Examines the movement to abolish slavery in the US, from the eighteenth century through to the Civil War and the abolition of slavery in 1865.

This book provides an accessible introduction and synthesizes the enormous amount of literature on the topic. It explores the roles of slaves and free blacks in the movement, the importance of empathy among antislavery whites, and the impact of abolitionism upon the sectional struggle between the North and the South. Within a basic chronological framework the author also considers more general themes such as black abolitionists, feminism, and anti-slavery violence.

" The American conflict over slavery reached a turning point in the early 1840s when three leading abolitionists presented provocative speeches that, for the first time, addressed the slaves directly rather than aiming rebukes at white owners. By forthrightly embracing the slaves as allies and exhorting them to take action, these three addresses pointed toward a more inclusive and aggressive antislavery effort.These addresses were particularly frightening to white slaveholders who were significantly in the minority of the population in some parts of low country Georgia and South Carolina. The Rise of Aggressive Abolitionism includes the full text of each address, as well as related documents, and presents a detailed study of their historical context, the reactions they provoked, and their lasting impact on U.S. history. Stanley Harrold, professor of history at South Carolina State University, is the author of Subversives: Antislavery Community in Washington, D.C., 1828-1865 and The Abolitionists and the South, 1831-1861. He lives in Orangeburg, South Carolina.

This book, the latest in the Seminar Studies in History series, examines the movement to abolish slavery in the US, from the origins of the movement in the eighteenth century through to the Civil War and the abolition of slavery in 1865. Books in this Seminar Studies in History series bridge the gap between textbook and specialist survey and consists of a brief "Introduction" and/or "Background" to the subject, valuable in bringing the reader up-to-speed on the area being examined, followed by a substantial and authoritative section of "Analysis" focusing on the main themes and issues. There is a succinct "Assessment" of the subject, a generous selection of "Documents" and a detailed bibliography. Stanley Harrold provides an accessible introduction to the subject, synthesizing the enormous amount of literature on the topic. American Abolitionists explores "the roles of slaves and free blacks in the movement, the importance of empathy among antislavery whites for the suffering slaves, and the impact of abolitionism upon the sectional struggle between the North and the South". Within a basic chronological framework the author also considers more general themes such as black abolitionists, feminism, and anti-slavery violence. For readers interested in American history.

During the 1840s and 1850s, a dangerous ferment afflicted the North-South border region, pitting the slave states of Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri against the free states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Aspects of this struggle--the underground railroad, enforcement of the fugitive slave laws, mob actions, and sectional politics--are well known as parts of other stories. Here, Stanley Harrold explores the border struggle itself, the dramatic incidents that it comprised, and its role in the complex dynamics leading to the Civil War.
"Border War" examines the previously neglected cross-border clash of attitudes and traditions dating many generations back. By the mid-nineteenth century, nowhere else were tensions greater between antislavery and proslavery interests. Nowhere else was there more direct conflict between the forces binding North and South together and those driving them apart. There were mass slave escapes, battles between antislavery and proslavery vigilantes, and fierce resistance in the Border North to the kidnapping of free African Americans. There were also fights throughout the borderlands between fugitive slaves and those attempting to apprehend them. Harrold argues that, during the 1850s, warfare on the Kansas-Missouri line and John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, were manifestations of a more pervasive border conflict that helped push the Lower South into secession and helped persuade most of the Border South to stand by the Union.

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.

"Every historian working on colonization will want to read and engage this provocative history of the experience of African colonization for the manumitted, the manumitters, and their proslavery critics."--American Historical Review "One of the most insightful treatments of colonization in years."--Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography "Balanced, accessible, and thorough. Each of Burin's chapters explores the ACS from a specific perspective: ACS members who manumitted enslaved workers specifically to go to Liberia, the enslaved themselves, northern fundraisers, white southerners, legal authorities, and finally, the freedpeople in Liberia."--Journal of African American History "Presents a vivid portrait of the organization as a conduit through which several thousand African Americans passed from American slavery to African freedom."--Journal of American History "Conveys the image of chattel slavery not as a monolithic structure controlling all masters and slaves everywhere but as a constantly changing entity throbbing with painful issues of personal and private rights in conflict with predominant opinions about social cohesion and custom. . . . The result is a refreshingly complex picture of American slavery."--History "A meticulously researched biography of one of the oft-overlooked cul-de-sacs in American history."--Virginia Quarterly Review

