Paper: 978-0-472-06028-3

eISBN: 978-0-472-91102-8 (OA)

Beliving all men to be created equal, we plundered peaceful nations, hunted men like wild beasts, and advertised and sold them with cattle and hogs. Believing freedom to be the sacred right of every man, we made nearly four million men slaves. This work of dedicated scholarship and immense learning reveals with extraordinary force the truth behind the Civil War. Year by year slavery in the United States became more sinister. It contaminated the body politic, it tainted all institutional life, it became a colossus of arbitrary power and greed. On these pages you will see battle waged in constitutional conventions, legistlative halls, courtrooms, churches, schools, in the hearts of men, and finally on the battle field. You will see ill manners turn to brutality. Printing presses are destroyed, schools closed, churches, private homes, and public buildings burned, the mails pillaged, men beaten, stoned, hanged, and shot. And there appear the men and women who before the Civil War courageously fought that all America might be free: the mystic John Woolman, tailor from New Jersey; the distinguished Philadelphia physician Benjamin Rush; the most remarkable Samuel Doak; the brilliant Denmark Vesey; the lonely, wandering saddle maker, Benjamin Lundy; the fearless Angelina Grimke. This life work of the notable American historian Dwight L. Dumond is a major testament for our time, essential reading for everyone interested in justice and equality under the law. The Declaration of Independence assumes new dignity and importance. Birney, Garrison, Lundy, Weld, and a dozen other abolitionists emerge as superior in integrity, patriotism, and vision. Tricky legalistic defenses fall before the frankness of the defenders of human rights. Natural rights, the equality of man, and the higher law come back with pristine gusto. A basic text in the history of race relations and the origins of the Civil War, Antislavery tells of belief, betrayal, and glory in the crusade for freedom in America.

Ann Arbor Paperbacks, Antislavery, America, Reference

License: Public Domain