Proscription by Degrees
The Abolition of the Slave Trade to the United States

A thorough and multi-layered account of the abolition of the slave trade to the United States.

Kenneth Morgan (Author)

9781009597920, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 6 November 2025

296 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.483 kg

'Proscription By Degrees is the most significant addition to scholarship on the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade to have appeared in a great many years. Morgan's excellent book will become required reading for everyone interested in this subject.' Simon P. Newman, Professor Emeritus, University of Glasgow. He is the author of Freedom Seekers: Escaping from Slavery in Restoration London

In this book, Kenneth Morgan provides the most comprehensive account of the abolition of the slave trade to the United States since W. E. B. Du Bois's 1896 The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638–1870. Utilising a wider range of resources and exploring the economic, social, moral and political considerations, Morgan creates a multi-layered account that explains why abolition was a protracted affair that proceeded by degrees over nearly half a century. He appraises the role of abolitionist individuals, groups and societies in bringing abolition to the forefront of public discussion across North America, and the decisive role of the US Constitution and the Constitutional Convention that eventually led to proscription in 1808, which made abolition constitutionally possible.

List of tables
List of abbreviations
Preface
Introduction: 1. Colonial restrictions on the slave trade, 1700–1774
2. The slave trade and revolutionary North America, 1774–1787
3. The US constitution, the debates over ratification, and the slave trade, 1787–1788
4. Opposition to the slave trade in the early national period, 1789–1802
5. Final controversies over the US slave trade, 1803–1807
Epilogue
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: History of the Americas [HBJK]