American Abolitionism: Its Direct Political Impact from Colonial Times into Reconstruction

A Nation Divided: Studies in the Civil War Era

by Stanley Harrold

This ambitious book provides the only systematic examination of the American abolition movement's direct impacts on antislavery politics from colonial times to the Civil War and after. As opposed to indirect methods such as propaganda, sermons, and speeches at protest meetings, Stanley Harrold focuses on abolitionists' political tactics--petitioning, lobbying, establishing bonds with sympathetic politicians--and on their disruptions of slavery itself.

Harrold begins with the abolition movement's relationship to politics and government in the northern American colonies and goes on to evaluate its effect in a number of crucial contexts--the U.S. Congress during the 1790s, the Missouri Compromise, the struggle over slavery in Illinois during the 1820s, and abolitionist petitioning of Congress during that same decade. He shows how the rise of "immediate" abolitionism, with its emphasis on moral suasion, did not diminish direct abolitionists' impact on Congress during the 1830s and 1840s. The book also addresses abolitionists' direct actions against slavery itself, aiding escaped or kidnapped slaves, which led southern politicians to demand the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, a major flashpoint of antebellum politics. Finally, Harrold investigates the relationship between abolitionists and the Republican Party through the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Genres: History

296 pages, Hardcover

Published April 19, 2019

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not an easy read, but one that any activist in progressive cause would want to read. What is the effect, politically, of bringing a moral voice to an economically driven world? How can change happen? Can it happen simply through moral persuasion? Or will violence be part of it?

The book has a limited scope: the political activities of abolitionists. They were a small minority, much of the time divided in their ideas of how to go about their activism. How could they, facing all the seemingly insurmountable problems, see that slavery was ended and that the black people were given the respect they deserved? The story is not fleshed out, but rather told in brief accounts of who did what. If one were to want to delve into the personal stories of, say and Whittier or a Garrison, one would have to look to the extensive bibliography.