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and social life, those private and communal domains that the small governments
of the era hardly touched. To be sure, there is nothing in the “realm of the family”
that would have prevented its male members from an active engagement or its
female members from an active interest in the larger realms of politics and the state
in nineteenth-century America. But we suspect that the radical disconnectedness
and “privatism” observed in America by Tocqueville and other European visitors
in this period translated in many instances into a primacy of self and family that
confined politics to a lower order of personal commitment than is generally recog-
nized. Tocqueville himself argued that Americans were passionately interested in
politics, but he would not have seen much or many of those people to whom
we refer. Neither have many historians ferreted them out from their chimney cor-
ners and workbenches. Most Americans did vote, and for many historians that has
been enough. We would look more closely at “liberalism,” not merely as a politi-
cal theory, but also, for some, as an apolitical way of life.
The republicanism that historians so frequently place in opposition to lib-
eralism as a source or summation of American values was itself capable of com-
plicating and even limiting political engagement. Most importantly, it fueled
the antipartyism that historians have found during the earliest years of the sec-
ond party system, and that, we believe, continued as a significant element of
American political culture long after the more reluctantly partisan Whigs
adopted the structures and campaign techniques pioneered by Democrats. In-
deed, the feeling that parties were corrupting the political process may have
strengthened as the two major parties came to resemble each other in structure
and technique, and as the party system came to dominate, seemingly perma-
nently, the republican political process. It was in this context of party hege-
mony and a wary public that the cult of George Washington served t o
express antipartyism (the Farewell Address was this movemen t’sbasictext,
and was read aloud at many public gatherings), and to offer military heroism and
sacrifice as a sounder basis of patriotism and republican virtue. The parties them-
selves understood the potentially alienating effects of this popular contrast between
the politician and the military hero. They frequently offered their presidential no-
minations to former military commanders with otherwise minimal political cre-
dentials, and introduced military motifs into their campaigns even when no
general could be found to head the ticket (rarely a problem in the post-Civil
War era). Campaign biographers, as William Burlie Brown has shown, were in-
creasingly inclined to disavow any kind of political apprenticeship for their sub-
jects, whether or not they had been military men, and to claim that only their
opponents were politicians by trade. “The conclusion is inescapable,” writes
Brown, “that the basic assumptions of the biographers are that their audience
believes the politician is evil and party politics is evil twice compounded.” And
yet, inevitably, it was the party that offered military heroes and other disinter-
ested amateurs to the voting public. No significant candidacies were mounted
by such paragons of republicanism outside the party’s structures and campaign
machinery. Those who loathed the party and its professional politicians, there-
fore, had to reconcile some significantly discordant elements of the candidacy of
any latter-day George Washington.
NATIONALISM, SECTIONALISM, AND EXPANSIONISM IN THE AGE OF JACKSON 293
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The great public-school reforms of the 1840s and beyond offer insights into
this tension between party politics and a republicanism grounded in military ser-
vice. School reformers developed curricula and purchased textbooks that under-
scored the military origins of republican virtue while making no concessions to
partisan institutions. Jean Baker has argued that the experience of schooling in
the antebellum era “trained young white males in their public roles of delegating
power, rotating leadership, limiting power, and supporting the government.”
None of this entered the formal curriculum, however, and the “training” Baker
alludes to consisted mainly of the manner in which restive school children resisted
the tyrannies of their overbearing teachers. Against this problematic inference we
would place Baker’s own observation that the schools “did not introduce their
students to public issues or political parties, as twentieth-century civics courses
would.” Remarkably, American school children of the antebellum era were given
no political history of their nation. American history texts culminated in the
Revolutionary War, and the message of this climactic event was the patriotic vir-
tue of Washington and his men-at-arms. It is curricular decisions of this sort, made
by men who were as convinced as Horace Bushnell was about the significance of
early childhood nurturance in the shaping of enduring values, that seem to us most
important in conveying the intended and actual effects of public schooling upon
republican civic consciousness. Americans were taught to honor the American
republic, but not American politics. For how many did this kind of republicanism
remain a cultural resource for resisting engagement in the “affairs of party”?
