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The Civil War: A Constitutional Conflict

Author: Terry Jansen
The Civil War: A Constitutional Conflict is a historical non-fiction book written by Ms. Terry Jansen, which tells how slavery caused The American Civil War. The story begins with the first, permanent English colony at Jamestown, Virginia, and the purchase of 20 Africans. These first blacks were neither indentured servants or slaves. However, The Virginia House of Burgesses, the first colonial legislature in America, enslaved The Negro by law for the cultivation of tobacco. The Virginia colony, then became a landed aristocracy with proprietary wealth in land and slaves.
George Washington, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson were slaveholders born into the Virginian aristocracy and would become American Revolutionaries instrumental in founding The United States. They would incorporate slavery in the documents of dissolution from Great Britain, revolution, and democracy by deletion and declarations Ms. Jansen uncovers these omissions and references in Revolutionary War documents.. These founding fathers were confronted with the contradiction of slavery and founding a nation on freedom. In establishing a nation with slavery as part of its heritage, they not only founded a nation , but incorporated the means for its destruction making Civil War inevitable.
The U.S. Constitution contained oblique references to slavery, which counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for proportional representation, the continuance of the slave trade until 1808, and 'the 'return of fugitive workers'. These concessions ensured the slaveholding South would become part of The United States. When the compromise shattered, The Confederate Constitution guaranteed and protected property rights in slaves. Finally, The 13th Amendment to The U.S. Constitution abolished slavery from The United States.
History teachers should add this book to their students' reading list for its accurate and informative American history. The students will love it, because it is a short read!

http://thecivilwaraconstitutionalconflict.com
Occupation: Writer
Terry Jansen is a retired civil servant who lives with her cat, Dusty, in California. In 1993, she became an off-campus student at Goddard College in Vermont. For the next three years she wrote, The Civil War: A Constitutional Conflict. Her interest in history, 3-year self-representation in a Workers' Compensation case and passion for civil rights were the inspiration for her paper. An openly gay American and lifelong Democrat she voted on November 4, 2008. Ms. Jansen voted no on Proposition 8, the ban on same-sex marriage in California, as a circumvention of her civil rights under the Due Process clause of The 5th Amendment to The U.S. Constitution. She also voted for Barack Obama, an African-American , and the 44th President of the United States who will take the oath of office to defend the Constitution to ensure the rights of all Americans.