In new research, Luna Bellani, Anselm Hager, and Stephan Maurer examine how the abolition of slavery after the American Civil War affected the political influence of former slaveholders. Despite the blow to their economic standing, former slaveholders maintained their electoral success, and once in office, their influence actually grew.
Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, the Union victory in the Civil War, and the 13th Amendment to the Constitution together ended slavery in the United States. This process not only set millions free, but in doing so, it also weakened the economic basis of the Southern planter class, opening the region’s
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