DOUGLAS A. GAMBLE
Joshua Giddings
and the Ohio Abolitionists:
a Study in Radical Politics
Much recent scholarship on American
abolitionism emphasizes its role
as part of a general antebellum reform
movement.' Perceptive and valuable
though this work is, its broad focus
necessarily blurs important distinctions
within and among different factions of
abolitionism. In spite of recent
contrary opinion, there is still much to
learn by studying the diversity of
abolitionism. Identifying the "social
and cultural matrix" of reform and
learning "what abolitionists
shared" are significant projects, and Ronald
Walters' recent book handles them well.2
Still, even a clear understanding
of the context of abolitionism does not
satisfy our obligation specifically to
understand its content. As Aileen S.
Kraditor has argued, a full explana-
tion of the historical behavior of
reformers, including the abolitionists,
demands that we refine our understanding
of the "ways in which past
movements devised their strategies and
tactics to meet specific circumstan-
ces."
Of necessity, historians who have tried
to explain the content of
abolitionism have studied the movement's
factions, but frequently they
have utilized categories of limited
usefulness. For instance, dividing
abolitionists primarily according to
their participation in electoral politics
obscures the fact that all abolitionists
were political insofar as they worked
and hoped to change public policy about
slavery; more importantly, the
"political" and
"non-political" typology implies a clear division in goals and
motivation between Garrisonian
"moral suasionists" and those men who
Douglas A. Gamble is Research Associate
in the Department of History at the University of
Tennessee, Knoxville, and works for The
Highlander Research and Education Center in New
Market, Tennessee. He thanks Merton
Dillon, Janet Gamble, Gary Reichard, Andy Rotter.
and Joanne Meyerowitz for their help
with this article.
I. See especially l ewis Perry, Radical
Abolitionism: Anarchy' and the Government of God
in Ani.sla'verv Thought (Ithaca,
1973) and Ronald Walters, The Antislavery Appeal:
A /merican A holitioni.sn A/ler 1830 (Baltimore, 1976).
2. Walters argues that "there is
little meaningful left to say" about antislavery diversity;
Walters. Anli.slaverv Appeal, 188.
3. Kraditor, "American Radical
Historians on their Heritage," Past and Present, 56(Aug.
1972). 146.
38 OHIO HISTORY
participated in electoral politics in
more traditional fashion by voting and
competing for and holding public office.4
Such implications are misleading.
Recently several historians have
emphasized the common assumption
among abolitionists that their entire
movement was fundamentally politi-
cal and noted that moral suasionists and
antislavery politicians often
cooperated with each other and shared
important perceptions.5 James
Brewer Stewart in particular has
described the functional relationships
between Garrisonians and the "arena
of sectional politics" and urged
historians to take seriously the
Garrisonians' development of the "worldly
political properties"
characteristic of modern public pressure groups.6
This case study is in part a response to
Stewart's challenge to understand
"this complicated matter" of
antislavery political agitation by looking
simultaneously "to the world of
ideas, to the circumstances of culture, and
the sequence of narrative
politics."' It explores the institutional, cultural,
and ideological components of and
restraints on the struggle against
slavery in the United States by
analyzing the specific tactics and motiva-
tions of part of the antislavery
movement in Ohio after 1840.
The focus on Ohio is based on several
considerations. The abolitionists
there were numerous, well-organized, and
vocal. and they represented
most points along the antislavery
spectrum. More importantly, the close
working relationships between
Congressman Joshua Reed Giddings and
the state's active Garrisonians, and
between Giddings and other, more
moderate, antislavery politicians like
Salmon P. Chase, afford an
instructive example of the abolitionist's
various, but still functionally
political, efforts to end Negro
servitude.
By focusing on Giddings' relationship
with other Ohio abolitionists, this
paper examines part of the content of
the abolition movement and explores
specifically how and why its
participants devised their various political
strategies. In so doing, it argues that
to understand the dynamics of
abolitionism, we must appreciate the
Garrisonians' complex but generally
4. lane H. Pease and William }1.
Pease, Bound With Them7 in Chains: A Biographical
History oftlhe Antis/avers l Movement (Westport.
Conn.. 1972). 234-35: Frederick.I. Blue, The
Fl'ee .Silers: Third
Party Politics, 1848-1854 (lrbana.
1973), 2: Dwight l.owell Dumond,
Antislavery: The Crusade for
Freedom in America (New York. 1966).
298-304; James M.
McPhcrson. 7he .4holitionist Legacy: Fromn Reconstruction to the
NAACP (Princeton.
1975).4-5.
5. Bertram Wyatt-Brown. Lex'is. Tappan and lte Evangelical War Against Slavery (New
York, 1971). 269-71: Walters, Anti.slaver .4/ppeal. 15-16; Perry,
Radical Aholitionisml pp.
158-59; Merton I.. Dillon, The Aholitionists: The Growth /ofa )issenting Minoritl (DeKalb.
111.. 1974). 146-47.
6. Stewart. Holy Warriors: The Aholitionists and American
Slavery (New York, 1976).
107. and "Politics and Belief in
Abolitionism: Stanley Elkins' Concept ofAntiinstitutionalism
and Recent Interpretations of American
Antislavery." South Atlantis Quarter/l. 75 (Winter
1976). 95-96.
7. Stewart, "Politics and
Belief," 96.
Joshua Giddings 39
consistent relationship with electoral
politics. To do otherwise is to leave
intact the erroneous notion that they
were irrelevant visionaries.
Joshua Giddings played an important role
in the abolitionist movement,
both in Ohio and throughout the North.
Fundamentally a lawyer and a
politician, he nontheless was a bold and
outspoken figure who abhorred
temporizing and compromises of
principle. Thus operating from near the
middle of the antislavery spectrum,
Giddings vigorously championed the
cause of the slave; in so doing, he
became a conscious agent for the
radicalization of antislavery politics.
Although he worked within tradition-
al political institutions and cooperated
with his Congressional and political
colleagues, he also maintained a long
and close relationship with the most
unyielding of the Garrisonians. Through
their effect upon Giddings and his
effect upon his colleagues and
constituency, the Garrisonians extended
their "moral suasion" directly
into the very political institutions which they
personally avoided and condemned. This
was as they intended, for as Lydia
Maria Child, an important Garrisonian.
put it, "By adhering closely to
moral influences, we work through [political]
parties, not with them. They
do our work; we do not theirs."8
Giddings shared much with both the
politicians and the moral suasion-
ists.9 Like Salmon P. Chase
and most politicians who opposed slavery or its
expansion, he believed that the United
States Constitution was basically
antislavery and that it had been
perverted since 1789 by the efforts of the
"slave power."'O This
belief was natural for a lawyer and a politician, for
Giddings had spent all of his adult life
involved in electoral politics and
judicial argument. He intended to work
from within a political party
and Congress to persuade his colleagues,
and their constituents, to combat
the slave power and retrieve the nation
from its corrupting grasp." Like
other politicians, Giddings felt
constrained by his desire to remain in office,
but since his district in Ohio's Western
Reserve was staunchly antislavery,
and since he did not contend seriously
for state or national office, these
8. l.iherator, Aug.. 5, 1842.