"An excellent study of the antislavery struggle in the streets and black alleys of Washington, D.C. The book is exceptionally well constructed. The argument is clear and easy to follow."-American Historical Review While many scholars have examined the slavery disputes in the halls of Congress, Subversives is the first history of practical abolitionism in the streets, homes, and places of business of the nation's capital. Historian Stanley Harrold looks beyond resolutions, platforms, and debates to describe how desperate African Americans - both free and slave - and sympathetic whites engaged in a dangerous day-to-day campaign to drive the "peculiar institution" out of Washington, D.C., and the Chesapeake region. That slavery was both vulnerable and vicious in Washington is at the heart of Harrold's study. Northern and foreign visitors were outraged by its existence in the seat of American government. For the South, Washington was a vital stronghold at the section's border. As economic changes caused slavery's decline in the Chesapeake and masters dismembered slave families by selling them South, local African Americans sought and received the support of a small number of whites eager to strike a blow against slavery in a strategic and very symbolic setting. Together they formed a subversive community that flourished in and about the city from the late 1820s through the mid-1860s. Risking beatings, mob violence, imprisonment, and death, these men and women distributed abolitionist literature, purchased the freedom of slaves, sued to prevent families from being separated, and aided escape efforts. Harrold overcomes the secrecy inherent in Washington's antislavery community to document itsformation and activities with remarkable detail and perception. He shows how slaveholders and their sympathizers fought to reinforce their hold on a system under attack and how the dissidents raised a radical challenge to the existing social order simply by engaging in interracial cooperation. While some subversives held power as politicians and journalists, most were obscure individuals. Black and white women played an important role. PRAISE FOR THE BOOK "An excellent study of the antislavery struggle in the streets and black alleys of Washington, D.C. The book is exceptionally well constructed. The argument is clear and easy to follow."-American Historical Review "Compelling reading. Focusing on antislavery battles below the Mason-Dixon line, Harrole masterfully recasts well-known historical incidents . . . withing a southern context. With Subversives Harrold has placed the discussion of assisted flight from the slave South nearer to the center of antislavery studies."-Journal of African American History

" Within the American antislavery movement, abolitionists were distinct from others in the movement in advocating, on the basis of moral principle, the immediate emancipation of slaves and equal rights for black people. Instead of focusing on the ""immediatists"" as products of northern culture, as many previous historians have done, Stanley Harrold examines their involvement with antislavery action in the South--particularly in the region that bordered the free states. How, he asks, did antislavery action in the South help shape abolitionist beliefs and policies in the period leading up to the Civil War? Harrold explores the interaction of northern abolitionist, southern white emancipators, and southern black liberators in fostering a continuing antislavery focus on the South, and integrates southern antislavery action into an understanding of abolitionist reform culture. He discusses the impact of abolitionist missionaries, who preached an antislavery gospel to the enslaved as well as to the free. Harrold also offers an assessment of the impact of such activities on the coming of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

"A major contribution to our understanding of the American South and the history of American religion and reform."--Dee E. Andrews, author of "The Methodists and Revolutionary America, 1760-1800" "A model study of an antislavery, reformist minority trying to find its place in the Antebellum South."--Thomas D. Hamm, author of "The Transformation of American Quakerism: Orthodox Friends, 1800-1907" This examination of a Quaker community in northern Virginia, between its first settlement in 1730 and the end of the Civil War, explores how an antislavery, pacifist, and equalitarian religious minority maintained its ideals and campaigned for social justice in a society that violated those values on a daily basis. By tracing the evolution of white Virginians' attitudes toward the Quaker community, Glenn Crothers exposes the increasing hostility Quakers faced as the sectional crisis deepened, revealing how a border region like northern Virginia looked increasingly to the Deep South for its cultural values and social and economic ties. Although this is an examination of a small community over time, the work deals with larger historical issues, such as how religious values are formed and evolve among a group and how these beliefs shape behavior even in the face of increasing hostility and isolation. As one of the most thorough studies of a pre-Civil War southern religious community of any kind, "Quakers Living in the Lion's Mouth" provides a fresh understanding of the diversity of southern culture as well as the diversity of viewpoints among anti-slavery activists. A. Glenn Crothers, associate professor of history at the University of Louisville, is director of research at The Filson Historical Society and coeditor of "Ohio Valley History."

During the 1840s and 1850s, a dangerous ferment afflicted the North-South border region, pitting the slave states of Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri against the free states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Aspects of this struggle--the underground railroad, enforcement of the fugitive slave laws, mob actions, and sectional politics--are well known as parts of other stories. Here, Stanley Harrold explores the border struggle itself, the dramatic incidents that it comprised, and its role in the complex dynamics leading to the Civil War.