Beyond Garrison
Antislavery and Social Reform

This 2005 book asky why Massachusetts has gained a reputation for racial intolerance despite formerly beneficient behavior towards African-Americans.

Bruce Laurie (Author)

9780521844086, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 July 2005

366 pages, 31 b/w illus. 1 map 34 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.602 kg

"...a richly detailed local history that describes both the ideological battles and the political horse-trading engaged in by antislavery politicians in antebellum Massachusetts." -Rachel Hope Cleves, JOURNAL OF THE EARLY REPUBLIC

Why was Massachusetts one of the few Northern states in which African-American males enjoyed the right to vote? Why did it pass personal liberty laws, which helped protect fugitive slaves from federal authorities in the two decades immediately preceding the Civil War? Why did the Bay State at the time integrate its public facilities and public schools as well? Beyond Garrison, first published in 2005, finds answers to these important questions in unfamiliar and surprising places. Its protagonists are not the leading lights of American abolitionism grouped around William Lloyd Garrison, but lesser men and women in country towns and villages, encouraged by African-American activists throughout the state. Laurie's fresh approach trains the spotlight on the politics of such antislavery advocates. He demonstrates their penchant for third-party politics with a view toward explaining the relationship between social movements based on race, class, and nationality, on the one hand, and political insurgency, on the other.

1. An experiment of immense consequences: from moral suasion to politics
2. The . . . evil from a small party: the rise of the liberty party
3. Our colored friends: Libertyism and the politics of race
4. To favor the poorest and the weakest: Libertyism and Labor Reform
5. Fifty thousand might have assembled: sources of free soilism
6. Our own time: free soilers and labor reformers
7. As easy as lying: complications of political reform
8. Prejudices against us: the limits of paternalism
9. Epilogue.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], History of the Americas [HBJK]