Tell you what, Bobert & Everyone- lets all read at least

Goodwin, Doris Kearns: Team of Rivals; The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. New York : Simon & Schuster, 2005.

Foner, Eric: Forever Free; The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction. New York : Knopf, 2005.

Lincoln's first inagural address, available HERE:

The South Carolina "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union" and "Ordinance of Secession" available HERE:

to start, and then as many of these as possible:

Berlin, Ira: Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America . Cambvridge, Harnard U. Press, 2000

Litwack, Leon F.: Been In The Storm So Long; The Aftermath of Slavery. NewYork, Random House, 1979

Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877. NY, Harper & Row, 1988

Foner, Eric: Freedom's Lawmakers : A Directory of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction. New York : Oxford University Press, 1993

Ellis, Joseph J.: American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson. New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.

Genovese: Roll, Joradan Roll: The World the Slaves Made. NY, Pantheon, 1972

Quarles, Benjamin: Allies For Freedom : Blacks and John Brown. New York : Oxford University Press, 1974.

Berlin, Ira: Generations of Captivity : A History of African-American Slaves. Belknap Press, 2003

Litwack, Leon F. North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States 1790-1860. Chicago, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1961

Douglass, Frederick: My Bondage and My Freedom. Amherst, N.Y.: Humanity Books, 2002 [Orig. pub: New York : Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1855]

Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave. Edited by Sue Eakin and Joseph Logsdon. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968. [narrative of a free black kidnipped into slavery]

Levine, Bruce C: Half Slave and Half Free: The Roots of Civil War. Consulting editor, Eric Foner. New York : Hill and Wang, Noonday Press, 1992.

Harris, Leslie M.: In The Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City 1626-1863. Chicahgo, IL, University of Chicago Press, 2003

and then we can continue the discussion.

Best, Greg