[Abbott, Lyman]:

$1,750 · Offered by William Reese Company

THE RESULTS OF EMANCIPATION IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. A succinct yet comprehensive report on the status of freedmen in the United States during and shortly after the Civil War. Prepared by a special committee of the American Freedman's Union Commission, including Salmon P. Chase and chaired by Lyman Abbott, this document was created in preparation for an international congress of antislavery societies which met at the 1867 Paris Exposition. The text includes "A brief history of emancipation as a military and political movement," "A statement of the legal and social condition in which the negro was left by emancipation," "A description of the instrumentalities employed for the improvement of his condition;--voluntary and governmental," and "What has been done by these instrumentalities: 1, to provide for his physical wants, 2. to secure impartial justice, 3. to reorganize labor, 4. to provide education."The summary provided by Abbott is descriptive despite its brevity, and discusses the changing popular and official attitudes towards slavery throughout the course of the war, following the vehement repudiation of Fremont's early activities in Missouri to the Emancipation Proclamation. The remaining sections discuss attitudes towards freedmen in the South and the progress of public legislation and private relief organizations. Abbot covers colonization schemes, literal and effective disfranchisement, racial violence, the injustice of the sharecropping system (printing an

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