9. Giddings' modern biographer brieflly
discusses the Congressman's relationship with
eastern Garrisonians and the Latter's
attitude toward antislavery politicians, but he
does not treat Giddings' close
association with the Garrisonians in Ohio; James Brewer
Stewart, Joshua R. Gitdings andl the Tactics f' Radical Politics (Cleveland. 1970), esp. 254-
56, and Stewart, "The Aims and
Impact of Garrisonian Abolitionism, 1840-1860." Civil War
Hi.sorv, 15 (Sept. 1969). A good short discussion of Giddings is
Pease and Pease, Bound With
Them, ch. I I; see esp. 273-75 on Giddings and the radicals.
10. For a discussion of this
"moderate constitutional" antislavery position, see William M.
Wiecek, The Sources of Anti.slaverv
Constitutionalism in A merica, 1760-1848 (thaca, 1977),
203-27: see esp. 209, n. 23 for Giddings
and Chase. For the concept of the "slave power," see
larry Gara, "Slavery and the Slave
Power: A Crucial Distinction," Civil War History, 15
(March 1969). 5-18.
I I. Pease and Pease, Bound With
Them. 256 and George W. Julian, The Lif of'Joshua R.
Gilclings (Chicago, 1892), 41 1.
40 OHIO HISTORY
practical considerations only
occasionally handicapped his work. He was
as free as any politician to speak and
vote his antislavery conscience, but
partly because he opposed not just
slavery but slavery's ill effects upon
white society,12 he skillfully maintained his credibility with northern
politicians who were much more
conservative and timid than he.
Giddings also shared a great deal with
the Garrisonians. Like them, he
was committed to the "moral
suasion" of the public, of his political party
(Whig), and of Congress-committed, that
is, to persuading others
through word and deed that they were in
complicity with slavery as long as
the federal government in any way
sanctioned the institution. He was
motivated by a strong sense of the
sinfulness of slaveholding and of the
obligation of regenerate Christians to
work against that and all sins. With
the Garrisonians, Giddings also came to
believe that society could be
perfected by the work of the men and
women living within it.
Other successful antislavery politicians
agreed with some of these
perceptions, but none was as energetic
or consistently successful as
Giddings in influencing party policy and
public debate. What even more
clearly distinguished Giddings was that
he shared his favorite daughter
with the Garrisonian group. Iura Maria
Giddings was a committed
Garrisonian who had a radicalizing
influence upon her father's reform
ideas. More importantly, Congressman
Giddings' close association with
Maria's radical colleagues
simultaneously allowed them to work with and
through him to influence a wider public
and gave Giddings contact with
articulate radicals whom he respected
and trusted.
Giddings and the Garrisonians initially
disagreed about several impor-
tant matters. Believing that the
Constitution was thoroughly pro-slavery,
the latter refused to support any
political party which pledged to uphold
it.'1 Neither interested in their own electoral success nor
bound by
professional reverence for the letter of
the law, they refused to work for
abolition from within the political system. Their objective was his-to
convince people to abolish slavery-but
they had no compelling reason to
cooperate with most individual
politicians or with the institutions in which
they worked. In short, they did not
think, as Giddings did, that politics
under the United States Constitution
could ever be a moral enterprise.
On the other hand, Giddings believed
that he could help transform
Congress and his party into agents of
morality and abolition. He made
concessions which the Garrisonians
abhorred in order to maintain what he
saw as his professional and moral
credibility. In so doing, he linked radical
abolitionism to the political process
and offered the Garrisonians an
12. Pease and Pease, Bound With
Them. 250.
13. Wiecek, Sources, 22848;
Aileen S. Kraditor, Means and Ends in American
Abolitioniosm. Garrison and his
Critic.s on Srategy and Tactics(New
York. 1967). 196-202.
Joshua Giddings 41 |
|
effective method to influence public policy from outside established chan- nels.14 The early 1840s were a transitional period both for the Ohio Garrison- ians and for Giddings. They were trying to distinguish themselves from the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society; he was solidifying his reputation as one of the most outspoken opponents of the "slave power" in the Congress. Giddings assured his notoriety when in March 1842 the House of Representatives formally censured him for violating its "gag rule" against discussing slavery. He immediately resigned his seat and stood for reelection, winning overwhelmingly. When he returned to Washington, Giddings was more committed than ever to open antislavery agitation within Congress.5 Eastern Garrisonians openly praised Giddings and advocated his reelec- tion.16 They appreciated his courage, but more importantly they shared his opposition to the Liberty party. Both hoped to convert people through moral argument, believing that the converted then would improve the institutions with which they were associated. Giddings thought the Liberty party too small to be effective, so he remained a Whig in hopes of having a greater impact. The eastern Garrisonians had other objections to the
14. Stewart, "Aims and Impact," 209. 15. Wiecek, Sources, 213-16; Stewart, Giddings, 70-78. 16. Liberator, May 6. 1842. |
42 OHIO HISTORY
Libertymen, but they shared with
Giddings the belief that a party with so
narrow a base could not influence public
opinion. Several leading Ohio
Libertymen agreed; this was especially
true of Salmon P. Chase and
Gamaliel Bailey, who were working to
broaden the party's electoral appeal
by moderating its abolitionist image. 1
Westerners who accepted William Lloyd
Garrison's emphasis on moral
suasion and opposition to electoral
politics were in 1842 deeply involved in
trying to halt the drift of the Ohio
Anti-Slavery Society toward open
Liberty party activity. Convinced that
the task was hopeless, they withdrew
from the OAS in June and formed the Ohio
American Anti-Slavery
Society (OAAS) as an affiliate of the
Garrisonian American Anti-Slavery
Society.'" Thus free of
the influence of the state's Liberty party abolition-
ists, the OAAS began to establish itself
as an independent voice of moral
suasion. As such, it commended Giddings'
defiance of the slave power and
his reelection in 1842,'9 and
soon the OAAS and Giddings began to work
together in opposition to the Liberty
party and on behalf of the goals
and beliefs they shared.
In hopes of encouraging the OAAS,
eastern Garrisonians sponsored a
lecture tour of Ohio and Indiana by
several prominent eastern moral
suasionists in the fall of 1843.
