Romantic Reformers and the Antislavery Struggle in the...

Romantic Reformers

and the Antislavery Struggle

in the Civil War Era

On the cusp of the American Civil War, a new generation of reformers, including Theodore Parker, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Martin Robison Delany, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, took the lead in the antislavery struggle. Frustrated by political defeats, a more aggressive Slave Power, and the inability of early abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison to rid the nation of slavery, the New Romantics crafted fresh, often more combative approaches to the peculiar institu-tion. Contrary to what many scholars have argued, however, they did not reject romantic reform in the process. Instead, the New Romantics roamed widely through romantic modes of thought, embracing not only the immediatism and perfectionism pioneered by Garrisonians but also new motifs and doctrines, including sentimentalism, self-culture, martial heroism, romantic racialism, and Manifest Destiny. This book tells the story of how antebellum America’s most important intellectual current, romanticism, shaped the coming and course of the nation’s bloodiest – and most revolutionary – confl ict.

Ethan J. Kytle is Associate Professor of History at California State University, Fresno. He was a postdoctoral Fellow at the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture in Charleston, South Carolina, and has been awarded the Mary Kelley Prize by the New England American Studies Association.

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Romantic Reformers

and the Antislavery Struggle

in the Civil War Era

ETHAN J. KYTLE

California State University, Fresno






32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473, USA

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© Ethan J. Kytle 2014

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permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2014

Printed in the United States of America

A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Kytle, Ethan J.

Romantic reformers and the antislavery struggle in the Civil War era / Ethan J. Kytle. pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-107-07459-0 (hardback)

1. Antislavery movements – United States – History – 19th century. 2. Abolitionists – United States – Biography. 3. Social reformers – United States –

Biography. 4. Romanticism – Political aspects – United States – History – 19th century. 5. Romanticism – Social aspects – United States – History – 19th century. 6. Slavery in literature. 7. Antislavery movements in literature 8. American literature – 19th century – History and criticism. 9. United States – Intellectual life – 19th century.

10. United States – Politics and government – 1815–1861. I. Title. E 449. K 97 2014

326′.8097309034–dc23 2014010079

ISBN 978-1-107-07459-0 Hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URL s for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication

and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.






v

Contents

Illustrations page vi

Acknowledgments vii

Abbreviations xi

Introduction 1

1. The Transcendental Politics of Theodore Parker 29

2. Frederick Douglass, Perfectionist Self-Help, and a Constitution for the Ages 72

3. Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Divided Heart of Uncle Tom’s Cabin 114

4. African Dreams, American Realities: Martin Robison Delany and the Emigration Question 159

5. Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s War on Slavery 206

Conclusion: Emancipation Day, 1863 253

Epilogue: The Reconstruction of Romantic Reform 269

Index 287






vi

Illustrations

1.1. Theodore Parker, n.d. page 38 1.2. Lithograph depicting the effects of the fugitive slave law,

1850 59 2.1. Frederick Douglass, n.d. 74 2.2. William Lloyd Garrison, n.d. 81 3.1. Harriet Beecher Stowe, ca. 1880 121 3.2. Lithograph of Eva ascending to heaven, 1899 143 4.1. Major Martin Robison Delany, ca. 1865 168 5.1. Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, ca. 1862–1864 209 5.2. John Brown, after being sentenced to death for his actions

at Harpers Ferry, portrayed on the front cover of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper , Nov. 19, 1859 232

C.1. Emancipation Day celebration, Camp Saxton, South Carolina, Jan. 1, 1863 257






vii

Acknowledgments

Although writing history often feels like a solitary venture, the truth is that this book was in many ways a team effort. I am happy to be able at last to thank my team.

The rough outline of this project emerged in my fi rst few years of graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I am grateful to the faculty in the Department of History, especially Peter Coclanis and Judith Bennett, whose leadership made Chapel Hill a fan-tastic place for graduate study. Charlie Capper, who directed the doc-toral dissertation that became this book even after he left UNC for Boston University, proved an ideal advisor for me, balancing patience, support, and constructive criticism. I also want to thank the rest of my dissertation committee – John Kasson, Don Mathews, Philip Gura, and Lloyd Kramer – for their incisive comments and the Dead Mule Writing Group – Matthew Brown, Joshua Guthman, Susan Pearson, and David Voelker – for their thoughtful feedback, good humor, and, most of all, fl exible deadlines.

