Portside

Historians Eric Foner and Matt Karp on the international ambitions of the US slaveholding class — and the abolitionist movement that brought them down.

What could emerge from an understanding of the struggle between the two proletariats and its connection to US democracy and institutions is a more powerful and forward-looking narrative of class and race than either a utopian universalist liberalism or a narrow-minded working class incapable of advancing democracy.