The First Reconstruction

“Gosse’s immensely detailed The First Reconstruction offers a revealing, at times startling reconsideration of early national and antebellum political history. . . . A valuable work of history that speak[s] powerfully to our own historical moment.”—New York Review of Books

“[An] encyclopedic, monumental work.”—North Carolina Historical Review

“Gosse . . . does something revelatory: he has excavated the widespread engagement of black men in the electoral sphere. . . . A timely intervention for our own historical moment. The long history of racism in America has not faced such popular scrutiny since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.”—Jacobin

“In this creative, deeply researched, lucid, and well-argued book, Gosse (Franklin and Marshall College) offers a reinterpretation of an evolving reconstruction in race relations in the northern states long before the traditional start of Reconstruction following the Civil War in 1865. . . . Highly recommended.”—CHOICE

“Gosse shows that men working behind the scenes or bent on small scale practical achievements deserve a place in history, and this book is a tribute to unsung heroes who worked in the trenches of electoral politics. By giving pride of place to the voices of the participants, often quoting extensively from newspaper articles, editorials and, to a lesser extent, letters, Gosse makes us feel the vibrancy and urgency of those debates.”—Journal of American History

“An important work that provides a new interpretation of the politics of the ealy republic.”—Civil War Monitor

“This pioneering work examines in depth the little-known ways that African Americans engaged in electoral politics during Republic’s early years.”—Portside

“Gosse reconstructs a rich and riveting history of Black politics largely by using traditional sources including census data, newspapers, congressional and legislative debates, and state constitutional conventions. . . . With the publication of The First Reconstruction, scholars now have a more comprehensive resource to study the role that free African American men in some northern states played in voting and contributing to party politics before the Civil War.”—Early American Literature

“With the publication of The First Reconstruction, scholars now have a more comprehensive resource to study the role that free African American men in some northern states played in voting and contributing to party politics before the Civil War. . . . [Gosse] successfully accomplished his goal of the book: ‘to rewrite the history of antebellum American politics by putting back in what has been left out—black men’s constant, low-level participation in elections and parties in large parts of the early republic’ (26).”—Early American Literature

“This is a superb book—a page turner—that fundamentally changes the way we have come to understand black politics in America.”—Richard Blackett, author of The Captive’s Quest for Freedom: Fugitive Slaves, the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, and the Politics of Slavery