Giddings played host and directed their tour
of his district. The following year the
American Anti-Slavery Society
adopted for its motto 'NO UNION WITH
SLAVEHOLDERS,' and
publicly committed itself to the
doctrine of disunion. The United States
government, the society resolved, was so
corrupted by its complicity with
slavery and especially by the annexation
of Texas, that
secession from [it] is the duty of every
abolitionist, since no one can take office, or
throw a vote for another to hold office,
under the United States Constitution,
without violating his antislavery
principles, and rendering himself an abettor of the
slaveholder in his sins.u2
Giddings also was upset by the
annexation of slaveholding Texas to the
Union, but since he could not easily
renounce a constitution he thought was
antislavery, he did not embrace
disunionism, at least not on the Garrison-
ians' terms.
Unlike most other politicians, however,
Giddings took disunionism
seriously. In February 1844, he told the
Congress that neither the federal
17. Pease and Pease. Bound Wlith Them, 256:
Stewart, Gidclings, 87: K raditor. Means and
-nds, 158-68: Stanley (i. Harrold, Jr., "Forging an
Antislavery Instrument: Gamaliel Bailey
and the Foundation of the Ohio Liberty
Party." The Old Northwest. 2 (Dec. 1976). 371-87.
(Dec. 1976), 371-87.
18. Cincinnati Philanthropist, June
15. 1842.
19. Ihid., Nov. 12. 1842.
20. Sidney H. Gay to William lloyd
Garrison. in Liherwaor. Sept. 8. 1843: .ihberator. May
24, 1844.
Joshua Giddings
43
government nor the northern people
"will . . . be contaminated with
slavery to any extent. We will separate
ourselves from it, and make plain
the line of demarcation between our
people and that institution." He was
content to "leave [slavery] where
the Constitution left it, confined strictly to
the States in which it it exists,"
thus paralleling the position held by the
Garrisonians' in the years after they
embraced disunionism. Somewhat
contradictorily, he conceded that the
Constitution sanctioned and protect-
ed slavery, while insisting that it was
still antislavery in intent. In effect both
he and the Garrisonians hoped to isolate
slavery in the South and increase
its vulnerability by withdrawing all
federal support.21
Although they worked in different
spheres, the Garrisonians and Gid-
dings recognized that they were allies,
and they acted accordingly.
When the leaders of the OAAS in June
1845 brought to Ohio several
experienced eastern Garrisonians,
including the notorious Abby Kelley
and Stephen Symonds Foster, Giddings
opened his home to the disunion-
ists and appeared with them at their
meetings. They asked him to write in
an autograph book kept by the OAAS, and
his private entry, written on the
Fourth of July, reveals how much the
Garrisonians and he shared:
Let no rejoicing be heard today. Let the
doors be closed and our streets deserted.
Let the dirge of sorrow be our only
music. For sixty-nine years as a nation have we
denied the self-evident truth that 'man
is born free.' During that time we have stood
between God and our fellow men and
robbed them of their God given rights to'Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'22
Pressure on Giddings to modify his
antislavery position was intense, and
it came not just from conservatives in
the Whig party and from Libertymen
angry that he was undermining their
critique of the antislavery potential of
the Whigs. It came also from his
Garrisonian allies, who urged him to
"come out" of Congress and
thereby renounce it for its complicity with
slaveholders. Giddings responded openly
to his conservative critics, refus-
ing to abandon positions he held simply
because Garrisonians also held
them:
[The American Anti-Slavery Society]
embraces some of the ablest jurists, the most
devoted patriots, and purest
philanthropists of our nation, and I see no reason to
depart from any doctrine which I have
long entertained and labored for years to
establish, merely for the reason that
such men hold the same principles.
Specifically, he agreed with the
Garrisonians' goal of separating the people
of the free states from the "guilt
and disgrace of sustaining and upholding
slavery." Like the Garrisonians,
Giddings also believed in the reforming
21. Joshua R. Giddings, S/e'(chc.s in Congres.s (Boston. 1853). 68-69. For the similar
implications ot (iarrisonian
disunionism. sec Wiccek, Sources,
239.
22. "An Anti-Slavery Album of
Contributions from Friends of Freedom," Western Anti-
Slavery Society Collection, Library of
Congress.
44 OHIO HISTORY
power of knowledge, asserting that the
churches and political parties were
full of people merely still ignorant of
their connection with slavery. Both he
and the moral suasionists believed that
the promotion of"the truth" could
bring northern sentiment "to stand
against slavery."
But unlike the Garrisonians, Giddings
valued his political connections
with the South for their usefulness in
promoting the abolitionist cause. The
basis for this position was his belief
that the "true use" of the Constitution
would kill slavery by reversing the
South's usurpation of national power.2'
Giddings refused to do the only
additional thing the Garrisonians de-
manded of him resign from Congress-for no other reason than that he
thought his power there was the best
weapon he had in the struggle for the
goals he shared with his Garrisonian
friends.
Some of the Garrisonian hostility toward
the Liberty party resulted from
their belief that many libertymen had
abandoned their early abolitionist
principles. Giddings. on the other hand.
sharpened his positions on slavery
and abolition, and the Garrisonians in
Ohio did not hesitate to nourish that
progress. An editorial in the Salem Anti-Slaveri Bugle, the Ohio Garri-
sonians' new weekly newspaper, praised
Giddings' honesty and boldness
and applauded his contention that the
annexation of Texas would dissolve
the Union and let the North form a new
one free of slavery. At the same
time, however, the Bugle perceptively
suggested that Giddings was
constrained by his institutional
affiliation with a political party and a
church that sanctioned slaveholders, and
it urged him to renounce his
connections and thereby "wash in
the Jordan of Dissolution."24 Within a
few months, Giddings' daughter wrote him
of her affiliation with the Ohio
Garrisonians and admitted that she
agreed with the most important
resolution which the OAAS had adopted at
its anniversary meeting in
July:
The Federal Union, based on the United
States Constitution, is "the great bulwark
of slavery," involving the North
equally with the South in the guilt of slaveholding;
and that it is the duty of every true
friend of humanity, to give it no sanction or
allegiance, but adopting the motto of
'no union with slaveholders,' to use every
effort to bring about a peaceful
dissolution of the union .. ..
The question of disunion dominated the
relationship between Giddings
and the Garrisonians for the next three
years. The Mexican War kept the
issue of Northern complicity with
slavery very much alive, while each
faction of the antislavery movement
wrestled with its collective conscience
over how to combat the dominance of the
"slave power" over the machin-
23. Joshua R. (Giddings
to editor. Ohio Rpubhlican & 1hig, in Liberator. Oct. 10. 1845.
24. Salem Anoi-Sla/ver Bugle. Oct. 17, 1845.
25. L.. Maria Giddings to Joshua R.
Giddings, Feb. 5. 1846. George Julian-Joshua
(iddings Papers.
.ibrar of Congress: ; . lti-Slaverl Bugle,, June 20.
1845.
