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From Oligarchy to Republicanism with Forrest Nabors | BRI Scholar Talks

After the Founders established a republican political regime based on the ideals of natural rights and equality, how did the South create a system of enslavement and an oligarchy with rule by the few? In this video, BRI Senior Teaching Fellow Tony Williams is joined by Forrest Nabors, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Alaska at Anchorage, to discuss his new book, "From Oligarchy to Republicanism: The Great Task of Reconstruction." Nabors explains how the South turned away from Founding ideals and grew into a society in which few had power over many in the years leading up to the Civil War. How was Reconstruction an attempt to replace the southern oligarchical system with a free government of liberty and equality?

About Forrest Nabors:

Professor Forrest Nabors previously taught American government and political philosophy at Oregon State University and the University of Oregon. Prior to becoming a professor, Nabors was a high technology business executive in Portland, Oregon. "From Oligarchy to Republicanism: The Great Task of Reconstruction" won the award for best book in American Political Thought in 2017 from the American Political Science Association.

Related Resources

Lesson

The End of Slavery and the Reconstruction Amendments

5 Activities60 Min

The interests of Northern and Southern states grew increasingly divergent. Eleven states eventually seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. After the Civil War, Congress required that the southern states would approve the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments as a condition of their re-entry into the union. The Thirteenth Amendment banned slavery throughout the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship to formerly enslaved people and banned states from passing laws that denied the privileges and immunities of citizens, due process, or equal protection of the law. The Fifteenth Amendment extended the right to vote to black men. The Fourteenth Amendment in particular was a dramatic departure from the Founders’ Constitution, and set the stage for dramatic increases in the size, scope, and power of the national government decades later.