FURTHER READING
Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin, Rude Republic: Americans and their Politics in
the Nineteenth Century (2000).
John M. Belohlavek, “Let the Eagle Soar!”: The Foreign Policy of Andrew Jackson (1985).
William W. Freehling, Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina
(1966).
Thomas R. Hietala, Manifest Design: Anxious Aggrandizement in Late Jacksonian America
(1985).
Reginald Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny (1981).
Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America,
1815–1846 (2007).
Richard P. McCormick, The Second Party System: Party Formation in the Jacksonian Era
(1966).
Jon Meacham, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House (2009).
Merrill D. Peterson, The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun (1988).
Robert V. Remini, Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union (1991).
Mary Ryan, Civic Wars: Democracy and Public Life in the American City during the Nineteenth
Century (1998).
Harry L. Watson, Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America (1990).
Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (2006).
294 MAJOR PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY
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CHAPTER 10
Reform and the Great Awakening
in the Early Nineteenth Century
In his essay “Man, the Reformer,” Ralph Waldo Emerson observed in 1841 that “in the
history of the world the doctrine of Reform had never such scope as the present hour.”
Although this was perhaps an overstatement, Emerson’s ideas nonetheless point to a series
of reform movements aimed at the betterment of humankind. As never before in American
history, movements focused on temperance, women’s rights, prison reform, educational reform,
compassion for retarded and handicapped people, and abolitionism coursed across the
American landscape. Led by charismatic leaders such as William Lloyd Garrison, David
Walker, Horace Mann, Dorothea Dix, and Lucretia Mott, these movements profoundly
influenced American society. Not coincidentally, this also was an era in which new religious
doctrines found adherents who formed new faiths—such as those that would become known
as the Church of Latter-Day Saints and the Seventh-Day Adventists—that remain influ-
ential to the present day. This clearly was the era of “the Reformer.”
We can attempt to explain the growth of reform movements in the early nineteenth
century by considering four interlocking factors. First, this was a period of great societal
change. Americans not only puzzled over changes in society, but questioned how old pat-
terns of social organization might be reestablished in new forms. Religious belief and social
reform were often cited as forces that might either recapture the old order or point to ways in
which a new order could be created. Second, the early nineteenth century saw the growth of
intellectual movements that rejected the rationalism of an earlier age. Americans were now
fascinated with the gothic, with the sense of mystery, with romanticism and sentimentality.
These ideas, which permeated society, are important for the purposes of this chapter because
sentimentality could encourage the development of empathy for others. If Americans could
“feel” the human costs of alcohol abuse or of slavery, for example, they could empathize
with the victims and work to eradicate such evils. Third, many Americans continued to be
imbued with a belief in progress. They continued to see the United States as a place of
destiny, a nation with a mission of greatness. If conditions could improve, it followed that
people should play an active role in bringing that improvement about.
295
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Related to notions of progress and perfectibility is the fourth and perhaps the most
important underlying factor: religious change. Between roughly 1795 and 1837, many
Americans were roused by religious revivals that changed their views of the possibilities of
the world. Known as the Second Great Awakening, this religious movement fostered the
growth of Christian belief, particularly among those in denominations, such as the Metho-
dists and the Baptists, that saw humans as having a greater role in their own salvation. If
individuals could be saved, it followed that if all were delivered, the result might be a perfect
society. If individuals could choose good over evil, they could eradicate sin from the world.
Underlying these reform movements, then, was “millennialism,” the belief that a
thousand-year era of peace, harmony, and Christian brotherhood on Earth would precede
the Second Coming of Christ. Given Americans’ tendency to see their nation as having a
role in momentous events, it was not surprising that they saw the millennium as being set
in the United States.
QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT
In this era, some religious movements developed that underscored the possibility
that everyone in society could achieve perfection and salvation. This differed
from the belief in earlier eras that salvation was limited to a few people who
were saved by a gracious God. How might these changing views be linked to
reform movements? How did religious change focus upon the family? Did reli-
gion liberate or inhibit the lives and freedom of women? Were reformers con-
cerned more about improving society or about controlling it? How might people
in reform movements, such as abolitionism, view the government? Was it a pos-
itive or negative force?