Joshua Giddings
45
cry of national government.'' Eastern
Garrisonians generally withheld or
muted their criticism of Giddings'
presence in Congress, although Garri-
son's liberalor did chide him for
seemingly forgetting his own contention
that the annexation of Texas would
remove Northerners' obligation to
honor the U nion. Ohio Garrisonians,
however, operating after 1846 as the
Western Anti-Slavery Society,
simultaneously hammered away at Gid-
dings in the Bugle and invited
him to several of their important abolition
rallies. Meanwhile, Maria continued to
explain disunionism to her
sympathetic but unconvinced father.27
Congressman Giddings took his criticism
from the disunionists more
easily than he did that from his
conservative Congressional and party allies.
He was beginning to see that the Whigs
were at least as unyielding in
opposition to abolitionism as they had
been when many of them had voted
his censure, and he knew that Democrats
were correct in accusing him of
conniving with the Garrisonians. He
regretfully declined an invitation from
the WAS to attend its anniversary
meeting in the summer of 1846, but he
assured them that he did not
"regard the difference of opinion between us as
to the mode of affecting the great
object which we all have in view, as in any
respect detracting from the interest I
should feel in your meeting."28
Although Giddings warmly embraced the
Garrisonians, the Bugle accused
him of "submitting to the yoke of
tyranny" by remaining in Congress and
recognizing the annexation of Texas. It
even wished for his defeat for
reelection in 1846.29
The Bugle repeated this criticism
six months later, and in August of 1847
registered a different complaint about
Giddings' reverence for the govern-
ment. Part of the Garrisonians' evidence
that the Constitution was pro-
slavery was that it gave the federal
government power to suppress slave
rebellions. Giddings, challenged by the
Garrisonians, argued that the
Constitution obligated the federal
government to suppress violence against
all legally constituted governments in
the United States. However, Gid-
dings argued, since that provision did not
specifically require the suppres-
sion of slave revolts, it was not
evidence of the pro-slavery nature of the
Constitution. He further contended,
according to the Bugle, that it was the
"duty" of the United States
Army "to shoot down any man who may be
found in arms against the
Government." The Bugle rejected all of this by
arguing that Giddings himself would have
to admit that, since rebelling
against slavery was domestic violence
against the laws of Virginia, the
26. Dillon.
Aholitionists. 160-65.
27. Liberator, n.d., in Anti-Slavery
Bugle. Jan. 1,
1847; Anti-Slavery Bugle. July 10, 17.
and Sept, 18, 1846, and April 9, 1847;
L. Maria Giddings to Joshua R. Giddings. Dec. 19,
1848. Julian-Giddings Papers.
28. Joshua Giddings to James Barnaby,
June6, 1846, in Anti-Slavery Bugle, July 10, 1846.
29. Ihil., July 17
and Sept.. 18. 1846.
46 OHo1 HISTORY
Constitution required the national
government to suppress slave insurrec-
tions, and that therefore the
Constitution was pro-slavery. The Bugle also
reminded Giddings again of his
contention that the annexation of Texas
freed him of the need to remain loyal to
the Union and urged him to
renounce his loyalty to it. But that
same month Giddings accepted an
invitation to attend the Fifth Annual
Meeting of the Western Anti-Slavery
Society, and the Bugle reported
happily that Giddings had defended his
positions well and had praised William
Lloyd Garrison and Frederick
Douglass, with whom he shared the
platform.30
Meanwhile, Giddings' rebellion against
the leadership of his party
reached a climax. He publicly opposed
the Mexican War and voted against
Robert Winthrop. a Massachusetts
"War Whig," for Speaker of the House
of Representatives. He also tried to get
the Congress to consider abolishing
the slave trade in the District of
Columbia. The Bugle was pleased,3' but
perhaps unknown to the WAS, Giddings was
about to give up his
longstanding hope that the Whig party
could be transformed to oppose the
expansion of slavery. The party's
nomination in June 1848 of Mexican War
hero and Louisiana slaveholder Zachery
Taylor was more than the
frustrated Giddings could sanction, and
he quicklyjoined his old abolition-
ist enemies from the disintegrating
Liberty party as they formed the
antislavery core of the new Free Soil
group. Giddings still believed political
parties could stand for principle, but
he no longer thought the Whigs could.
His abandonment of the Whigs must have
been facilitated by the death
early in 1848 of his dearest friend and
respected antislavery colleague John
Quincy Adams, for with Adams gone
Giddings was essentially alone in
opposition to the party's leadership.
And unlike the "one issue" Liberty
party, Free Soilism appeared to be based
broadly enough to give it
potential for the electoral strength
Giddings wanted his party to command.
Historians disagree about the extent to
which the Free Soil party was
antislavery, but there is no doubt that
Giddings' conversion from Whiggery
brought to the new party an established,
experienced, and respected
advocate of the potential moral power of
electoral politics. Because he had
forfeited leadership of the Free Soil
movement in Ohio to Salmon Chase by
his tenacious faith in the Whigs, Giddings
launched his first important
public advocacy of Free Soilism in
Massachusetts. Late in June 1848, he
led the initial rallies there for the
new party and discovered that his
leadership of the "Conscience
Whigs" in Congress had made him quite
popular in Winthrop's home state. By
fall, he was back in Ohio leading
Free Soil meetings not only in his
district but also in Salem, headquarters
of the Western Anti-Slavery Society. The
Bugle complained that voting
30. Ibid., April 9 and Aug., 6.
27, 1847.
31. Ibid., Jan. II1 Feb. 4. March
31, May 26, 1847.
Joshua Giddings
47
Free Soil sanctioned slavery where it
existed, but the editor was pleased by
Giddings' renunciation of the Whigs. The
Garrisonians and Giddings both
knew that he was becoming more committed
to antislavery and that his
break with the Whigs was a step toward
disassociating himself completely
from slavery.32
The Bugle's response typified the
Garrisonian position on the Free Soil
party. They condemned it, as they had
the Liberty party, for its supposed
compromises with slavery and
slaveholding, but they also claimed credit
for preparing the way for the growing
antislavery movement the party
represented. And they were especially
proud several years later when
Giddings led a movement to radicalize
Free Soilism.33
Giddings and the Garrisonians knew they
were engaged in a common
enterprise the triumph of which depended
on the widespread success of
"moral suasion" among the
Northern people. Giddings excused the
disunionists as people who had tried but
failed to "arrive at the real abstract
principle involved," and explained
away Maria's acceptance of disunion-
ism by assuming she just had not fully
examined the arguments for and
against it. The Bugle, in turn,
continued to praise and publicize Giddings'
antislavery work in Congress, especially
his vigorous opposition to the
Fugitive Slave Law passed as part of the
Compromise of 1850.34
Indeed, the Fugitive Slave Law brought
Giddings and the WAS closer
together, for it helped him see slavery
as an issue of moral, not constitution-
al, law. One reason for joining the Free
Soil party was that he hoped to
contribute to the antislavery conversion
of the electorate through a
political party with moral power and
credibility.35 By the time he had
realized that the Whig party could not
be such an institution, he also had
discovered that his constitutional
arguments could not effectively challenge
the slave power. The Whig complicity in
the passage of the Fugitive Slave
Law not only confirmed his fears about
the party; it also indicated how
weak legal objections had become in the
face of the South's political and
economic power. And as he was learning
those painful lessons, he was
undergoing a steady conversion to the
same doctrines of religious radical-
ism and perfectionism that motivated his
daughter and her colleagues in
the WAS. It is not possible to prove
that his conversion was largely the
result of his continual connections with
the Garrisonians, but it certainly
seems likely.
