Book Description

Excerpt from The Anti-Slavery Movement in Kentucky, Prior to 1850: A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy While much has been written concerning the anti - slavery movement in the United States, the work of historians has been chiefly directed toward the radical movement associated with the name of William Lloyd Garrison. This has often been done at the expense of and sometimes to the total neglect of those who favored gradual emancipation. This inequality of treatment has been accredited to the fact that the Garrisonian abolitionists were exceedingly active and vigorous in their propaganda and not to any preponderance of numbers or larger historical sig nificance. The gradual emancipationists, unlike the followers of Garrison who were restricted to the free states, were found in all parts of the Union. They embraced great numbers of the leaders in politics, business, and education; and while far more numerous in the free than in the slave states they nevertheless included a large and respectable element in Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri. It was to be expected that the gradual emancipationists in these border states would act with conservatism. They were themselves sometimes slave holders and in any event they saw the difficulties and dangers of any sort of emancipation. Their number was, however, too considerable and their activities too noteworthy to warrant the neglect which they have received at the hands of the historians of the anti-slavery movement. In this volume I have attempted to relate the history of the anti-slavery movement in Kentucky to the year 1850 with special emphasis upon the work of the gradual emancipationists. I intend later to prepare a second volume which will carry the study to 1870; and I hope that the appearance of this work will encourage the promotion of similar studies in the other border states. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.