This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

A compelling study of a subtle and insidious form of racial inequality in American law and culture. Why does racial equality continue to elude African Americans even after the election of a black president? Liberals blame white racism while conservatives blame black behavior. Both define the race problem in socioeconomic terms, mainly citing jobs, education, and policing. Roy Brooks, a distinguished legal scholar, argues that the reality is more complex. He defines the race problem African Americans face today as a three-headed hydra involving socioeconomic, judicial, and cultural conditions. Focusing on law and culture, Brooks defines the problem largely as racial subordination—“the act of impeding racial progress in pursuit of nonracist interests.” Racial subordination is little understood and underacknowledged, yet it produces devastating and even deadly racial consequences that affect both poor and socioeconomically successful African Americans. Brooks addresses a serious problem, in many ways more dangerous than overt racism, and offers a well-reasoned solution that draws upon the strongest virtues America has exhibited to the world.

This anthology brings together under one cover the most important abolitionist and--unique to this volume--proslavery documents written in the United States between the American Revolution and the Civil War. It makes accessible to students, scholars, and general readers the breadth of the slavery debate. Including many previously inaccessible documents, A House Divided is a critical and welcome contribution to a literature that includes only a few volumes of antislavery writings and no volumes of proslavery documents in print. Mason Lowance's introduction is an excellent overview of the antebellum slavery debate and its key issues and participants. Lowance also introduces each selection, locating it historically, culturally, and thematically as well as linking it to other writings. The documents represent the full scope of the varied debates over slavery. They include examples of race theory, Bible-based arguments for and against slavery, constitutional analyses, writings by former slaves and women's rights activists, economic defenses and critiques of slavery, and writings on slavery by such major writers as William Lloyd Garrison, John Greenleaf Whittier, Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Together they give readers a real sense of the complexity and heat of the vexed conversation that increasingly dominated American discourse as the country moved from early nationhood into its greatest trial.