Article Title

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

Authors

Fred L. Johnson, Hope CollegeFollow

ISBN

9780813942292

Publication Date

2019

Price

$39.95

Publisher

University of Virginia Press

Abstract

he historiography pertaining to chattel slavery in the United States, and the price that was ultimately paid to finally remove its blight, has firmly established that unfortunate institution as the most pernicious challenge confronting the nation during the nineteenth-century. Slaveholder and Declaration of Independence author Thomas Jefferson, with his usual gift for ironic contradiction, was accurate when, in the aftermath of the slavery controversy that erupted over Missouri’s 1819 petition to join the Union, lamented “we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go.” The dangerous dilemma articulated by Jefferson’s metaphor is underscored in the book American Abolitionism: Its Direct Political Impact from Colonial Times into Reconstruction by historian Stanley Harrold.

DOI

10.31390/cwbr.21.4.08

Recommended Citation

Johnson, Fred L. (2019) "American Abolitionism: Its Direct Political Impact from Colonial Times into Reconstruction," Civil War Book Review: Vol. 21 : Iss. 4 .
DOI: 10.31390/cwbr.21.4.08
Available at: https://repository.lsu.edu/cwbr/vol21/iss4/7