32. Stewart, Girclings, pp.
154-57; Anti-Slaverv Bugle, Nov.
10, 1848: Pease and Pease,
Boundl With Them. 262.
33. Oliver Johnson.
William Llovyd
Garrison 0ad His Times (Boston. 1880). 306-09: Amni-
Slavery Bugle, Aug., 28, 1852.
34. Joshua R. Giddings to 1I.
Maria Giddings. Dec.. 19, 1848. Julian-Giddings
Papers:
Anli-Slaverv
Bugle. Jan., 19 and March 9.
1849, and March 30, April 13,June6,andOct.. 12,
1850.
35. Pease and Pease, Bound Wiihl Them. 264-65;
Stewart. Girlclings. 177.
48
OHIO HISTORY
Giddings had other
things on his mind as well. Foremost was his
leadership of the Free
Soilers in Congress as they struggled against the men
who advocated the
expansion of slavery into the territories seized from
Mexico. He also
battled those men in his new party who were anxious to
fuse it with the
Democrats. Fellow Ohioan Salmon P. Chase was his chief
opponent in this
regard, and their disagreements are instructive: Giddings
seemed to agree with
the Garrisonians that Chase personified the risks
involved in
antislavery politics.36 Chase and Giddings had agreed early in
the 1840s that slavery
was exclusively a local institution which the federal
government was
constitutionally powerless to abolish.3 Although Chase
was then a Libertyman
and Giddings a Whig, both wanted to broaden their
respective parties to
win electorial success in order to move the national
government toward a
more active antislavery orientation. Thus Giddings
remained with the
Whigs while Chase helped broaden the Liberty party so
that it logically
became the germ of Free Soilism.
By mid-century,
however, Chase and Giddings were moving along
different paths. In
1849 Chase proudly assured New York abolitionist
Gerrit Smith that his
position on slavery remained "unchanged" since 1841,
and that the
antislavery pieces he wrote then were in "exact agreement in
purport and expression
with my most recently published views." Chase
was committed to
abolishing slavery by confining it to the South. To do
so he sought to make
use of the authority of the federal government, and he
wanted to put power
into the hands of men. like himself, who would wield it
against slavery. Hence Chase saw no
contradiction between his in-
tensely personal ambition and his antislavery
politics and he focused his
rhetoric less on the sinfullness of
slavery and of supporting it--less, that is,
on the moral wrong of the institution, than
on political and constitutional
objections to it.38
His goal remained during the 1850s essentially as it
had
been in 1849 and in 1842:
building and leading a successful antislavery
political party with
which to change public policy.
Giiddings, on the
other hand, began to alter his beliefs about his role in
the antislavery
movement, and in so doing moved even closer to the
Garrisonians. He never
abandoned his conviction that the Constitution
was an antislavery
document, but during the 1850~s he became a perfection-
36. Stewart, Gililinixi.
200(.
37. Salmon P. Chase to
Joshua R. Giddings. Feb. 15. [*?]. 1842 and Feb. 9, 1843. Julian-
Cliddings Papers.
38(. Wiccek. Sourtes.
21 S-19: Salmon P. Chase to Gerritt Smith, Uov., 13. 1S49. in Robert
B ruce Wa rd en, A
n A ecoilrl ol'the Private~ l.ifeacndl Puhlic Serv~ices of
Salm~on Porrtland Chusr~e
(C:incinnati, 1874).
32.5: Albert Bushncll Hart. Salmon Porr~llul Chase (Boston. 1899).
72:
Hric thoner, Free
So~il. liree~
Ixihur. F-~rree
Men·: T`he Ide~olog~y o/,lle Repluhlicanl~ PaNv. He/OIlr
ther Civil
Ww,·(l.ond on. 19'70),1.
Joshua Giddings
49
ist, a spiritualist, and a religious
radical. Unlike Chase, he refused to
carefully distinguish political
opposition to the extension of slavery and the
moral reform of all of Northern society.
He continued to work closely with
Chase and other antislavery politicians
in opposition to pro-slavery
legislation like the Fugitive Slave Law
and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, but
after 1850 Giddings turned away from the
limited constitutional campaign
against the expansion of slavery to
emphasize the moral requirements of
God's "higher law." For
example, he vigorously condemned the Fugitive
Slave Law in terms which emphasized that
the law made Northern citizens,
and not just the Congress, responsible
for supporting slavery. "There is no
lower depth of degradation to which
Congress can consign the people of
the free states." he wrote to his
constituents, and he hurled himself into a
lengthy series of speeches and meetings
against the law.39
The Western Anti-Slavery Society
likewise seized upon the enormous
propaganda opportunity inherent in the
enforcement of the new legislation
in the North. Oliver Johnson, Garrison's
friend who had edited the Bugle
since 1848, predicted that antislavery
agitation would "receive a mighty
impulse from this diabolical law and wax
fiercer and fiercer until the great
body of the Northern people shall stand
forth in deadly array against the
crowning villainy of the age."4"
A successful antislavery meeting in
April 1851 revealed the extent to
which Giddings and the Garrisonians by
then clearly understood the nature
of their mutually supportive
relationship. The Bugle's announcement of
the Salem, Ohio meeting urged its
readers to come and hear "the Slave's
champion," while Oliver Johnson's
letter welcoming Giddings confiden-
tially asserted ". . that some of
us differ from you on Constitutional
questions, but that difference of
opinion does not diminish our admiration
for your course in Congress."4'
Giddings did not disappoint his several
hundred listeners and they adopted
resolutions praising his work and
proclaimed that both moral suasion and the
ballot could purify the corrupt
Congress. Moreover, they adopted as the
"sense of the meeting" a stanza of
a song which former Bugle editor
Benjamin Smith Jones had written for
the occasion:
Yet if our Southern neighbor
Shall follow here the track
Of fugitives from labor,
WE WILL NOT GIVE THEM BACK;
39. Pease and Pease, Bound With Them,
264; Anti-Slavery Bugle, Oct. 12, 1850.
40. Anti-Slavery Bugle, Sept. 28,
1850.
41. Oliver Johnson to Joshua R.
Giddings, March 22, 1851, Joshua R. Giddings Papers,
Ohio Historical Society, Columbus.