I am indebted to UNC’s Department of History and Graduate School for early fi nancial support of my work as well as the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture at the College of Charleston for a postdoctoral fellowship that enabled me to begin to rethink this project. I completed my revisions – which proved more sub-stantial than I ever imagined – at California State University, Fresno (CSUF), a teaching university that nonetheless provides ample support for faculty engaged in research. I am grateful to Dean Luz Gonzalez, the College of Social Sciences, and Provost William Covino for the research funding and course releases that allowed me to fi nish the book.






Acknowledgmentsviii

I must also thank Cambridge University Press and my editors Eric Crahan and Deborah Gershenowitz. Eric saw early promise in my work and was remarkably patient as I revised the manuscript, while Debbie enthusiastically embraced the project after she joined the Press. She and her colleagues at Cambridge, especially Jeanie Lee and Dana Bricken, guided my book to publication with the perfect blend of professional-ism, advice, and encouragement. Bob Schwarz did a fantastic job with the index. I am also grateful to the anonymous reader who examined my unrevised dissertation many years ago as well as the two anony-mous readers of the fi nal manuscript. Their feedback improved my book markedly.

I would like to acknowledge the various venues where I fi rst tested out many of my arguments as well. I have had the opportunity to pres-ent papers at the UNC Department of History Research Colloquium; the Triangle Intellectual History Seminar; the Annual Society for Utopian Studies Meeting; the Organization of American Historians Annual Conference; the Heroism, Nationalism, and Human Rights Conference at the University of Connecticut, Storrs; the Annual International Conference on Romanticism; the Interdisciplinary Nineteenth Century Studies Annual Conference; the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic Annual Meeting; and John Remembered: 150th Anniversary of the Raid on Harpers Ferry Conference at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. I appreciate the instructive feedback offered by my fellow panelists, the commentators, and other participants at these meetings.

Parts of this book have appeared as “From Body Reform to Reforming the Body Politic: Transcendentalism and the Militant Antislavery Career of Thomas Wentworth Higginson,” American Nineteenth Century History 8 (Sept. 2007): 325–350 and “‘A Transcendentalist Above All’: Thomas Wentworth Higginson, John Brown, and the Raid at Harpers Ferry,” Journal of the Historical Society 12 (Sept. 2012): 283–308, as well as on the New York Times ’s “Disunion” blog. I am grateful to Taylor & Francis, Blackwell Publishing, and the New York Times for granting me permission to reuse this material.

Susan Pearson, Dan Malachuk, Dean Grodzins, Vernon Creviston, and Blain Roberts read portions of the revised manuscript and Kyle Behen and Jackson Kytle read the whole thing. All of them helped make the book better. So, too, did my CSUF students and colleagues, as well as the interlibrary loan staff of Henry Madden Library and archivists at more than a dozen libraries and special collections, from California to South






Acknowledgments ix

Carolina, Boston to New Orleans. Thanks to Amy Noel, Scott Hough, Neal Polhemus, and Christina Rae Butler for research assistance.

I am also grateful to my friends who have kept me going – even if that has meant distracting me from the book – over the past decade. From my Chapel Hill days: Matthew Brown, Leah Potter, Josh Nadel, Eva Canoutas, Susan Pearson, Mike Kramer, Joel Revill, Matt Andrews, Adam Tuchinsky, Jen Tuchinsky, Hans Muller, Jen Muller, David Sartorius, Mariola Espinosa, Marko Maunula, Spencer Downing, Steve Hall, Steve Wuhs, Peter Coclanis, Deborah Coclanis, Natalie Fousekis, Mike Ross, and Stacy Braukman. From Charleston: Jack Porter, Jason Solinger, Joelle Neulander, Kurt Boughan, Bo Moore, Don Wright, and Doris Wright. And from Fresno: Brad Jones, Flo Cheung, Dan Cady, Lisa Bennett, Kyle Behen, Alex Espinoza, Lori Clune, Maria Lopes, Alice Daniel, Ben Boone, Bill Skuban, Nora Chapman, John Farrell, Jeff Cummins, Frederick Vermote, and Gemma McLintock.

