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Congressman James Mitchell Ashley, a member of the House of Representatives from 1858 to 1868, was the main sponsor of the Thirteenth Amendment to the American Constitution, which declared the institution of slavery unconstitutional. Rebecca E. Zietlow uses Ashley's life as a unique lens through which to explore the ideological origins of Reconstruction and the constitutional changes of this era. Zietlow recounts how Ashley and his antislavery allies shared an egalitarian free labor ideology that was influenced by the political antislavery movement and the nascent labor movement - a vision that conflicted directly with the institution of slavery. Ashley's story sheds important light on the meaning and power of popular constitutionalism: how the constitution is interpreted outside of the courts and the power that citizens and their elected officials can have in enacting legal change. The book shows how Reconstruction not only expanded racial equality but also transformed the rights of workers throughout America.… (more)
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Part of the reason why Ashley is not better known is that most of his personal papers were destroyed prior to his death. To overcome the challenge posed by the lack of documentation, Rebecca Zietlow has written an intellectual biography of Ashley that situates his career in the political ideology of the era. As she explains, as a Democrat Ashley’s anti-slavery stance was primarily a product of his Jacksonian belief in the labor theory of value. Alienated from the increasingly proslavery Democratic Party, he found the free labor advocacy of the emerging Republicans to be far more appealing, and throughout the Civil War was among the leading advocates for using the war to end slavery. With the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, Ashley focused on questions of enforcement, which led to his clash with Johnson that contributed to his defeat for re-election in 1868.
Given the challenges she faced in writing a biography of Ashley, Zietlow is to be commended for producing such a valuable study of his role in one of the most important eras in America’s constitutional development. Her linkage of the anti-slavery effort to the burgeoning issues of wage labor is particularly interesting, and gives the book an added relevancy for readers. Hopefully Zietlow’s efforts will restore to Ashley some of the esteem he enjoyed among his contemporaries for his role in ending slavery in the country and a newfound appreciation for his vision of free labor in America.