"The only valid base on which to build the New World republic was one characterized by democracy and equality. The tragedy of this republic was that as long as human slavery existed its base had a fallacy that made it both incongruous and specious." So writes this year's visiting William Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at Cambridge University, and only an occasional reader will sense that John Hope Franklin is himself a descendant of slaves. "I have maintained my objectivity," says Franklin, "but it takes some doing."
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