DOCSLIB.ORG

Slavery and Suffering: William Lloyd Garrison and American Abolitionism in Memory and Literature

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Slavery and Suffering: William Lloyd Garrison and American Abolitionism in Memory and Literature Slavery and Suffering: William Lloyd Garrison and American Abolitionism in Memory and Literature by Brian Allen Santana B.A. in Drama, May 2003, University of North Carolina at Asheville M.A. in English, August 2005, North Carolina State University A Dissertation submitted to The Faculty of Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 20, 2012 Dissertation directed by Jennifer James Associate Professor of English The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University certifies that Brian Allen Santana has passed the Final Examination for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy as of March 2, 2012. This is the final and approved form of the dissertation. Slavery and Suffering: William Lloyd Garrison and American Abolitionism in Memory and Literature Brian Allen Santana Dissertation Research Committee: Jennifer James, Associate Professor of English, Dissertation Director James Miller, Professor of English and American Studies, Committee Member Elaine Pena, Assistant Professor of American Studies, Committee Member ii Dedication For Erin iii Acknowledgments I owe a great debt of thanks to the many people who have been present in the conceptualizing, researching, writing, and completion of this project. I am particularly indebted to Jennifer James for quickly reading drafts of this manuscript and then setting aside countless hours for late afternoon conversations that helped me to clarify my ideas. Her voice of encouragement and her model of intellectual camaraderie made this entire process a rich and valuable experience. My debts to her are too numerous to list here. Jim Miller patiently listened to my evolving ideas about this project and consistently encouraged me to continue writing and thinking. In one crucial chapter he also asked me not to ignore the obvious, which made the final analysis both richer and stronger. Kip Kosek and Elaine Pena provided thoughtful responses to earlier drafts of this manuscript. I am very grateful for their time, detailed notes, and critical questions. Their comments and advice helped to make this dissertation better. The archivists at the Boston Public Library, The Library of Congress, and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill were generous with their resources and knowledge. They saved me countless hours by locating and suggesting materials that they thought would be helpful. At my own institution, George Washington University, Tricia Greenstein and the interlibrary loan officers at Gelman Library became familiar faces. Their prompt assistance helped me to keep moving. Much to my surprise, I also received encouragement, support, and feedback from colleagues in my field who I have never met in person, but who proved to be surprisingly iv accessible. Jenny Barrett of Edge Hill University in the U.K., in particular, encouraged me to further consider the regional narratives I discuss in relation to American national identity. Thanks to Tom Guglielmo and the faculty of the American Studies Department at George Washington University for providing generous institutional support in the form of research stipends and summer funding that alleviated the costs associated with undertaking a project of this size. Katie Bryan and Emily Dufton have offered enthusiastic and kind words of support, friendship, and commiseration for the last four years. My cohorts, Ramzi Fawaz and Matt Kohlstedt, have worked alongside me for the past six years and I have benefited from their sharp wits and the spirit of collegiality that we have shared together. During the Fall 2011 semester I designed and taught a class titled, “The Civil War and American Popular Culture.” In preparing for this course, I read widely and this experience stimulated me to think in new ways about the abolitionist memoirs I analyze here. I wish to thank all of my students for the wonderful time we shared together. Thomas Nicholas, Amanda Castroverde, Susannah Glick, and Kelsey Johnston, in particular, always ensured lively and intellectually rich discussions. These discussions helped keep my interest and enthusiasm for this project strong. My family has sustained me emotionally, logistically, and financially from this project’s conception to its completion. My father’s eclectic knowledge of and passion for subjects ranging from Tudor England to early American history allowed me a space to freely talk about my ideas and work in extended phone calls. My mother, grandmother, and brother expressed unpretentious optimism and kind words whenever I encountered v obstacles that proved to be frustrating. My in-laws, Edward and Toni Fife, provided support and encouragement as I finished this project. My wife, Erin, has been living with this project for our entire married life. She is unsure about what our life will look like without it. It is her support that has been the most essential, and her companionship that has made this process worthwhile. This project is dedicated to her. vi Abstract of Dissertation Slavery and Suffering: William Lloyd Garrison and American Abolitionism in Memory and Literature This dissertation examines the role of suffering in William Lloyd Garrison’s antebellum anti-slavery theology, the rhetorical strategies that these religious beliefs inspired, and the influence of these ideas and images on the late 19th and early 20th century popular culture transformation of William Garrison into a representative symbol of Massachusetts and American abolitionism, moral fortitude, and sacrifice. It argues that the dramatic shift that