DOCUMENTS
These documents detail the relationships among religion, reform, the family, slav-
ery, and women’s rights. In document 1, Methodist evangelist Peter Cartwright
describes his conversion and the revivals that spread throughout the West.
Document 2 is an appeal focusing on the evils of slavery in 1829 by David
Walker, an African American. In document 3, William Lloyd Garrison, pro-
foundly influenced by Walker, introduces his newspaper, The Liberator, with a
call for immediate abolition. Finding some religious innovations too radical and
outlandish, the author of document 4, details and denounces the “Kingdom of
Matthias,” a small religious community that was known for the misogynistic and
anti-business tirades of its leader, Robert Matthews. In document 5, a speech and
letter to the “Christian women of the South,” Angelina Grimké uses religious
arguments to ca ll upon white women to ac t politi cally and rise against slavery .
Dorothea Dix’s letter to the Massachusetts legislature in document 6 is a chilling
depi ction of the treatment endured by the mentally ill in jails and almshouses.
ThesameyearasDix’s letter, 1843, was the publication of Joseph Smith’s
296 MAJOR PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY
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revelation regarding plural marriage for the Church of Latter-Day Saints. In
document 7, Smith recounts what God spoke to him about marriage and fam-
ily life. Document 8 is the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments that was
adopted by t he Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. Although modeled on t he
Declaration of I ndependence, notice how widely it critiques of male suprem-
acy. Sojourner Truth, in document 9, a former member of the Kingdom of
Matthias, provides a powerful expression of the relationships between women’s
rights and abolitionism.
1. Peter Cartwright, a Methodist Itinerant Preacher,
Marvels at the Power of Religious Revivals, 1801
In 1801, when I was in my sixteenth year, my father, my eldest half brother, and
myself, attended a wedding about five miles from home, where there was a great
deal of drinking and dancing, which was very common at marriages in those
days. I drank little or nothing; my delight was in dancing. After a late hour in
the night, we mounted our horses and started for home. I was riding my race-
horse.
A few minutes after we had put up the horses, and were sitting by the fire,
I began to reflect on the manner in which I had spent the day and evening. I felt
guilty and condemned. I rose and walked the floor. My mother was in bed. It
seemed to me, all of a sudden, my blood rushed to my head, my heart palpitated,
in a few minutes I turned blind; an awful impression rested on my mind that
death had come and I was unprepared to die. I fell on my knees and began to
ask God to have mercy on me.
My mother sprang from her bed, and was soon on her knees by my side,
praying for me, and exhorting me to look to Christ for mercy, and then and
there I promised the Lord that if he would spare me, I would seek and serve
him; and I never fully broke that promise. My mother prayed for me a long
time. At length we lay down, but there was little sleep for me. Next morning
I rose, feeling wretched beyond expression. I tried to read in the Testament, and
retired many times to secret prayer through the day, but found no relief. I gave
up my race-horse to my father, and requested him to sell him. I went and
brought my pack of cards, and gave them to mother, who threw them into the
fire, and they were consumed. I fasted, watched, and prayed, and engaged in
regular reading of the Testament. I was so distressed and miserable, that I was
incapable of any regular business.
My father was greatly distressed on my account, thinking I must die, and he
would lose his only son. He bade me retire altogether from business, and take
care of myself….
There were no camp-meetings in regular form at this time, but as there was
a great waking up among the Churches, from the revival that had broken out at
Peter Cartwright, Autobiography of Peter Cartwright, the Backwoods Preacher, ed. W. P. Strickland (New York: Phillips and
Hunt, 1856), 34–35, 37–38, 45, 48–49.
REFORM AND THE GREAT AWAKENING IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
297
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Cane Ridge, before mentioned, many flocked to those sacramental meetings.
The church would not hold the tenth part of the congregation. Accordingly,
the officers of the Church erected a stand in a contiguous shady grove, and pre-
pared seats for a large congregation.
The people crowded to this meeting from far and near. They came in their
large wagons, with victuals mostly prepared. The women slept in the wagons, and
the men under them. Many stayed on the ground night and day for a number of
nights and days together. Others were provided for among the neighbors around.
