Against slavery: an abolitionist reader

I. Historical Background for Antebellum Abolitionism, 1700-1830

Selling of Joseph (1700) / Samuel Sewall

Brief Candid Answer to The Selling of Joseph (1701) / John Saffin

Negro Christianized (1706) / Cotton Mather

Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes (1754 and 1762) / John Woolman

"On Being Brought from Africa to America" (1773) / Phillis Wheatley

from the Declaration of Independence (1776) / Thomas Jefferson

"Charge to the Grand Jury of Maine, Mary 8, 1820" / Joseph Story

"What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" (1852) / Frederick Douglass

II. Biblical Antislavery Arguments

Bible Against Slavery (1837) / Theodore Dwight Weld

"An Address to the British Antislavery Society" (1851) / Alexander Crummell

Slavery in the United States (1843) / James Freeman Clarke

Negro Slavery Unjustifiable (1802 and 1846) / Alexander McLeod

Wrong of Slavery (1864) / Robert Dale Owen

III. Abolitionist Crusade, 1830-1865

"An Address to the American Colonization Society" (1829) / William Lloyd Garrison

"Commencement of The Liberator," editorial (1831) / William Lloyd Garrison

"Truisms" (1831) / William Lloyd Garrison

"Henry Clay's Colonization Address" (1830) / William Lloyd Garrison

"The Great [Constitutional] Crisis" (1832) / William Lloyd Garrison

"American Colorphobia" (1847) / William Lloyd Garrison

"Declaration of the National Antislavery Convention" (1833) / William Lloyd Garrison

"Speech at the Fourth National Women's Rights Convention" (1853) / William Lloyd Garrison

"No Compromise with Slavery" (1854) / William Lloyd Garrison

Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829) / David Walker

"Massachusetts to Virginia" (1843) / John Greenleaf Whittier

Justice and Expediency (1833) / John Greenleaf Whittier

Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans (1833) / Lydia Maria Child

Slavery (1835) / William Ellery Channing

"Letter to the Rev. Smylie" (1837) / Gerrit Smith

Appeal to the Christian Women of the South (1836) / Angelina Grimke

"An Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States" (1836) / Sarah Moore Grimke

Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism (1837) / Catherine E. Beecher

Letters to Catherine E. Beecher, in Reply to an Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism (1838) / Angelina Grimke

American Slavery As It Is (1839) / Theodore Dwight Weld

Antislavery Manual (1837) / Roy Sunderland

"A Discourse on the Slavery Question" (1839) / Horace Bushnell

Destiny of a People of Color (1843) / James McCune Smith

Constitution, a Pro-Slavery Compact (1845) / Wendell Phillips

Philosophy of the Abolition Movement (1853) / Wendell Phillips

Unconstitutionality of Slavery (1845) / Lysander Spooner

"Mr. Calhoun's Report," from The National Antislavery Standard, February 15, 1849 / James Russell Lowell

"The Abolitionists and Emancipation," from The National Antislavery Standard, March 1, 1849 / James Russell Lowell

"Politics and the Pulpit," from The National Antislavery Standard, January 25, 1849 / James Russell Lowell

"The Church and the Clergy," from The National Antislavery Standard, February 27, 1845 / James Russell Lowell

"The Church and the Clergy Again," from The National Antislavery Standard, March 27, 1845 / James Russell Lowell

"Daniel Webster," from The National Antislavery Standard, July 2, 1846 / James Russell Lowell

"The Moral Movement Against Slavery," from The National Antislavery Standard, February 22, 1849 / James Russell Lowell

"Speech on the Institution of Slavery" (1852) / Horace Mann

Function and Place of Conscience in Relation to the Laws of Men (1850), ed. Dean Grodzins / Theodore Parker

"Present Aspect of the Antislavery Enterprise," Speech to the American Antislavery Society (1856), ed. Dean Grodzins / Theodore Parker

"Concluding Remarks," from Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) / Harriet Beecher Stowe

from Aunt Phillis's Cabin (1852) / Mary Eastman

"Lecture on Slavery" (1855), ed. William Pannapacker / Ralph Waldo Emerson

Barbarism of Slavery (1860) / Charles Sumner

Acts of Congress Relating to Slavery, Embracing the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793, the Missouri Compromise Act of 1820, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, the Ordinance of 1787, and the Wilmot Proviso of 1847.