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Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and American Slavery

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In this book, originally published in 1976, Stewart provides a basic history of the abolitionist movement beginning with the period of the American Revolution. While most think of abolition as a 19th-century movement, Stewart demonstrates that this period is also important in examining this movement. Many states, primarily in the North, found that the institution of slavery conflicted with the ideas of republicanism that they were using to defend their own rights. During the years following the Revolution, the Northern states abolished slavery either immediately through court decisions as in Massachusetts, or through gradual programs as in New York. The ideas of the Revolution also played an important role in antislavery movements throughout the 19th century.

In examining the 19th Century movement, Stewart focuses most of his book on the Antebellum period and shows the importance of religion and moral suasion in the movement. Stewart also examines how, as time progressed, the movement expanded into the political realm through third parties such as the Liberty and Free Soil parties and how the ideas of the abolitionists influenced the formation of the Republican Party in the mid-1850s. Divisions emerged over the extent to which the abolitionists should become involved in politics and parties corrupted by slaveholders.

The main weakness of this book, in my opinion is that the Civil War years are only briefly covered. It was during these years that the abolitionists were able to put the most pressure on the federal government to take action against slavery. It was also during these years that many of the goals of the abolitionist movement were met. While racial equality was not obtained during Reconstruction, certain rights were guaranteed through Constitutional amendments. Abolitionists played roles in turning the Civil War into a war merely to preserve the Union into a war to create "a more perfect union." This role should be more fully examined in a history of the abolitionist movement.

James Brewer Stewart's Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and American Slavery (1976, 1996) traces abolitionists in the United States starting in the 1730s continuing to the 1860s, but he primarily focuses on the antebellum period of 1820-60. Overall, Holy Warriors is not based on original, archival research. As a synthesis, it does not have a thesis per se. It does, however, make effective use of nineteenth-century social, religious, economic, technological, and political movements as a backdrop. In other words, rather than focusing on individuals as solely having moral dilemmas with slavery, Stewart looks to the cultural background for other explaining factors.

During the 1950's, 1960's, and 1970's Civil Rights Movement, the number of scholarly works on African-American history, especially in reference to slavery, greatly increased. This growth in scholarship also includes exploring topics of the abolitionist movement. After several other scholars wrote books, Stewart's work primarily provides a synthesis, but he also refocuses the historiography to the individuals of this movement. When it comes to the individuals, Stewart uses a diverse range of historical actors--men and women, blacks and whites, more and less famous individuals.

When discussing abolitionism, Stewart presents or recounts interesting arguments. Although Northern areas more fully realized and acted upon Revolutionary ideals for African-Americans, in many ways the North was not much better than the South. (People often say today that more racism is present in the North.) Individuals in the North were far from being in unanimous agreement that slavery should be abolished throughout the nation. Even Northerners for the abolition of slavery thought that the African-Americas would need assistance to become acculturated; thus, the North, too, had something of a paternalistic attitude. Besides revolutionary rhetoric, Stewart says that the Great Awakening shifted worldviews: now individuals had control over their life and responsibility to make improvements. Thus, slavery needed to be ended and could be ended. With the so-named "Market Revolution," Northern industrialism greatly depended on Southern "ruralism" and slavery. Those against slavery could not agree on whether they should advocate a gradual or immediate end to the enslavement of African-Americans. The consequences of industrialism and of the "Market Revolution" provoked an era of reforms, including aims to end slavery. Ultimately, despite the hopes of abolitionists, abolitionism was more of a military than moral action. And furthermore, the end of African-American's legal enslavement was just the start of a long battle for African-Americans, abolitionists, and other social reformers.

Despite the strengths of Holy Warriors, including it being the best overview of abolitionism, it does have some weaknesses. First, although perhaps understandable because it is not published by a scholarly press, Holy Warriors does not have any footnotes. An absence of such a feature makes it virtually impossible for readers to look to Stewart's secondary references. Second, with the exception of the legacies of slavery following the Civil War, Stewart does not fully extend his analysis beyond abolitionism. For example, when discussing gradual emancipation practices in the North, he does not discuss that slaves could be and were sold to the South in an effort to avoid actually granting African-Americans freedom. Although this may be beyond his scope, it presents an ahistorical view of Northern aims for abolition after the Revolution. Third, it is curious that Stewart spends so little time discussing abolitionists' movements and rhetoric during the 1860s. During the Civil War era, the issues of slavery were, it would seem, more direct than at other times. Fourth, during his discussion of Colonial and Revolutionary "anti-slavery" movements, Stewart never defines the term. At certain times and to certain groups, "anti-slavery" only meant an objection to the slave trade and/or the continued spread of slavery. This could potentially change the meaning of some information found in Holy Warriors. Finally, this work, with perhaps one exception, looks at United States abolitionism in isolation. (Further, it is also an isolated look at the North.) It is not an accident of history that countries throughout the Americas ended slavery in the nineteenth century. Far too often presentations of United States history neglect to encompass the worldwide roots. Stewart could also have readers believe that slavery was limited to the United States.

Overall, Holy Warriors is an interesting, synthetic account of an important aspect of American slavery--those who, by means possible, fought against it. Like any good history, it takes what textbooks presents as simple, straightforward history and reveals complications. However, as James L. Huston's argues, historians have completely ignored one aspect: "the interaction between abolitionists and slavery" (640). When reading Holy Warriors, one gets little idea that abolition was about slavery and one gets little idea that slavery was (is) a system rooted in brutality, physically and psychologically.

Love it! The book looks very new and it is useful for my class. I can't wait to read this book, Holy Warriors!

A good book on the abolitionist movement in the years before and leading up to the civil war. Covers most of the rank and file members making up the various groups involved in the anti-slavery struggle.