Means and Ends in American Abolitionism: Garrison and His Critics on Strategy and Tactics, 1834-1850 (review)

276CIVIL WAR HISTORY movement, in part because the far-reaching whip of the reformers did not spare the clergy." This statement is accurate enough in describing the attitude of most Garrisonian abolitionists, but it does not accurately characterize the outlook of the majority of white abolitionists , many of whom, like Lewis Tappan, continued to work primarily through religious channels. Second, Quarles maintains that "the most significant manifestation of British hostility to [American] slavery came with the outbreak of the Civil War when the English masses became strongly Northern in their sympathies. . . ." Quarles attributes British support in large measure to the activities of abolitionists, black and white, who made numerous visits to Great Britain during the antebellum years. That close contacts between British and American abolitionists were important is clear. British abolitionists contributed money to the American cause, and exerted moral pressure at home and abroad. But the idea that the people of the British Isles were overwhelmingly pro-northern in their sympathies during the Civil War has been challenged in recent years, especially by the work of Joseph Hernon , Jr. These observations aside, Quarles's book is a most welcome contribution to the history of antebellum America—one that will be effectively utilized for years to come. Richard O. Curry University of Connecticut Means and Ends in American Abolitionism: Garrison and His Critics on Strategy and Tactics, 1834-1850. By Aileen S. Kraditor (New York: Pantheon Books, 1969. Pp. xvi, 296. $7.95.) This is an unusual book because it takes seriously the most significant group of extremists in our history, understands exactly what they were up to, appraises them as conscientious critics of American society and not as aberrations, and always treats them with respect and sympathy. Most historians have been about as uncomfortable as other Americans when confronted with radicals. They do not know quite what to make of them. It is not just their refusal to accept the institutions and practices everybody else finds tolerable that makes radicals seem so perverse; it is also that they often extend their assaults against convention to include the flouting of decorum. Some of them are not very nice people. The tolerance of American historians has been tested most severely by abolitionists. Not many have passed the test. Some historians have faüed because they could not forgive the abolitionists' poor taste in so zealously condemning slavery. Others who were not offended on that score objected to such impieties as criticism of the churches and burning copies of the Constitution. It was mostly the abolitionists' bad man- book reviews277 ners and their passion that caused embarrassment. Rarely did anybody bother—as Miss Kraditor has—to examine the abolitionists' ideology and to inquire as to their ultimate goals. Thus hardly anyone since the anti-abolitionist mobs that assaüed them in their own time has realized how extreme they really were. Since all but a few scholars have been broadminded enough to agree with them that slavery was pretty bad, they were willing for forgive them every indiscretion and to welcome them into the great American consensus, not realizing that in doing so they were admitting genuine radicals into the liberal fold. Miss Kraditor has managed to adjust to the abolitionists' style and program better than anyone else before her. She does not try to make them something that they were not. The magnitude of her achievement becomes clearer when we realize that she has discovered an important and closely guarded secret—many abolitionists cannot be fitted into the comfortable categories of reform, however hard you try. Some were radicals, even revolutionaries, who sought fundamental change in the American order. This book is a successful effort to describe the tensions and conflicts within the American antislavery movement as two groups contended for dominance. One faction had confidence that the nation was fundamentally sound; the only thing wrong with it was the little flaw of slavery , and that could be removed without disturbing society's other institutional arrangements. Another group understood that abolition would require drastic change in values and behavior, that abolitionism was not compatible with conventional beliefs and activities. The principle of immediate emancipation, they knew, could lead to radical stands...