occurs between 1831 and 1900 in how audiences remember, represent, and write about Garrison is indicative of a broader cultural transformation of perceptions about American abolitionism. By 1850, Garrison was considered a religiously heretical and socially dangerous madman by both northern and southern audiences. Even amongst New England abolitionists the term “Garrison man” was considered a derisive label. However, by the time of his 1879 death, the dominant trend within Massachusetts popular culture is to discuss Garrison as the symbol of American abolitionism and the representative example of the state’s past anti-slavery activism. Far from being dangerous, he is instead widely described as embodying the region’s best virtues. Northern magazines describe him as a “moral inspiration” and credit his influence with turning “the whole country into an anti-slavery society.” This dissertation draws from private letters, diaries, newspapers, novels, memoirs, eulogies, textbooks, poetry, monuments, and festivals to excavate and examine the social, political, and cultural forces that facilitated the dramatic historical shift in representations of William Lloyd Garrison and New England abolitionists. It demonstrates the remarkable impact of the post-bellum Garrison revival—and particularly the rise of the vii literary trope of the “suffering abolitionist” that it inspires--on professional and non- professional histories of the Civil War from the late 19th to mid-20th century. In doing so, it examines the possibilities, limitations, and traces of the dominant language of suffering and sacrifice deployed to remember and memorialize William Lloyd Garrison and demonstrates it’s broader impact on how Americans of the past and present have remembered and conceptualized the nature and scope of 19th century anti-slavery protest. viii Table of Contents Dedication…………………………………………………………………... .. iii Acknowledgements………………………………………………………….. .. iv Abstract of Dissertation……………………………………………………... .. vii Introduction: William Lloyd Garrison and the Birth of American Abolitionism in History and Popular Culture…………………………………. .. 1 Chapter 1: The Construction and Evolution of Garrisonian Narratives of Abolitionist Sacrifice in Anbtellum America, 1834-1857…………………. ... 42 Chapter 2: Commemorating Garrison: Origins of the Garrison Revival in Postbellum American Memory, 1867-1910……………………….. 98 Chapter 3: 'For Future Generations': Garrison's Children, Massachusetts Educational Reform, and the Institutionalization of the Garrison Narrative in Boston Public Schools, 1880-1922………………. 152 Chapter 4: Ross Lockridge's Raintree County: American Abolitionism as Epic Origin Narrative…………………………………………………….. 203 Epilogue: William Lloyd Garrison in the Mid-20th Century and Beyond……. 262 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………267 ix Introduction: William Lloyd Garrison and the Birth of American Abolitionism in History and Popular Culture On a cool afternoon on April 17, 1830 a young abolitionist named William Lloyd Garrison anxiously paced the confines of his twenty-foot prison cell in Baltimore, Maryland. Publicly he worked to make light of his incarceration and to project an image of stoic resolve and indifference. In a May 24, 1830 letter to Joseph T. Buckingham, the editor of the Boston Courier, he humorously mocked the severity of his situation: “it is true, I am not the owner of this huge pile, nor the grave lord-keeper of it; but then, I pay no rent- am bound to make no repairs- and enjoy the luxury of independence divested of its cares.”1 Privately, however, he struggled to comprehend the events that led to his incarceration and searched for the meaning of his unjust punishment. In a letter to his childhood friend Harriet Farnham Horton he expressed a more melancholic tone that he reserved for those closest to him: “the tyranny of the court has triumphed over every principle of justice, and even over the law-
Load more

Recommended publications
  • William Lloyd Garrison: Deliverance from Slavery
    WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON: DELIVERANCE FROM SLAVERY Mariana Antonio Serrano NATIONAL HISTORY DAY February 4, 2020 Word Count: 2238 "My name is 'LIBERATOR'! I propose/ to hurl my shafts at freedom's deadliest foes!/ My task is hard-for I am charged to save/ Man from his brother!-to redeem the slave!"1 With these opening words on January 1, 1831, the very first issue of the abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, was published in Boston, Massachusetts at No.6 Merchants Hall, "at the corner of Walter and Congress streets" 2 . This paper would circulate around the United States to 3000 subscribers and to many more readers,3 bearing on the front page of every issue its motto," Our country is the world-our countrymen are mankind."4 This newspaper ultimately triumphed in spreading the abolitionist fire to the masses. The intense zeal that William Lloyd Garrison, editor of The Liberator , held for the cause of the immediate abolition of slavery was the key to his success as an abolitionist . How did William Lloyd Garrison impact the abolitionist movement? William Lloyd Garrison kept the abolitionist movement prosperous despite damaging failures by way of the publication of The Liberator, correspondence with other abolitionist groups, and by standing firm, though the very same abolitionists he worked with disagreed with his "radical" viewpoint on abolitionism, because he was insistent on not telling a part of the truth of the immorality of slavery, but the whole truth. Garrison's beginnings as an abolitionist were rooted in his childhood and adolescence. Frances, his mother, a strongly religious woman, was the source of Garrison's strong belief that 1 W illiam Lloyd Garrison, "Salutation ," The Liberator , Vol.
