JOSHUA M. ZEITZ
(Joshua Michael Zeitz )
The Federal Fugitive Slave Act required all in free states to assist owners of escaped slaves to return them to their owners. See realted quotations.
After the Civil War and Reconstruction, the American nation was still bitterly divided intelelctually, socially, emotionally and poliotically. In an effort to bring more unity to America, most of the power stucture and the influentials of the nation began to avoid those issues that would divide North and South and try and promote a narrative that both sides might be able to live with. And this is what Zeitz describes in this quotation. America went through a period of Revisionist History that even in the 21st century was held by many people. It wasn't until the middle of the 20th century that the real history and narrative of the Civil War and Reconstrution emerged from the few academics who had all along criticized the fabricated narritive that did unify the country at the cost of historical accuracy and truth. Many scholars point out that the price that America paid for this unity was the Jim Crow era and a century of legalized racism. Much of the nation was built on the labor of Negro slaves and the victims of the slavery era, also bore the brunt of American unity and reconcilliation.
Joshua Michael Zeitz (born 1974) is an American historian. He is the author of several books on American political and social history and has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, The Atlantic, Dissent, and American Heritage. Zeitz appeared as a commentator on two PBS documentaries – Boomer Century, and Ken Burns' Prohibition — and has commented on public policy matters on CNBC and CNN International. He has held faculty positions at Harvard, Cambridge and Princeton and is the author of four books.
