Slavery and Antislavery:
Subjects in Search of Authors
By Louis FILLER*
IT IS POSSIBLE that a revaluation of slavery and anti-
slavery--and, more especially, of the
relationship between
antislavery and abolition--has been in
order, perhaps overdue.
The literature about these last two
related fields is, of course,
enormous, but whether the residue of
them which the his-
torical profession carries about with
it, and can bring to
bear upon them, suffices to maintain
our understanding of
them, is debatable. One is reminded of
an historian, the
author of a standard monograph in the
field, who had occasion
to comment upon it, in private
correspondence. "Strange, is
it not," he wrote, "that
there should have been so much ex-
citement about slavery in the 1830's and
how quiet things
became by the 1850's." (Italics added.)
In view of the un-
doubted excellence of this historian's
thesis, one can only
comment that a more comprehensive
professional awareness
on his part of factors involved in the
problem of slavery and
antislavery would have protected him
from such a perspective
on pre-Civil War America.
In the course of many years work with
elements of slavery
and antislavery, and contact with
persons who have written
about them, one runs across most
permutations of attitude
* Louis Filler is professor of American
civilization at Antioch College. These
are his introductory remarks at a
session on "Slavery and Abolition," of which
he was chairman, at the annual meeting
of the American Historical Association in
Chicago, December 28-30, 1959.