timothy Huebner
“This book is about the relationship between the Civil War generation and the founding generation... more “This book is about the relationship between the Civil War generation and the founding generation,” Timothy S. Huebner states at the outset of this ambitious and elegant overview of the Civil War era. The book integrates political, military, and social developments into an epic narrative interwoven with the thread of constitutionalism—to show how all Americans engaged the nation's heritage of liberty and constitutional government.
Whether political leaders or plain folk, northerners or southerners, Republicans or Democrats, black or white, most free Americans in the mid-nineteenth century believed in the foundational values articulated in the Declaration of Independence of 1776 and the Constitution of 1787—and this belief consistently animated the nation's political debates. Liberty and Union shows, however, that different interpretations of these founding documents ultimately drove a deep wedge between North and South, leading to the conflict that tested all constitutional faiths. Huebner argues that the resolution of the Civil War was profoundly revolutionary and also inextricably tied to the issues of both slavery and sovereignty, the two great unanswered questions of the Founding era.
Drawing on a vast body of scholarship as well as such sources as congressional statutes, political speeches, military records, state supreme court decisions, the proceedings of black conventions, and contemporary newspapers and pamphlets, Liberty and Union takes the long view of the Civil War era. It merges Civil War history, US constitutional history, and African American history and stretches from the antebellum era through the period of reconstruction, devoting equal attention to the Union and Confederate sides of the conflict. And its in-depth exploration of African American participation in a broader culture of constitutionalism redefines our understanding of black activism in the nineteenth century. Altogether, this is a masterly, far-reaching work that reveals as never before the importance and meaning of the Constitution, and the law, for nineteenth-century Americans.
Talks by Timothy Huebner
Huebner at National Constitution Center, 2017
Timothy Huebner discusses Liberty and Union: The Civil War Era and American Constitutionalism at... more Timothy Huebner discusses Liberty and Union: The Civil War Era and American Constitutionalism at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
Papers by Timothy Huebner
Civil War History, 2023
The men engaged in the slave-trade between the states pass without condemnation, and their busine... more The men engaged in the slave-trade between the states pass without condemnation, and their business is deemed honorable.-Frederick Douglass, 1852 Although best known as a Confederate general and early leader of the Ku Klux Klan, Nathan Bedford Forrest first made a name for himself during the 1850s, buying and selling enslaved African Americans in Memphis, Tennessee.1 Conforming to one scholar's definition of "the most important type of 42
Journal of Supreme Court History , 2020
Black Citizenship and Black Constitutionalism Citizenship was an elusive concept in the early Ame... more Black Citizenship and Black Constitutionalism Citizenship was an elusive concept in the early American republic. The Constitution itself used the term sparingly. The word "citizen" appeared mostly in referring to requirements for holding federal office and in describing the types of suits heard by federal courts. The one part of the Constitution that referred to the rights of citizenship-Article IV, Section 2-seemed to leave the matter of defining such rights to the states: "The
Remembering the Memphis Massacre, 2020
Memphis: Two Hundred Years Together, 2019
Journnal of Supreme Court History , 2017
Journal of Supreme Court History , 2015
American Journal of Legal History, Jan 2015
Journal of American History, Jun 2010
Albany Government Law Review, 2010
A History of the Tennessee Supreme Court
Tennessee Historical Quarterly, 1999
Local Matters: Race, Crime, and Justice in the Nineteenth Century American South, 2001
Western Legal History , 1998
Journal of Supreme Court History, 1995
Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 1994
Georgia Journal of Southern Legal History, 1991
Georgia Historical Quarterly, 1991
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Books by Timothy Huebner
Whether political leaders or plain folk, northerners or southerners, Republicans or Democrats, black or white, most free Americans in the mid-nineteenth century believed in the foundational values articulated in the Declaration of Independence of 1776 and the Constitution of 1787—and this belief consistently animated the nation's political debates. Liberty and Union shows, however, that different interpretations of these founding documents ultimately drove a deep wedge between North and South, leading to the conflict that tested all constitutional faiths. Huebner argues that the resolution of the Civil War was profoundly revolutionary and also inextricably tied to the issues of both slavery and sovereignty, the two great unanswered questions of the Founding era.
Drawing on a vast body of scholarship as well as such sources as congressional statutes, political speeches, military records, state supreme court decisions, the proceedings of black conventions, and contemporary newspapers and pamphlets, Liberty and Union takes the long view of the Civil War era. It merges Civil War history, US constitutional history, and African American history and stretches from the antebellum era through the period of reconstruction, devoting equal attention to the Union and Confederate sides of the conflict. And its in-depth exploration of African American participation in a broader culture of constitutionalism redefines our understanding of black activism in the nineteenth century. Altogether, this is a masterly, far-reaching work that reveals as never before the importance and meaning of the Constitution, and the law, for nineteenth-century Americans.
Talks by Timothy Huebner
Papers by Timothy Huebner
Whether political leaders or plain folk, northerners or southerners, Republicans or Democrats, black or white, most free Americans in the mid-nineteenth century believed in the foundational values articulated in the Declaration of Independence of 1776 and the Constitution of 1787—and this belief consistently animated the nation's political debates. Liberty and Union shows, however, that different interpretations of these founding documents ultimately drove a deep wedge between North and South, leading to the conflict that tested all constitutional faiths. Huebner argues that the resolution of the Civil War was profoundly revolutionary and also inextricably tied to the issues of both slavery and sovereignty, the two great unanswered questions of the Founding era.
Drawing on a vast body of scholarship as well as such sources as congressional statutes, political speeches, military records, state supreme court decisions, the proceedings of black conventions, and contemporary newspapers and pamphlets, Liberty and Union takes the long view of the Civil War era. It merges Civil War history, US constitutional history, and African American history and stretches from the antebellum era through the period of reconstruction, devoting equal attention to the Union and Confederate sides of the conflict. And its in-depth exploration of African American participation in a broader culture of constitutionalism redefines our understanding of black activism in the nineteenth century. Altogether, this is a masterly, far-reaching work that reveals as never before the importance and meaning of the Constitution, and the law, for nineteenth-century Americans.