Summary Of Albert B Hart's Slavery And Abolition

This volume maintains the high standard scholars have come to expect in the New American Nation Series under the editorship of Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris. The product of nineteen years of study by Professor Louis Filler of Antioch College, it is certainly the best book presently available on the over-all history of the antislavery movement in both its social and political phases. One may well question, however, whether a single moderate-sized volume is sufficient for the material covered. In the old American Nation Series, two volumes were devoted to the topics here allotted only one: Albert B. Hart's Slavery and Abolition, 1831-1841 and Theodore C. Smith's Parties and Slavery, 1850-1859. Major episodes in American history

Even Charles Sumner, he says, came increasingly to represent "political party relations and sectional feeling, rather than abolition." It seems to this reviewer that the author gives too little credit to the Republican Party leaders who were to carry the antislavery movement to its climax in the Civil War and Reconstruction. But that phase of the story, of course, is not included in this volume, which ends with John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. The central theme of the book is the propaganda campaign through which the American people were made aware of the moral issue involved in slaveholding. In this connection, the religious motive is stressed. The book's organization and its literary style are competent but not distinguished. Perhaps its most valuable feature consists in its remarkably complete and up-to-date footnotes and bibliography. Also worth noting are the recognition given to a large number of unpublished theses and the exceptionally useful suggestions as to suitable avenues for further