UMass Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press

James Brewer Stewart

A leading historian of the abolitionist movement assesses its impact on the Civil War

Before the Civil War, slaveholders made themselves into the most powerful, most deeply rooted, and best organized private interest group within the United States. Not only did slavery represent the national economy's second largest capital investment, exceeded only by investment in real estate, but guarantees of its perpetuation were studded throughout the U.S. Constitution. The vast majority of white Americans, in North and South, accepted the institution, and pro-slavery presidents and congressmen consistently promoted its interests.

In Abolitionist Politics and the Coming of the Civil War, James Brewer Stewart explains how a small group of radical activists, the abolitionist movement, played a pivotal role in turning American politics against this formidable system. He examines what influence the movement had in creating the political crises that led to civil war and evaluates the extent to which a small number of zealous reformers made a truly significant political difference when demanding that their nation face up to its most excruciating moral problem.

In making these assessments, Stewart addresses a series of more specific questions: What were the abolitionists actually up against when seeking the overthrow of slavery and white supremacy? What motivated and sustained them during their long and difficult struggles? What larger historical contexts (religious, social, economic, cultural, and political) influenced their choices and determined their behavior? What roles did extraordinary leaders play in shaping the movement, and what were the contributions of abolitionism's unheralded “foot soldiers”? What factors ultimately determined, for better or worse, the abolitionists' impact on American politics and the realization of their equalitarian goals?

“Jim Stewart is one of the foremost scholars of American abolitionism and the most astute analyst of the relationship between the abolition movement and party politics. In this remarkably coherent and cohesive volume of essays, he convincingly overturns the idea that the abolitionist movement was largely a white one, as well as the notion that abolitionism was marginal to political parties and did little or nothing to bring about secession and the eventual end of slavery.”

John Stauffer, Harvard University

“Abolitionist Politics and the Coming of the Civil War is not simply a useful work that could easily be incorporated into graduate or advanced undergraduate courses on abolitionism and African American history, it is also a statement of the remarkable work and career of one abolitionism's finest modern students.”

Patrick Rael, Bowdoin College

James Brewer Stewart is James Wallace Professor of History at Macalester College and author of Holy Warriors: Abolitionists and American Slavery and other works on the history of abolitionism.

American History / Black Studies
256 pp.
$24.95 paper, ISBN 978-1-55849-635-4
$80.00 library cloth edition, ISBN 978-1-55849-634-7
March 2008

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