Total run time:
3h 30m
In order to understand the founding documents of the United States, you need to know something about the men who wrote them. What books or thinkers influenced the Founders? Why were there disagreements at the Constitutional Convention? How did people who talked about freedom allow slavery to continue? What is the relationship between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution?
Did the Declaration of Independence really stand for “liberty for all”?
In the years leading up to the Civil War, both the abolitionists and the pro-slavery parties had to ask themselves this question about our founding documents. In this video
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Did the Declaration of Independence really stand for “liberty for all”?
In the years leading up to the Civil War, both the abolitionists and the pro-slavery parties had to ask themselves this question about our founding documents. In this video, scholars explain how most of the Founders believed that slavery would die out but then cotton became an extremely lucrative crop in the South. The cotton trade depended on slavery, so the Antebellum Southern politicians developed new pro-slavery ideology. Meanwhile, Abraham Lincoln and others harkened back to the Declaration of Independence and other founding documents to bolster the claim that slavery ought to be abolished.
Professor Randy Barnett is the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Legal Theory at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches constitutional law and contracts, and is Director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution.
Professor John Harrison is the James Madison Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. His teaching subjects include constitutional history, federal courts, remedies, corporations, civil procedure, legislation and property.
Professor Lucas Morel is the Head of the Politics Department at Washington and Lee University. His latest book, Lincoln and the American Founding, will be released in July 2020.
Lynn Uzzell is a Lecturer at the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics at the University of Virginia. She is currently teaching a course on the American Political Tradition, and working on an academic study of James Madison’s notes from the Constitutional Convention.
Professor Gordon Wood is Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University. He is the author of several books about the American Founding and the recipient of numerous awards for his work.
As always, the Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues; all expressions of opinion are those of the speaker.
#liberty #declarationofindependence #americanhistory #civilwar #abolitionist
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Total run time:
3h 30m
Course:
Total videos:
15
Difficulty:
Elective
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