The power of God was wonderfully displayed; scores of sinners fell under the
preaching, like men slain in mighty battle; Christians shouted aloud for joy.
To this meeting I repaired, a guilty, wretched sinner. On the Saturday even-
ing of said meeting, I went, with weeping multitudes, and bowed before the
stand, and earnestly prayed for mercy. In the midst of a solemn struggle of soul,
an impression was made on my mind, as though a voice said to me, “Thy sins are
all forgiven thee.” Divine light flashed all round me, unspeakable joy sprung up in
my soul. I rose to my feet, opened my eyes, and it really seemed as if I was in
heaven; the trees, the leaves on them, and everything seemed, and I really thought
were, praising God. My mother raised the shout, my Christian friends crowded
around me and joined me in praising God; and though I have been since then,
in many instances, unfaithful, yet I have never, for one moment, doubted that the
Lord did, then and there, forgive my sins and give me religion….
[A] new exercise broke out among us, called the jerks, which was over-
whelming in its effects upon the bodies and minds of the people. No matter
whether they were saints or sinners, they would be taken under a warm song
or sermon, and seized with a convulsive jerking all over, which they could not
by any possibility avoid, and the more they resisted the more they jerked. If they
would not strive against it and pray in good earnest, the jerking would usually
abate. I have seen more than five hundred persons jerking at one time in my
large congregations. Most usually persons taken with the jerks, to obtain relief,
as they said, would rise up and dance. Some would run, but could not get away.
Some would resist; on such the jerks were generally very severe.
To see those proud young gentlemen and young ladies, dressed in their silks,
jewelry, and prunella, from top to toe, take the jerks would often excite my risi-
bilities. The first jerk or so, you would see their fine bonnets, caps, and combs
fly; and so sudden would be the jerking of the head that their long loose hair
would crack almost as loud as a wagoners whip.
2. African American Abolitionist David Walker
Castigates the United States for Its Slave System, 1829
[W]e, (coloured people of these United States of America) are the most wretched,
degraded and abject set of beings that ever lived since the world began; and that the
white Americans having reduced us to the wretched state of slavery, treat us in
David Walker, Walker’s Appeal (1829).
298 MAJOR PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY
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that condition more cruel (they being an enlighted and Christian people,) than any
heathen nation did any people whom it had reduced to our condition….
Are we
MEN!!—I ask you, O my brethren! are we MEN? Did our Creator
make us to be slaves to dust and ashes like ourselves? Are they not dying worms
as well as we? Have they not to make their appearance before the tribunal of
Heaven, to answer for the deeds done in the body, as well as we? Have
we any other Master but Jesus Christ alone? Is he not their Master as well as
ours?—What right then, have we to obey and call any other Master, but Him-
self ? How we could be so submissive to a gang of men, whom we cannot tell
whether they are as good as ourselves or not, I never could conceive. However,
this is shut up with the Lord, and we cannot precisely tell—but I declare, we
judge men by their works….
… Remember Americans, that we must and shall be free and enlightened as
you are, will you wait until we shall, under God, obtain our liberty by the crush-
ing arm of power? Will it not be dreadful for you? I speak Americans for your
good. We must and shall be free I say, in spite of you. You may do your best to
keep us in wretchedness and misery, to enrich you and your children, but God
will deliver us from under you. And wo, wo, will be to you if we have to obtain
our freedom by fighting. Throw away your fears and prejudices then, and en-
lighten us and treat us like men, and we will like you more than we do now
hate you, and tell us now no more about colonization, for America is as much
our country, as it is yours.—
Treat us like men, and there is no danger but we will all live in peace and
happiness together. For we are not like you, hard hearted, unmerciful, and
unforgiving….
If any are anxious to ascertain who I am, know the world, that I am one of
the oppressed, degraded and wretched sons of Africa, rendered so by the avaricious
and unmerciful, among the whites.—If any wish to plunge me into the wretched
incapacity of a slave, or murder me for the truth, know ye, that I am in the hand
of God, and at your disposal. I count my life not dear unto me, but I am ready to
be offered at any moment. For what is the use of living, when in fact I am dead.