    [Show full text]
  • Army Regulars on the Western Frontier, 1848-1861 / Dunvood Ball
    Amy Regulars on the WestmFrontieq r 848-1 861 This page intentionally left blank Army Regulars on the Western Frontier DURWOOD BALL University of Oklahoma Press :Norman Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ball, Dunvood, 1960- Army regulars on the western frontier, 1848-1861 / Dunvood Ball. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-8061-3312-0 I. West (U.S.)-History, Military-I 9th century. 2. United States. Army-History- 19th century. 3. United States-Military policy-19th century. 4. Frontier and pioneer life-West (U.S.) 5. West (US.)-Race relations. 6. Indians of North Arnerica- Government relations-1789-1869. 7. Indians of North America-West (U.S.)- History-19th century. 8. Civil-military relations-West (U.S.)-History-19th century. 9. Violence-West (U.S.)-History-I 9th century. I. Title. F593 .B18 2001 3 5~'.00978'09034-dcz I 00-047669 CIP The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources, Inc. m Copyright O 2001 by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of the University. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the U.S.A. 12345678910 For Mom, Dad, and Kristina This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS List of Illustrations and Maps IX Preface XI Acknowledgments xv INT R o D U C T I o N : Organize, Deploy, and Multiply XIX Prologue 3 PART I. DEFENSE, WAR, AND POLITICS I Ambivalent Duty: Soldiers, Indians, and Frontiersmen I 3 2 All Front, No Rear: Soldiers, Desert, and War 24 3 Chastise Them: Campaigns, Combat, and Killing 3 8 4 Internal Fissures: Soldiers, Politics, and Sectionalism 56 PART 11.
    [Show full text]
  • MILITANT ABOLITIONIST GERRIT SMITH }Udtn-1 M
    MILITANT ABOLITIONIST GERRIT SMITH }UDtn-1 M. GORDON·OMELKA Great wealth never precluded men from committing themselves to redressing what they considered moral wrongs within American society. Great wealth allowed men the time and money to devote themselves absolutely to their passionate causes. During America's antebellum period, various social and political concerns attracted wealthy men's attentions; for example, temperance advocates, a popular cause during this era, considered alcohol a sin to be abolished. One outrageous evil, southern slavery, tightly concentrated many men's political attentions, both for and against slavery. and produced some intriguing, radical rhetoric and actions; foremost among these reform movements stood abolitionism, possibly one of the greatest reform movements of this era. Among abolitionists, slavery prompted various modes of action, from moderate, to radical, to militant methods. The moderate approach tended to favor gradualism, which assumed the inevitability of society's progress toward the abolition of slavery. Radical abolitionists regarded slavery as an unmitigated evil to be ended unconditionally, immediately, and without any compensation to slaveholders. Preferring direct, political action to publicize slavery's iniquities, radical abolitionists demanded a personal commitment to the movement as a way to effect abolition of slavery. Some militant abolitionists, however, pushed their personal commitment to the extreme. Perceiving politics as a hopelessly ineffective method to end slavery, this fringe group of abolitionists endorsed violence as the only way to eradicate slavery. 1 One abolitionist, Gerrit Smith, a wealthy landowner, lived in Peterboro, New York. As a young man, he inherited from his father hundreds of thousands of acres, and in the 1830s, Smith reportedly earned between $50,000 and $80,000 annually on speculative leasing investments.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Catalog
    Abraham Lincoln Book Shop, Inc. Catalog 183 Holiday/Winter 2020 HANDSOME BOOKS IN LEATHER GOOD HISTORY -- IDEAL AS HOLIDAY GIFTS FOR YOURSELF OR OTHERS A. Badeau, Adam. MILITARY HISTORY OF ULYSSES S. GRANT, FROM APRIL 1861 TO APRIL 1865. New York: 1881. 2nd ed.; 3 vol., illus., all maps. Later full leather; gilt titled and decorated spines; marbled endsheets. The military secretary of the Union commander tells the story of his chief; a detailed, sympathetic account. Excellent; handsome. $875.00 B. Beveridge, Albert J. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1809-1858. Boston: 1928. 