The Slave Power: Its Character, Career, and Probable Designs: Being an Attempt to Explain the Real Issues Involved in the American Contest (Cambridge Library Collection - Slavery and Abolition) - Softcover

Cairnes, John Elliott

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1108024335 ISBN 13: 9781108024334

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2010

Synopsis

John Elliot Cairnes (1823–1875) was one of the leading economists of his day, holding professorships at Trinity College Dublin, University College, Galway, and University College, London. He gained an international reputation with The Slave Power, first published in 1862, and enlarged and reissued the following year. His analysis of the economic and social system of the Confederate states in America did much to influence British support for the Union in the United States' Civil War. He argued that the course of history was influenced most of all by economic causes. Although he had begun his study of the slave trade on a theoretical basis, the outbreak of civil war had given it a more immediate and practical application. His case is very clearly and impartially argued. While being opposed to slavery on moral grounds, he fairly states the arguments on both sides, and refutes some of the Confederate propaganda.

About this title

Book Description

First published in 1862, this analysis of the economic of slavery as a cause of the American Civil War did much to bring British public opinion to support the Union. Written by one of the foremost economists of the day, he argues that history is chiefly shaped by economic causes.

About the Author

JOHN E. CAIRNES (1823–1875) earned B.A. and M.A. degrees from Trinity College in Dublin. He held the Whately professorship of political economy at the University of Dublin before being named professor of political economy and jurisprudence at Queen’s College in Galway in 1859. In 1866 Cairnes became professor of political economy at University College, London.

MARK M. SMITH received his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in Columbia, where he is now a professor of history. The author of Mastered by the Clock: Time, Slavery, and Freedom in the American South; Debating Slavery: Economy and Society in the Antebellum American South; and Listening to Nineteenth-Century America, Smith is also the editor of The Old South. He has published articles in a number of journals including the American Historical Review, Past and Present, the Journal of Southern History, the William and Mary Quarterly, and the Journal of the Historical Society. Smith lives in Columbia.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1108024335
• ISBN 13: 9781108024334
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 328