Michael Vorenberg, an associate professor of history at Brown University, teaches courses on American legal history and the Civil War and Reconstruction. His first book, Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment (2001), was a finalist for the Lincoln Prize. He is also the author of The Emancipation Proclamation: A Brief History with Documents (2009). He is working on two books: one on the end of the American Civil War and another on the impact of the Civil War on American nationalism and citizenship. He speaks widely on such topics as constitutional history, Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, and emancipation.
This lecture examines the relationship between slave emancipation and the U.S. Constitution, focusing in particular on war powers, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Thirteenth Amendment.