Appalled and paralyzed. Abandoned and betrayed. Cowed and bowed. Thus did Frederick Douglass describe the North in the wake of the compromise measures of 1850 t

This study examines how the political anti-slavery challenge to the North informed American literature of the 1850s. As the works of Stowe, Whittier, Willis, an

Examining the congressional debates on antislavery petitions before the Civil War. Passed by the House of Representatives at the start of the 1836 session, the

In the mid-19th century, rhetoric surrounding slavery was permeated by violence. Slavery’s defenders often used brute force to suppress opponents, and even th

Illuminates the political dimensions of American and British antislavery texts written by blacks