50 OHIO HISTORY
No laws of Congress ever
Shall blood hounds make of us,
For we shall barter never
Man's rights for slavery's curse.4'
Giddings' address to the gathering was a
vigorous condemnation of
northern Whig and Democratic Congressmen
for their part in passing the
Fugitive Slave law. His sentiments were
similar to those elsewhere
expressed by Chase, but Giddings openly
allied himself with Garrisonian
abolitionists whom more
"realistic" men with state and national political
ambitions sought to avoid and condemn.
Not only did he appear at their
meetings, he also relied upon them for
advice in the publication and
distribution of his antislavery
speeches.43 Although Giddings and most
Garrisonians still disagreed about
whether the union had ever been a moral
institution, by 1851 both he and they
recognized the pressing need for
radicalism in thought and action.44
Giddings' growing identification with
abolitionists who looked to the
individual conscience for the perfection
of people and their institutions
coincided with the Congressman's own
religious conversion. He had
always been religious, and his
opposition to slavery was in large part a
function of his conviction that
slaveholding was a sin, but early in the 1 850s
Gidding abandoned orthodoxy in favor of
the informal theology Garrison
and many of his co-workers had adopted a
decade and a half earlier.
Shunning dogma, sectarianism, and formal
theology, these Christians
stressed the social implications of the
Golden Rule and the responsibility of
regenerate Christians to work to hasten
God's plan for the perfection of
humanity. Disillusioned with the weak
antislavery stand of most churches,
Giddings became especially enamored of
some radical Quakers' indiffer-
ence to religious ritual and with their
emphasis on "doing good."5
Giddings developed his own version of
non-resistance-the idea that
people should not coerce others so that
it allowed for the defense of human
rights. He wrote to his friend and
future son-in-law George W. Julian that
"those who kill tyrants and negroe
[sic] catchers do God's will, and man's
duty," and he claimed many western
Quakers agreed with him. He also
became an active spiritualist and urged
his Garrisonian daughter to take
seriously his belief that
42. Anti-Slavery Bugle. April 26,
1851.
43. Reinhard H. Luthin. "Salmon P.
Chase's Political Career Before the Civil War."
Mississippi Valley Historical Review,
29(March, 1943). 520-27; Abby Kelley
Foster to Joshua
R. Giddings.
May ['] 1851. Julian-Giddings Papers.
44. Pease and Pease.
Bound With Them. ch. 9.
45. Stcwart. (iih/liings, pp.
210-1 : Gidditouranniddings aura nniddings. Ma 16,
1852. ulian-
(Giddings Papers: Giddings to Oliecr Johnson. August 2. 1851.
Giddings Iapers.
Joshua Giddings
51
The men and women who fear to enter upon
the great work of progress do not
realize that the highest enjoyment of
which the human mind is capable consists in
the expansion of our thoughts, our
intellects, our moral being. In reaching forward
to the future, in looking into the
spirit land [to?] bring heaven to us, . . . we rise as
far above the low grovelling
superstitions of the past as heaven is above earth.46
Maria remained skeptical of her father's
"spirit land," but she and her
abolitionist colleagues openly welcomed
his renewed commitment to
radical antislavery work in the
Congress. In turn Giddings sought an
opportunity to meet with Garrison in
Boston and speak there to an
abolitionist audience. "Our
prospects in Ohio are most flattering," he wrote
to Garrison, "and while you do not
enter into our feelings fully, I know you
rejoice at every advance of the popular
feeling in regard to freedom."47
For the next several years, Giddings
worked with considerable satisfac-
tion to advance the commitment of the
Congress to freedom, consciously
leaving to the Garrisonians and other
abolitionists outside the legislature
primary responsibility for bringing
"to public attention the need for
reform" and for Christianizing the
government. He assumed leadership of
the Congressmen who worked to strengthen
the government's commitment
to antislavery measures and proudly
shouldered what he felt was his
personal responsibility to radicalize
the Republican party, regardless of the
difficulties it created for his personal
political career.4i
Giddings maintained the same hopes for
Republicanism that he had
harbored for the Whigs and the Free
Soilers: that the Republican party
could make the federal government more
antislavery. Thus he tolerated the
party's excessively moderate policies in
the hope that he could change
them. H is responses to the sectional
violence that flared in 1856 illustrates
well this political perspective.
Giddings was a friend and antislavery
colleague of Senator Charles Sumner, but
the address he offered in
response to Congressman Preston Brooks'
vicious attack on the Massachu-
setts Senator kept a calm and reasoned
tone despite his private rage.
Likewise he quickly squelched his son
Grotius' plan to go to Kansas with a
rifle to help the free soilers there
fight the pro-slavery immigrants. As
biographer James Stewart points out,
Giddings still hoped for a United
States "governed by Christian
charity and divine law," despite the violence
of the 850s that posed a serious
challenge to these hopes.49
46. Giddings to Julian. Feh. 21. March
2. 1852: Giddings to 1. Maria Giddings. Icb. 3.
1855. and Feb. 5. 8I54.
(iddings-.lulian Papers.
47. A.ni-Sla\'cr\
Buiigl. March 26 and
Dec. 10, 1853: Liherator, Aug.
2. 1852: Giddings to
Garrison. Sept. I. 1855. William l.loyd Garrison Papers. Boston Public
l.ibrar!. For the trip
itself, see Giddings to 1.. Maria
Giddings. Nov. 7. 1855. Julian-Giddings Papers.
48. iiddings to Garrison, April 27.
1858, Garrison Papers; Giddings to .I. Maria Giddings.
D)ec. 15. 855. to (G orge.lulian. lune 24. 1856, toGamaliel Bailey, Nov. I
I. 1855.all in.lulian-
Giddings Papers.
49. Stewart. (;illiin\:. 238-39.
52 OHIO HISTORY
That violence also infuriated the
Garrisonians. but their response was
not constrained, as Giddings' was, by
the belief that the Republican party
and the Congress were so necessary to
abolitionism that they had to be
preserved at the cost of moral
principle. The reaction of Abra.m Brooke,
president of the Western Anti-Slavery
Society, was extreme, even for a
Garrisonian. but it was symptomatic of
the freedom the moral suasionists
felt to reject compromises Giddings
thought necessary to maintain his
influence. Of Sumner, Brooke wrote:
"He is reaping the inevitable
consequences of his own acts, in the
ill-mannered company he has
voluntarily sought." Brooke
expressed similar contempt for the people of
Kansas who remained in good standing in
the Republican party while
opposing the immigration of blacks into
that territory." Giddings, of
course, had sought the same company as
had Sumner, and both were
Republicans, but Marius Robinson, who
had followed Oliver Johnson as
the editor of the Bugle, and
Brooke spared Giddings a similar damnation.
Perhaps they understood that he was
becoming radicalized by the same
rush of events that they abhorred.
I n December. 1856. for instance.