4 vols. 1st trade edition in the Publisher’s Presentation Binding of ½-tan leather w/ sp. labels; deckled edges. This work is the classic history of Lincoln’s Illinois years -- and still, perhaps, the finest. Excellent; lt. rub. only. Set of Illinois Governor Otto Kerner with his library “name” stamp in each volume. $750.00 C. Draper, William L., editor. GREAT AMERICAN LAWYERS: THE LIVES AND INFLUENCE OF JUDGES AND LAWYERS WHO HAVE ACQUIRED PERMANENT NATIONAL REPUTATION AND HAVE DEVELOPED THE JURISPRUDENCE OF THE UNITED STATES. Phila.: John Winston Co.,1907. #497/500 sets. 8 volumes; ¾-morocco; marbled boards/endsheets; raised bands; leather spine labels; gilt top edges; frontis.; illus. Marshall, Jay, Hamilton, Taney, Kent, Lincoln, Evarts, Patrick Henry, and a host of others have individual chapters written about them by prominent legal minds of the day. A handsome set that any lawyer would enjoy having on his/her shelf. Excellent. $325.00 D. Freeman, Douglas Southall. R. E. LEE: A BIOGRAPHY. New York, 1936. “Pulitzer Prize Edition” 4 vols., fts., illus., maps.
    [Show full text]
  • The 19Th Amendment
    National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Women Making History: The 19th Amendment Women The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. —19th Amendment to the United States Constitution In 1920, after decades of tireless activism by countless determined suffragists, American women were finally guaranteed the right to vote. The year 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. It was ratified by the states on August 18, 1920 and certified as an amendment to the US Constitution on August 26, 1920. Developed in partnership with the National Park Service, this publication weaves together multiple stories about the quest for women’s suffrage across the country, including those who opposed it, the role of allies and other civil rights movements, who was left behind, and how the battle differed in communities across the United States. Explore the complex history and pivotal moments that led to ratification of the 19th Amendment as well as the places where that history happened and its continued impact today. 0-31857-0 Cover Barcode-Arial.pdf 1 2/17/20 1:58 PM $14.95 ISBN 978-1-68184-267-7 51495 9 781681 842677 The National Park Service is a bureau within the Department Front cover: League of Women Voters poster, 1920. of the Interior. It preserves unimpaired the natural and Back cover: Mary B. Talbert, ca. 1901. cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work future generations.
    [Show full text]
  • Issue 47 AFP Master 2006
    WEEKLY PAPER: DO NOT DELAY—MAILED: 3-30-07 # American Free Press AFP Volume VII #15 April 9, 2007 americanfreepress.net $2.50 Paul Craig Roberts: Federal 9-11 fairy tale IDAHO NIXES ‘AMERICAN UNION’ thoroughly debunked. Thirteen states join Idaho lawmakers Top Neocon will veto peace. See page 8 See his column on page 12. to stop globalist plan for the Americas awmakers in Idaho have approved a measure call- ing on the U.S. Congress to block the creation of the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership, USS LIBERTY a scheme put forth by globalists to merge the LUnited States with Mexico and Canada into what is known as the North American Union. In this week’s edi- BOMBSHELL tion, AFP’s national correspondent Mark Anderson details the state initiative, which has already garnered attention Ret. U.S. naval advocate admits from local officials across the country. he was ordered to whitewash See 14 STATES ACT, Page 4 Israeli murder of 34 sailors his week, AFP reporter Mark Glenn spoke with Capt. Ward Boston, the senior legal counsel for the military inquiry which investigated Israel’s June 8, 1967, attack on SOROS WARNS OF ISRAELI INFLUENCE Tthe USS Liberty. Read what this high-ranking naval officer has to say first-hand about the gov- Jewish billionaire assailed for comments; ernment’s whitewashing of Israel’s air and naval says Zionist lobbies stifle Mideast peace attack, which resulted in the death and wounding of over 200 American sailors. illionaire speculator George Soros is under fire for calling for honest debate concerning the Israeli lobby’s undue influence See NAVY CAPT., Page 11 over U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Louisa May Alcott - Realistic Child
