WORKING TOWARD A SYNTHETIC ACCOUNT OF HOW SLAVERY ENDED IN THE UNITED STATES

[...]in both books, slavery suffers a "demise" or a "death" in the Civil War. Because death is, after all, a natural process, the inevitable end of all things, the authors have set up a teleological frame that they, as good historians, must then resist. [...]the issue of emancipation always raised the issue of the postemancipation status of African Americans, who-and this is the third point- consistently expressed their "commitment to the fulfillment of the Declaration of Independence via the creation of a multiracial republic" (p. 30).