Giddings listened with consternation as
his fellow Ohio Republican Congressman
John Sherman linked him with
the Garrisonians as two kinds of
antislavery men with which the Republi-
can party had little in common. Sherman
was essentially correct, but
Giddings did not enjoy being read out of
the party he thought he had helped
create. His response therefore was to
try to change the attitude of the
Republicans, a task made increasingly
difficult as the party sought to
broaden its base in preparation for the
1860 campaign."
When it became clear that his Republican
colleagues were hostile to his
contention that their party stood
clearly for a union dedicated to moral and
religious principle, Giddings turned to
Salmon P. Chase with a proposal
for a national Republican convention to
reaffirm his interpretation. But
Chase, anxious for the party's
presidential nomination, would not
cooperate.2 Unlike Giddings or the
Garrisonians, Chase looked not to the
people but to the machinery of politics
for the ultimate human source of
public policy. Thus rejected by a man
who was himself too closely identified
with abolitionism to be nominated for
President. Giddings temporarily lost
his optimism when he fell ill in 1857.
At home to rest and recover, he received
new expressions of thanks for
his antislavery work. Among the most
supportive was a letter from
Giddings' Garrisonian friend Henry C.
Wright, who spoke for himself,
Garrison, Parker Pillsbury, and Oliver.
ohnson: "of all politicians, you are
50. Brooke to Marius Robinson, June 24.
1856, in .A4,tii-Slvcr Bugle., Jul\ 5. 1856.
51. Stewart, Gildin7gs., 248.
52.
hiil., p. 250.
Joshua Giddings
53
the most consecrated & respected in
the hearts of those who have been tried
in the moral conflict with
oppression."' The praise came to a man in the
midst of a final renunciation of
religious orthodoxy, and it was then that
Giddings decided to stop resisting the
Garrisonian pressure to embrace
perfectionism. No longer intending to
remain in Congress, he was then
constrained from actually joining the Garrisonians
only by his desire to
retain political credibility within his
party. His health regained, Giddings
reentered the fray with renewed vigor.
If he retained doubts about his harsh
analysis of the morality of the
government, they surely were removed by
the Supreme Court's decision in
Dred Scoti v. San/fird.
The decision effectively invalidated
all abolitionist
efforts to use the power of the federal
government to stop the spread of
slavery, and Giddings reacted quickly
and vigorously by calling on
Northerners openly to defy the ruling.
He focused his criticism especially
on Chief Justice Roger Taney's exclusion
of all Negroes from the guaran-
tees of the Constitution and the
Declaration of Independence, and he
argued that the government was no longer
a "Christian democracy" but in-
stead a "tyrannous [sic] oligarchy
unsuited to the age."'"
Garrisonians had never been as generous
as Giddings about the inten-
tions and works of the Founding Fathers,
but they had been making his
new argument for years. The Bugle proudly
printed four articles he wrote in
reaction to the Dred Scott decision at
the same time they appeared in his
hometown paper,55 so it is
probable that Giddings sent the pieces to his
Garrisonian friends so they could convey
his argument to their radical
readers. His goal became defiance of the
government, not its conversion
from within, and as such Giddings had
moved close to the Garrisonian
analysis of how to change public policy.
In August, Giddings invited Oliver
Johnson to attend a "free" religious
meeting at his home. Johnson was a
leader of the Progressive Friends, a
growing movement of Quakers who were
dissatisfied with the institutional
and theological restraints on their reform
activities; Giddings' invitation
again reveals his rejection of religious
orthodoxy. Johnson could not
attend, but he felt free to suggest that
Giddings hold the meeting in
conjunction with a National Disunion
Convention which the Garrisonians
had scheduled for nearby Cleveland.
Although Giddings still could not
accept disunionism, he had clearly
abandoned his hope that slavery could
be ended peacefully. Many advocates of
disunion hoped that separating the
federal government from the South would
allow slave revolts to succeed;
53. Henry C. Wright to Giddings, Feb. 4.
1857, Giddings Papers.
54. Quoted in Stewart. Gidilings, 254.
55. Ashtabula Sentiic l, March 26,
April 2, 9. 16, 1857; Anti-Slavery Bugle. March 28.
April 4, 18, 25. 1857.
54 1110HIO STORY
Giddings wanted the Union maintained,
but in 1857 he was advocating
publicly that Northerners send "powder
and ball, delivered to the slaves to
be used as they may deem
proper."5"
At the same time, he attempted to use
the Ashtabula Sentinels publica-
tion of several letters to him from
Garrisonian Parker Pillsbury again to
commit Republicanism to the ideals of
the Declaration of Independence.
Pillsbury was harshly critical of Republican
moral timidity, and Giddings
responded by personally pledging the
party to a commitment to racial
equality far beyond the party's actual
position. Pillsbury hoped to use
Giddings to put pressure on Republicanism from within,
and in
authorizing publication of Pillsbury's
letters and his responses, Giddings
cooperated. At the same time he
delivered what James Stewart aptly called
a "sermon" to the House urging
that body to devote all its energies to
promoting human freedom.5
Garrisonians could not agree, even among
themselves, about the anti-
slavery potential of the Republican
party, but they did agree that Giddings
had become their best ally in the
crusade to keep that party from
abandoning its antislavery heritage.
Again the Bugle declared its apprecia-
tion for Giddings' role in the politics
of the antislavery movement, while the
Congressman was coming to his friends'
insistence that political parties
themselves exerted a potentially
corrupting influence upon the men who
participated in them.5:
Even though Giddings was finally denied
renomination in large part
because of his radicalism, he continued
a campaign to force the Republican
party to honor what he felt to be its
original commitment to freedom.
Giddings pursued two strategies during
the campaign of 1858: one was to
cooperate with Gerrit Smith in writing
and publishing an exchange of
letters emphasizing the party's
antislavery origins; the other was to
publicly chastize the party's growing
conservative wing.59
In retirement Giddings continued his
work of propaganda on the lyceum
lecture circuit. One of his speeches
advocated obeying only the "Higher
Law of God." and in delivering it
from town to town Giddings carried to
56. Oliver Johnson to (jiddings. Aug.. 8.
1857. Ciddings Papers: Ashtabula Se.5ninel. Sept.
3. 1857.
quoted in Stewart. (jiditingx, 255.
57. Stewart, Gildiniisv. 256-58.
58. Douglas A. Ciamblc, "Garrisonian Abolitionists
in the West: Some Suggestions for
Study." Civil wlatr lirotrl 23 (March
1977). 66-67: Stewart. Gi(l/ing,
259: .4nti-Sk.ler,
Bugle, March 20, 1858, in Giddings'
Scrapbook, Giddings Papers: Giddings to his constitu-
ents, n.d.. in Anti-Slaveri BRulc'. June
26. 1858. For Garrison's appreciation of Giddings, see
Wm. l.lod Garrison to Giddings. April 4.
1858, in Ohio Archaeologictal and Hi\twi(al
Puhliclioli.,, 28 (1919), 40-41.