    133 Louisa May Alcott - Realistic Child of the Concord Renaissance Karen Ann Takizawa ルイザ ・メイ ・オルコット― コンコー ド・ルネッサンスの現実主義的落し子 カ レ ン ・ア ン ・滝 沢 1994年 、 清 泉 女 学 院 短 期 大 学 の ドラ マ セ ミナ ー の 学 生 達 が ル イ ザ ・メ イ ・オ ル コ ッ トの 代表作7若 草物語」を脚色し、上演することなった。 このことが、彼女の作品 と時代 につ い て 調 べ 、 マ サ チ ュ ー セ ッ ツ 州 コ ン コ ー ド(当 時 の 超 絶 主 義 の 中 心 地)に あ る 彼 女 の 故 郷 へ文学巡礼の旅 をするきっかけ となった。ルイザ ・メイ ・オルコッ トは、今は少女小説の 作 家 で あ る と思 わ れ て い る が 、 純 文 学 を 書 く作 家 で も あ り、 ま た 収 入 を 得 る た め の 作 品 も 書いた現実主義的作家でもあった。 Introduction In 1994, the students in my Drama Seminar at Seisen Jogakuin College chose to write and perform a play based on Louisa May Alcott's most famous work, Little Women. This project led to an investigation into her life and times and a literary pilgrimage to her former home in Concord, Massachusetts, both of which will be discussed in this report. The Place of Louisa May Alcott in American Literature Louisa May Alcott lived for much of her life in Concord, Massachusetts, where her father, Bronson Alcott, was active as one of the leaders of the nineteenth century Transcendentalist movement. Among his friends were three of the major American writers of the day, Ralph Waldo Emerson, author of Nature, Henry David Thoreau, 134 Bu!.
    [Show full text]
  • National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form
    NPSForm10-900-b OMB No. 1024-0018 (Revised March 1992) . ^ ;- j> United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form This form is used for documenting multiple property groups relating to one or several historic contexts. See instructions in How to Complete the Multiple Property Documentation Form (National Register Bulletin 16B). Complete each item by entering the requested information. For additional space, use continuation sheets (Form 10-900-a). Use a typewriter, word processor, or computer, to complete all items. _X_New Submission _ Amended Submission A. Name of Multiple Property Listing__________________________________ The Underground Railroad in Massachusetts 1783-1865______________________________ B. Associated Historic Contexts (Name each associated historic context, identifying theme, geographical area, and chronological period for each.) C. Form Prepared by_________________________________________ name/title Kathrvn Grover and Neil Larson. Preservation Consultants, with Betsy Friedberg and Michael Steinitz. MHC. Paul Weinbaum and Tara Morrison. NFS organization Massachusetts Historical Commission________ date July 2005 street & number 220 Morhssey Boulevard________ telephone 617-727-8470_____________ city or town Boston____ state MA______ zip code 02125___________________________ D. Certification As the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, I hereby certify that this documentation form meets the National
    [Show full text]
  • DFHS Summer 2012
    DOBBS FERRY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Fostering an awareness and appreciation for the history of Dobbs Ferry and all the people, noted and humble, who transmitted the good things of the past The to the present and the future. Would you please be our Treasures in the attic - Ferryman“Friend”? Fanny Garrison His Father’s and in our archives Villard son Have you seen our Facebook A simple question leads Your marching orders page yet? Dobbs Ferry’s own This Our 7th annual Road to Did you know us on a hunt and yields remarkable that Mike Todd Denise Wilson has done a two pictures that reveal Freedom March which traces fabulous job of posting woman called the steps of General George Jr. (left) and his a historic treasure that Dobbs Ferry father, both interesting and entertaining still exists in Dobbs Washington and the tidbits about the history of home. The daughter of an Continental Army in the famous movie producers from Ferry today. You American Abolitionist, and the 1960’s, made their homes Dobbs Ferry for all to enjoy. probably have summer of 1781 - will take Check it out! wife of a tycoon, she co- place on Sunday, August in the Rivertowns? Learn wondered what it was. founded two organizations more about these interesting Would you be able to 19th rain or shine! Our that changed and improved special program this year men as different as night and recognize it? the lives of millions. day! Pages 6 & 7 includes a concert. Pages 4 & 5 Page 8 Pages 1, 2 & 3 Volume XXV, Issue No 2 Summer 2012 FATHER & SON, THE TWO MIKE TODDS For flamboyant producer Mike Todd, Sr., only the purchase of a showplace estate in Irvington-on-Hudson, plus marriage to famous actress Joan Blondell (and later to actress Elizabeth Taylor), could satisfy his appetite for grandiose display.