But remember, Americans, that as miserable, wretched, degraded and abject as you
have made us in preceding, and in this generation, to support you and your fami-
lies, that some of you, (whites) on the continent of America, will yet curse the day
that you ever were born. You want slaves, and want us for your slaves!!! My col-
our will yet, root some of you out of the very face of the earth!!!!!!…
See your Declaration Americans!!! Do you understand your own language?
Hear your language, proclaimed to the world, July 4th, 1776—
We hold these truths to be self evident—that ALL men are created
EQUAL!! that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable
rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!!
Compare your own language above, extracted from your Declaration of In-
dependence, with your cruelties and murders inflicted by your cruel and unmer-
ciful fathers and yourselves on our fathers and on us—men who have never
given your fathers or you the least provocation!!!!!!
REFORM AND THE GREAT AWAKENING IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 299
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3. White Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison
Calls for Immediate Abolition, 1831
To the Public
During my recent tour for the purpose of exciting the minds of the people by a
series of discourses on the subject of slavery, every place that I visited gave fresh
evidence of the fact, that a greater revolution in public sentiment was to be ef-
fected in the free States—and particularly in New-England—than at the South.
I found contempt more bitter, opposition more active, detraction more relent-
less, prejudice more stubborn, and apathy more frozen, than among slave-owners
themselves. Of course, there were individual exceptions to the contrary. This
state of things afflicted, but did not dishearten me. I determined, at every hazard,
to lift up the standard of emancipation in the eyes of the nation, within sight of
Bunker Hill and in the birthplace of liberty. That standard is now unfurled; and long
may it float, unhurt by the spoliations of time or the missiles of a desperate foe—
yea, till every chain be broken, and every bondman set free! Let Southern op-
pressors tremble —let their secret abettors tremble—let their Northern apologists
tremble—let all the enemies of the persecuted blacks tremble….
Assenting to the “self-evident truth” maintained in the American Declara-
tion of Independence, “that all men are created equal, and endowed by their
Creator with certain inalienable rights—among which are life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness,” I shall strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchise-
ment of our slave population. In Park-Street Church, on the Fourth of July,
1829, in an address on slavery, I unreflectingly assented to the popular but per-
nicious doctrine of gradual abolition. I seize this opportunity to make a full and
unequivocal recantation, and thus publicly to ask pardon of my God, of my
country, and of my brethren the poor slaves, for having uttered a sentiment so
full of timidity, injustice, and absurdity. A similar recantation, from my pen, was
published in the Genius of Universal Emancipation at Baltimore, in September,
1829. My conscience is now satisfied.
I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not
cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice.
On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No!
no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to
moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to
gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen;—but urge
me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest—I will
not equivocate—Iwillnotexcuse—I will not retreat a single inch—
AND I WILL BE
HEARD
….
An attempt has been made—it is still making—we regret to say, with
considerable success—to inflame the minds of our working classes against the
more opulent, and to persuade men that they are contemned and oppressed by
William Lloyd Garrison, Editorial, The Liberator, January 1, 1831.
300 MAJOR PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY
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a wealthy aristocracy. That public grievances exist, is unquestionably true; but
they are not confined to any one class of society. Every profession is interested
in their removal—the rich as well as the poor….
Walker’sPamphlet
The Legislature of North Carolina has lately been sitting with closed doors, in
consequence of a message from the Governor relative to the above pamphlet [see
Document 2, David Walker’s appeal]. The south may reasonably be alarmed at
the circulation of Mr Walker’s Appeal; for a better promoter of insurrection was
never sent forth to an oppressed people. In a future number, we propose to ex-
amine it, as also various editorial comments thereon—it being one of the most
remarkable productions of the age. We have already publicly deprecated its spirit.
4. A Description of the Prophet Matthias
and His Attacks on Women, 1835
ROBERT MATTHEWS —for that is the real name of the subject of this history—is a
native of Washington county, in the State of New-York, and of Scotch extrac-
tion. He is about forty-five years of age, and of respectable parentage, though a
mental eccentricity has characterized several members of the family. He was left
an orphan at a tender age, and was brought up in the family of a respectable
farmer….
