The Abolitionist Imagination

This book—actually essays by five authors—continues an argument about the abolitionists, and thus about idealism and extremism in general, that’s raged since the 1840s. It’s taken up by five well-known scholars, of whom Delbanco, the noted Columbia University American studies professor, takes the lead. His position, stoutly argued but not new, is that in their moral fervor the antislavery radicals of the pre–Civil War years both undermined slavery and threatened the republic by their ideological certitude and fanaticism. He keeps company with the likes of Hawthorne and Melville, who, as Delbanco relates, were appalled by slavery yet fearful of the dangers of the abolitionists’ often disordered words and acts. In sharp responses, John Stauffer and Manisha Sinha make muscular cases for the abolitionists; Darryl Pinckney stresses the long absence of black abolitionists from the story; and Wilfred M. McClay applauds Delbanco for his balanced evaluation of the abolitionists. No one will miss the echoes in this argument of public debates raging today and no one can dismiss these essays as irrelevant or about “mere history.” Nevertheless, while a fine book for the classroom and committed readers, it’s more a specialist’s work than one for casual consumption. (Apr.)