    [Show full text]
  • John Brown, Abolitionist: the Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights by David S
    John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights by David S. Reynolds Homegrown Terrorist A Review by Sean Wilentz New Republic Online, 10/27/05 John Brown was a violent charismatic anti-slavery terrorist and traitor, capable of cruelty to his family as well as to his foes. Every one of his murderous ventures failed to achieve its larger goals. His most famous exploit, the attack on Harpers Ferry in October 1859, actually backfired. That backfiring, and not Brown's assault or his later apotheosis by certain abolitionists and Transcendentalists, contributed something, ironically, to the hastening of southern secession and the Civil War. In a topsy-turvy way, Brown may have advanced the anti-slavery cause. Otherwise, he actually damaged the mainstream campaign against slavery, which by the late 1850s was a serious mass political movement contending for national power, and not, as Brown and some of his radical friends saw it, a fraud even more dangerous to the cause of liberty than the slaveholders. This accounting runs against the grain of the usual historical assessments, and also against the grain of David S. Reynolds's "cultural biography" of Brown. The interpretations fall, roughly, into two camps. They agree only about the man's unique importance. Writers hostile to Brown describe him as not merely fanatical but insane, the craziest of all the crazy abolitionists whose agitation drove the country mad and caused the catastrophic, fratricidal, and unnecessary war. Brown's admirers describe his hatred of slavery as a singular sign of sanity in a nation awash in the mental pathologies of racism and bondage.
    [Show full text]
  • The Early Abolitionists of Lancaster County
    The Early Abolitionists of Lancaster County, In giving a history of the Abolition movement in Lancaster county,or else- where, the question seems first to arise, what is specially meant by the term "Abolitionist." The indiscrimin- ate manner in which it was used sixty years ago against every person who in any manner sympathized with the anti- slavery movement leaves me some- what in doubt as to what phase of the subject I am supposed to treat, In fact, I am reminded very much of a speech I heard made by Thaddeus Ste- vens when yet a small boy. It was in the Congressional campaign of 1858, when Mr. Stevens was a candidate for Congress from this district. The per- oration of his speech was substantially as follows. I quote from memory: "But in answer to all this I hear one reply, namely, Stevens is an Abolition- ist. The indiscriminate manner with which the term is used, I am frank to confess, leaves me somewhat in doubt as to what is meant by it. But the venom and spleen with which it is hurled at some of us would indicate, at least, that it is a term of reproach and used only against monsters and outlaws of society. If it is meant by an Abolitionist that I am one of those terrible, heinous-looking animals with cloven hoofs and horns, such as is de- scribed in. legend and fiction, and in Milton's "Paradise Lost," I am not very handsome, to be sure, but I don't think I am one of those.
    [Show full text]
  • An Investigation Into British Neutrality During the American Civil War 1861-65
    AN INVESTIGATION INTO BRITISH NEUTRALITY DURING THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 1861-65 BY REBECCA CHRISTINE ROBERTS-GAWEN A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of MA by Research Department of History University of Birmingham November 2015 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract This thesis sought to investigate why the British retained their policy of neutrality throughout the American Civil War, 1861-65, and whether the lack of intervention suggested British apathy towards the conflict. It discovered that British intervention was possible in a number of instances, such as the Trent Affair of 1861, but deliberately obstructed Federal diplomacy, such as the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. This thesis suggests that the British public lacked substantial and sustained support for intervention. Some studies have suggested that the Union Blockade of Southern ports may have tempted British intervention. This thesis demonstrates how the British sought and implemented replacement cotton to support the British textile industry. This study also demonstrates that, by the outbreak of the Civil War, British society lacked substantial support for foreign abolitionists’’ campaigns, thus making American slavery a poorly supported reason for intervention.
    [Show full text]