59. Stewart, Giilti/li,.\, pp 260-61. For the reaction of the Executive Committee
of the
WAS to the Republicans' retusal to renominate
Giddings, see Anri-Slaverl Bugle, Oct. 23
1858.
Joshua Gilddings
55
the people the same crusade he had
mounted in Congress. He also tried to
maintain his political influence while
advocating a moral revolution. After
he had publicly rebuked his fellow
Ohioan Thomas Corwin for urging
people to obey the Fugitive Slave Law,
Giddings wrote to Oliver Johnson:
Poor Tom Corwin. I pity him. He . . .
wants us to obey the fugitive sla\ve
lawt. . . .
Obey the mandate of
despols. That is all they ask. No man will do it who
possesses the spirit of l.iberty and a
courage to speak his own thoughts. I want to
give him another letter, but cannot
without letting down that influence which 1
ought to maintain.6"
Giddings sought to maintain influence on
Republicanism by maintain-
ing communication with party leaders
more conservative than himself, but
he also urged the Garrisonians to
continue their efforts to mobilize public
pressure upon the political apparatus
from without. In the same letter to
Johnson in which he condemned Corwin,
whom he feared might be the
Republican presidential nominee, he
urged the New York abolitionists to
petition Congress "to repeal all
laws which involve the people of the free
states in the guilt & the disgrace
of sustaining slavery." Offering practical
advice on the timing of the petitions,
he insisted that they emphasize that
". . . it has become evident that
if efforts of the federal government to
involve us in the iniquity of the
'peculiar institution' be continued the
Union cannot he maintained."6'
Giddings' opposition to Garrisonian
disunionism was all but ended
for he no longer believed that the South
would voluntarily or peacefully
abandon slavery or that Northerners in
good conscience could continue to
support slavery or prevent the slaves
from seizing their freedom. He was
willing to sacrifice the Union for
freedom, and at the Republican Conven-
tion in 1860 he was also willing to abandon
his party for a matter of
principle. When the convention adopted a
platform which made no
mention of the ideals of the Declaration
of Independence and then rejected
his motion that it do so by affirming
that governments existed to guarantee
people's inalienable rights, Giddings
stalked dramatically from the meet-
ing. The convention thereupon
reconsidered and accepted his amendment,
and Giddings returned to the floor and,
symbolically, to the party.62
Giddings' role at the convention was
good theater and good politics.
Only he could have shamed the convention
into reaffirming the
Republicans' shaky commitment to the
inalienable rights of men; years of
serving as a bridge between radical
abolitionists and politicians had given
him considerable moral influence, which
he knew how to weild when
60. Giddings to Johnson.
Nov. 6. 1859. .lulian-Giddings Papers.
61. See also Giddings to Garrison.
April 27, 1858. Garrison Papers, and Giddings to J.
Miller McKim. Oct.
29, 1859..I. Miller McKim Papers.
Cornell University.
62. Stewart, Gi(itling.s, 272.
56 01110
HISTORY
necessary. Giddings not only helped keep
the antislavery issue a sensitive
one within the electoral system, he also
contributed to the similar efforts of
the Garrisonians to influence public
policy from without. The point is not
so much that Giddings or the
Garrisonians "succeeded," although in many
ways they did, but that the antislavery
movement was a complicated and
complex process which consciously utilized
various strategies and tactics to
combat widespread northern indifference
to slavery.6'
This study alone cannot explain the
dynamics of antislavery politics, but
it does reaffirm the accuracy of James
Brewer Stewart's observation that
the Garrisonians. for all their
antipolitical rhetoric, "realized that realistic
political activity can mean more than
just the building of party structure
and collection of votes."64 Giddings
knew that too, and he used the Gar-
risonians' radical demands to help him
define and elevate the principles
over which the politicians argued. As
Lydia Child had claimed, the
Garrisonians skillfully worked through
politicians and political parties to
inject moral concerns into public
debates over the use of public power.
With Joshua Giddings as their ally, they
sought to force the public to
consider and adopt policies which it
would not have taken seriously
without their agitation. This strategy
was an important and necessary part
of the antislavery movement, for it
prevented the defenders of slavery from
successfully denying their most radical
and persistent opposition a chance
to influence respectable public
discussion.s5
63. An important evaluation of
abolitionist influence is Merton L. Dillon." he Abolition-
ists as a Dissenting Minority." in
Alfred Young, ed., Dissent: Explorations in the Histori' t!
American Radicalism (DeKalb, 1968), 85-108.
64. Stewart, "Aims and Impact."
209: see also his "Politics and Belief," 94-97.
65. A perceptive and important
discussion of the role of radicals in defining the political
agenda is Kraditor, Means and Ends. 28.
DOUGLAS A. GAMBLE
Joshua Giddings
and the Ohio Abolitionists:
a Study in Radical Politics
Much recent scholarship on American
abolitionism emphasizes its role
as part of a general antebellum reform
movement.' Perceptive and valuable
though this work is, its broad focus
necessarily blurs important distinctions
within and among different factions of
abolitionism. In spite of recent
contrary opinion, there is still much to
learn by studying the diversity of
abolitionism. Identifying the "social
and cultural matrix" of reform and
learning "what abolitionists
shared" are significant projects, and Ronald
Walters' recent book handles them well.2
Still, even a clear understanding
of the context of abolitionism does not
satisfy our obligation specifically to
understand its content. As Aileen S.
Kraditor has argued, a full explana-
tion of the historical behavior of
reformers, including the abolitionists,
demands that we refine our understanding
of the "ways in which past
movements devised their strategies and
tactics to meet specific circumstan-
ces."
Of necessity, historians who have tried
to explain the content of
abolitionism have studied the movement's
factions, but frequently they
have utilized categories of limited
usefulness. For instance, dividing
abolitionists primarily according to
their participation in electoral politics
obscures the fact that all abolitionists
were political insofar as they worked
and hoped to change public policy about
slavery; more importantly, the
"political" and
"non-political" typology implies a clear division in goals and
motivation between Garrisonian
"moral suasionists" and those men who
Douglas A. Gamble is Research Associate
in the Department of History at the University of
Tennessee, Knoxville, and works for The
Highlander Research and Education Center in New
Market, Tennessee. He thanks Merton
Dillon, Janet Gamble, Gary Reichard, Andy Rotter.
and Joanne Meyerowitz for their help
with this article.
I. See especially l ewis Perry, Radical
Abolitionism: Anarchy' and the Government of God
in Ani.sla'verv Thought (Ithaca,
1973) and Ronald Walters, The Antislavery Appeal:
A /merican A holitioni.sn A/ler 1830 (Baltimore, 1976).
2. Walters argues that "there is
little meaningful left to say" about antislavery diversity;
Walters. Anli.slaverv Appeal, 188.
3. Kraditor, "American Radical
Historians on their Heritage," Past and Present, 56(Aug.
1972). 146.