Lyman Trumbull and the Second Founding of the United States / Paul M. Rego.

Lawrence : University Press of Kansas, [2022]

Baltimore, Md. : Project MUSE, 2022

©[2022]

1 online resource (336 pages).

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"The Civil War and Reconstruction periods in United States history are widely viewed as a "second founding" of the nation, one that sought to bring the American regime into better alignment with the aspirations articulated at the first founding. Among the figures involved in shaping this new start for the American republic, Lyman Trumbull played an instrumental role in the liberation of African Americans. He was the principal author and mover of the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery permanently throughout the United States. On the basis of the Thirteenth Amendment, he also authored the first civil rights legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which Congress enacted to protect the fundamental rights of all Americans, regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Despite being arguably the greatest legislative architect of America's second founding, Trumbull later turned his back on the Reconstruction that he helped initiate. Worried that Reconstruction was going too far, he increasingly defended states' rights against the Radical Republicans. In this way, he perfectly personified his era. Paul Rego's study of Trumbull's political and constitutional thought is a much-needed exploration of this key figure in Reconstruction history. Like the framers of the first founding, Trumbull was complex and contradictory-a symbol of both the nation's rebirth and its lost promise, as responsible for the period's disappointments as he was for its triumphs. This is a long overdue book on one of the forgotten framers of the United States"-- Provided by publisher.

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July 19, 2023

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