By the Force of Truth

The Abolitionist Movement was the first of the great 19th century social movements to challenge the moral foundations of the young American republic. Born of Republican convictions, and nurtured by a deeply-held Christian belief in individual moral responsibility, it compelled the nation to at last confront the existence of millions held in bondage, and began the long arduous struggle for the very soul of the republic - a struggle that would ultimately be decided on the bloody battlefields of America's most costly war. In this authoritative edition, Theodore John Swystun presents some of the most powerful and iconic voices of the Abolitionist Era - appealing from the pulpit, the lectern, the graveside, and the dock - in words that moved a nation by "the force of truth" and summoned forth that "inward voice" demanding nothing less than justice, equality, and freedom for all. Thirty-three seminal works by such Abolitionists as Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Charles Beecher, Nathaniel Hall, Theodore Parker, James R. W. Sloane, Angelina Emily Grimk , William Ellery Channing, and Wendell Phillips, among others, are meticulously reproduced in this volume. Swystun's scholarly commentary and many hundreds of detailed annotations and citations provide context and insight into the existential struggle that would come to define 19th century America and, ever after, profoundly affect the development of American society.