| List of Maps, Tables, and Figures | xvii |
| About the Author | xix |
| Preface | xxi |
| Part 1 | American Colonies to 1763 | |
| 1. | A New World | 4 |
| The Expansion of Europe | 7 |
| Peoples of the Americas | 12 |
| The Spanish Empire | 15 |
| The First North Americans | 23 |
| England and the New World | 30 |
| The Freeborn Englishman | 35 |
| Voices of Freedom: From Henry Care, English Liberties, or, The Free-Born Subject's Inheritance (1680) | 40 |
| 2. | American Beginnings, 1607-1650 | 44 |
| The Coming of the English | 47 |
| Settling the Chesapeake | 51 |
| Origins of American Slavery | 57 |
| The New England Way | 62 |
| Voices of Freedom: From John Winthrop, Speech to the Massachusetts General Court (July 3, 1645) | 64 |
| New Englanders Divided | 69 |
| The New England Economy | 73 |
| 3. | Crisis and Expansion: North American Colonies, 1650-1750 | 78 |
| Empires in Conflict | 81 |
| The Expansion of England's Empire | 87 |
| Voices of Freedom: From William Penn, England's Present Interests Discovered (1675) | 93 |
| Colonies in Crisis | 94 |
| The Eighteenth Century: A Growing Society | 101 |
| Social Classes in the Colonies | 110 |
| 4. | Slavery, Freedom, and the Struggle for Empire to 1763 | 118 |
| Slavery and the Empire | 121 |
| Slave Culture and Slave Resistance | 130 |
| An Empire of Freedom | 133 |
| The Public Sphere | 138 |
| The Great Awakening | 145 |
| Imperial Rivalries | 148 |
| Battle for the Continent | 151 |
| Voices of Freedom: From Pontiac, Speeches (1762 and 1763) | 156 |
| Part 2 | A New Nation, 1763-1840 | |
| 5. | The American Revolution, 1763-1783 | 166 |
| The Crisis Begins | 169 |
| The Road to Revolution | 176 |
| The Coming of Independence | 180 |
| Voices of Freedom: From Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776) | 185 |
| Securing Independence | 189 |
| 6. | The Revolution Within | 200 |
| Democratizing Freedom | 203 |
| Toward Religious Liberty | 207 |
| Defining Economic Freedom | 212 |
| The Limits of Liberty | 215 |
| Slavery and the Revolution | 220 |
| Voices of Freedom: From Petitions of Slaves to the Massachusetts Legislature (1773 and 1777) | 224 |
| Daughters of Liberty | 228 |
| 7. | Founding a Nation, 1783-1789 | 234 |
| America under the Articles of Confederation | 237 |
| A New Constitution | 246 |
| The Ratification Debate and the Origin of the Bill of Rights | 253 |
| Voices of Freedom: From James Madison, The Federalist no. 51, and Anti-Federalist Essay Signed "Brutus" (1787) | 254 |
| We the People | 261 |
| 8. | Securing the Republic, 1790-1815 | 270 |
| Politics in an Age of Passion | 272 |
| Voices of Freedom: From Address of the Democratic-Republican Society of Pennsylvania (December 18, 1794) | 281 |
| The Adams Presidency | 283 |
| Jefferson in Power | 290 |
| The "Second War of Independence" | 298 |
| 9. | The Market Revolution | 306 |
| A New Economy | 309 |
| Market Society | 319 |
| Voices of Freedom: From Josephine L. Baker, "A Second Peep at Factory Life," Lowell Offering (1845) | 328 |
| The Free Individual | 330 |
| The Limits of Prosperity | 335 |
| 10. | Democracy in America, 1815-1840 | 344 |
| The Triumph of Democracy | 346 |
| Voices of Freedom: From "The Memorial of the Non-Freeholders of the City of Richmond" (1829) | 348 |
| Nationalism and Its Discontents | 353 |
| Nation, Section, and Party | 358 |
| The Age of Jackson | 363 |
| The Bank War and After | 373 |
| Part 3 | Slavery, Freedom, and the Crisis of the Union, 1840-1877 | |
| 11. | The Peculiar Institution | 386 |
| The Old South | 389 |
| Voices of Freedom: From John C. Calhoun, Speech in Congress (1837) | 398 |
| Life under Slavery | 400 |
| Slave Culture | 409 |
| Resistance to Slavery | 414 |
| 12. | An Age of Reform, 1820-1840 | 422 |
| The Reform Impulse | 424 |
| The Crusade against Slavery | 434 |
| Black and White Abolitionism | 441 |
| The Origins of Feminism | 445 |
| Voices of Freedom: From Angelina Grimke, Letter in The Liberator (August 2, 1837) | 448 |
| 13. | A House Divided, 1840-1861 | 456 |
| Fruits of Manifest Destiny | 458 |
| A Dose of Arsenic | 470 |
| The Rise of the Republican Party | 477 |
| Voices of Freedom: From William H. Seward, "The Irrepressible Conflict" (1858) | 484 |
| The Emergence of Lincoln | 487 |
| The Impending Crisis | 495 |
| 14. | A New Birth of Freedom: The Civil War, 1861-1865 | 502 |
| The First Modern War | 504 |
| The Coming of Emancipation | 514 |
| The Second American Revolution | 524 |
| Voices of Freedom: From Abraham Lincoln, Address at Sanitary Fair, Baltimore (April 18, 1864) | 525 |
| The Confederate Nation | 532 |
| Turning Points | 536 |
| Rehearsals for Reconstruction and the End of the War | 539 |
| 15. | "What Is Freedom?": Reconstruction, 1865-1877 | 548 |
| The Meaning of Freedom | 551 |
| Voices of Freedom: From Petition of Committee in Behalf of the Freedmen to Andrew Johnson (1865) | 558 |
| The Making of Radical Reconstruction | 562 |
| Radical Reconstruction in the South | 572 |
| The Overthrow of Reconstruction | 577 |
| Appendix | |
| Documents | |
| The Declaration of Independence (1776) | 2 |
| The Constitution of the United States (1787) | 4 |
| From George Washington's Farewell Address (1796) | 14 |
| The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions (1848) | 18 |
| From Frederick Douglass's "What, to the Slave, Is the Fourth of July?" Speech (1852) | 20 |
| The Gettysburg Address (1863) | 23 |
| Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address (1865) | 24 |
| The Populist Platform of 1892 | 25 |
| Franklin D. Roosevelt's First Inaugural Address (1933) | 28 |
| Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, "I Have a Dream" Speech (1963) | 30 |
| Tables | |
| Presidential Elections | 32 |
| Admission of States | 40 |
| Population of the United States | 41 |
| Historical Statistics of the United States | |
| Workforce | 42 |
| Immigration, by Origin | 42 |
| Glossary | 43 |
| Credits | 63 |
| Index | 67 |
