Open Access edition of American Abolitionism: Its Direct Political Impact from Colonial Times into Reconstruction by Stanley Harrold

FAIN: DR-285177-22

University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA 22903-4833)
Eric Brandt (Project Director: July 2021 to September 2024)

This project will publish the book, American Abolitionism: Its Direct Political Impact from Colonial Times into Reconstruction, written by NEH Fellow Stanley Harrold (NEH grant number HB-50274-13), in an electronic open access format under a Creative Commons license, making it available for free download and distribution. The author will be paid a royalty of at least $500 upon release of the open access ebook.

Associated Products

Single Publication (Open Access eBook or Collection)
Publication Type: Single Publication
Title: American Abolitionism: Its Direct Political Impact from Colonial Times into Reconstruction
Year: 2019
ISBN: 9780813942292
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Author: Stanley Harrold
Abstract: 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
Primary URL: https://open.upress.virginia.edu/projects/american-abolitionism
Primary URL Description: University of Virginia Press
Secondary URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvcszzs0
Secondary URL Description: JSTOR
Type: Single author monograph

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