At the age of about twenty years, Matthews came to the city of New-York,
and worked at the business of a carpenter and house-joiner,…
Not succeeding to his wishes, however, he removed to Albany in 1827 or
’28, and resumed the joiner ’s business as a journeyman, taking good care of his
family, and attending constantly upon the public services in the sanctuary….He
very soon appeared to take an increasing interest in religious matters; attended
church and social prayer meetings, and conversed frequently upon the subject….
[A] young clergyman from New-York, the Rev. Mr. Kirk, was to occupy the
pulpit on a certain evening. Matthews went to hear him, and on his return home
appeared to be in a state of great excitement, declaring that he had never heard
any thing like preaching before, and sat up the greater part of the night repeat-
ing, expounding, and commending passages from the sermon. His enthusiasm
was so great that Mrs. Matthews remarked to her daughter in the course of the
night, “If your father goes to hear this man preach any more, he will go wild or
crazy.” He did go again to hear him a number of times—was always exceedingly
pleased, and became more and more excited….
At about the same time, Matthews engaged actively in the temperance re-
form, in which he laboured with all his might; but he was ultra in his notions,—
contending that the use of meats should be excluded, as well as of strong
drinks….
William L. Stone, Matthias and His Impostures (1835).
REFORM AND THE GREAT AWAKENING IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
301
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In his street-preaching, consisting for the most part of more incoherent har-
angues than are often uttered by men in any condition of mind,…
[In one sermon, he preached] “The spirit that built the Tower of Babel is
now in the world—it is the spirit of the devil. The spirit of man never goes upon
the clouds—all who think so are Babylonians. ‘The only heaven is on the earth.
All who are ignorant of truth, are Ninevites. The Jews did not crucify Christ,—it
was the Gentiles. Every Jew has his guardian angel attending him in this world.
God don’t speak through preachers, he speaks through me, his prophet.”…
“All real men will be saved; all mock men will be damned. When a person has
the Holy Ghost, then he is a man, and not till then. They who teach women are
of the wicked. The communion is all nonsense: so is prayer. Eating a nip of bread
and drinking a little wine won’t do any good. All who admit members into their
church and suffer them to hold their lands and houses—their sentence is, ‘Depart
yo wicked, I know you not.’ All females who lecture their husbands, their sen-
tence is the same. The sons of truth are to enjoy all the good things of this world,
and must use their means to bring it about. Every thing that has the smell of
woman will be destroyed. Woman is the capsheaf of the abomination of desola-
tion—full of all deviltry. In a short time the world will take fire and dissolve—it is
combustible already. All women, not obedient, had better become so as soon as
possible, and let the wicked spirit depart, and become temples of truth.”…
5. Angelina Grimké Appeals to Christian Women
to Oppose Slavery, 1836
Now the Bible is my ultimate appeal in all matters of faith and practice, and it is
to this test I am anxious to bring the subject at issue between us….
Ihavethus,Ithink,clearlyprovedtoyousevenpropositions,viz.:First,that
slavery is contrary to the declaration of our independence. Second, that it is con-
trary to the first charter of human rights given to Adam, and renewed to Noah.
Third, that the fact of slavery having been the subject of prophecy, furnishes no
excuse whatever to slavedealers. Fourth, that no such system existed under the pa-
triarchal dispensation. Fifth, that slavery never existed under the Jewish dispensation;
but so far otherwise, that every servant was placed under the protection of law, and
care taken not only to prevent all involuntary servitude, but all voluntary perpetual
bondage. Sixth, that slavery in America reduces a man to a thing, a “chattel per-
sonal,” robs him of all his rights as a human being, fetters both his mind and body,
and protects the master in the most unnatural and unreasonable power, whilst it
throws him out of the protection of law. Seventh, that slavery is contrary to the
example and precepts of our holy and merciful Redeemer, and of his apostles.
But perhaps you will be ready to query, why appeal to women on this subject?
We do not make the laws which perpetuate slavery. No legislative power is
Angelina Grimké, “Appeal to Christian Women of the South” (1836).
302 MAJOR PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY
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