Most of all, however, I would like to thank my family. I could not ask for better in-laws than Ron and Martha Lou Roberts. They are bright, supportive, and fun – plus they have an apartment in the French Quarter! My sister Josi amazes me with her enthusiasm and creativity. She has a keen marketing mind, is the world’s greatest aunt, and, much as I hate to admit it, the best skier in our family. I am also amazed by my parents, Tari Prinster and Jackson Kytle, whose immense talents and diverse interests are matched only by their love for their children. As for my own children, Eloise and Hazel, I must say that they slowed down this book signifi -cantly – and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Nothing picks me up after a frustrating day of writing like hearing them laugh or seeing them smile. Finally, I must thank Blain Roberts, who not only is my spouse, colleague, and frequent coauthor but also works in the offi ce right next to mine! I often joke to my students that the classroom is my only place of refuge from my ever-present wife, but, truth be told, I never really need a break from her. And for that I am not only grateful but also truly lucky.






xi

Abbreviations

Names

FD Frederick Douglass HBS Harriet Beecher Stowe MRD Martin Robison Delany TP Theodore Parker TWH Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Sources

ASAOS Theodore Parker, Additional Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons , 2 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1855)

BAP C. Peter Ripley et al., eds., The Black Abolitionist Papers , 5 vols. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985–1992)

BAPC George E. Carter, C. Peter Ripley, and Jeffrey Rossbach, eds., The Black Abolitionist Papers, 1830–1865 [microfi lm collection] (Sanford, NC: Microfi lming Corporation of America, 1981)

CWJ The Complete Civil War Journal and Selected Letters of Thomas Wentworth Higginson , ed. Christopher Looby (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000)

FDP The Frederick Douglass Papers, Series One: Speeches, Debates, and Interviews , eds. John W. Blassingame and John R. McKivigan, 5 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979–1992)

FDPAW The Frederick Douglass Papers, Series Two: Autobiographical Writings , eds. John W. Blassingame, John R. McKivigan, and Peter P. Hinks, 2 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999–2003)

FDPC The Frederick Douglass Papers, Series Three: Correspondence, Volume 1, 1842–1852 , ed. John R. McKigivan (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009)






Abbreviationsxii

JMN The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson , eds. William H. Gilman et al., 16 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960–1982)

LBA Autobiography of Lyman Beecher , ed. Barbara Cross, 2 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961)

LCTP John Weiss, The Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, Minister of the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society , 2 vols. (New York: D. Appleton, 1864)

LHBS Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Compiled from Her Letters and Journals , ed. Charles Stowe (Boston: Houghton, Miffl in, 1890)

LTH The Letters and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1846–1906 , ed. Mary Thatcher Higginson (Boston: Houghton, Miffl in, 1921)

LWFD The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass , ed. Philip S. Foner, 5 vols. (New York: International Publishers, 1950–1975)

MDR Martin R. Delany: A Documentary Reader , ed. Robert S. Levine (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003)

OSR The Oxford Harriet Beecher Stowe Reader , ed. Joan D. Hedrick (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999)

SAOS Theodore Parker, Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons , 2 vols. (Boston: Crosby and Nichols, 1852)

SLL Annie Fields, Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe (Boston: Houghton, Miffl in, 1898)

WGL The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison , eds. Walter M. Merrill and Louis Ruchames, 4 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971–1975)

WTH The Magnifi cent Activist: The Writings of Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823–1911) , ed. Howard N. Meyer (New York: Da Capo Press, 2000)

WTP The Works of Theodore Parker [Centenary Edition], 15 vols. (Boston: American Unitarian Association, 1907–1913)






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