Abolitionism: A New Perspective (review)

180CIVIL WAR HISTORY with fresh insight the Brazilian abolitionist movement of the 1880s. As the necessary background for his study, he summarizes the causes and effects of the Queiroz Law, which terminated the slave trade with Africa in 1850, and the Rio-Branco Law, the so-called Law of the Free Womb passed in 1871. He provides considerable new material for a fuller understanding of the ideological positions of the planter-slaveowners and the urban abolitionists. The main body of the work details the campaign of the abolitionists which got underway with the formation of the Brazilian Anti-Slavery Society in 1880 and climaxed with the Golden Law of 1888 freeing the remaining slaves. To the growing body of literature on Brazilian slavery, this author makes two significant contributions. First, he posits and defends the thesis that "The demise of slavery in Brazil was sudden, not gradual" (p. 245). Contrary to the universally accepted idea of the slow decline of the institution, Professor Toplin proves that only after 1885 did figures for the total slave population plummet, a reflection of the effectiveness of the abolitionist campaign as well as of the social unrest it nurtured. Secondly, the author indicates that violence accompanied the extinction of slavery , a sharp contrast to the traditional view of the institution expiring peacefully. With the publication of this excellent book, knowledge of the abolitionist movement has reached the point where scholars now will want to enter new historical terrain: to investigate the participation of the blacks themselves in the abolitionist movement. Lack of readily visible sources thus far seems to have inhibited such research. Indeed, taking a clue from Professor Toplin, someone may well pose the question of whether it was the urban, liberal, white politicians who emancipated the Brazilian blacks or whether it was the blacks who won their own freedom, forcing the politicians to concede liberty to avert disaster. For those interested in the institution of slavery and in the abolitionist movement in the United States, this book offers a wealth of material for comparative study. Knowledge of the Brazilian experience will help North Americans better understand their own. E. Bradford Burns University of California, Los Angeles Abolitionism: A New Perspective. By Gerald Sorin. (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972. Pp. 187. $7.50.) Specialists in antislavery will judge as new few of the perspectives promised by this book's title. Instead, Professor Sorin has briefly compressed and synthesized many of the scholarly conclusions on abolitionism and related matters which have appeared in the past decade or so. The beginning student will come to understand some of the complexities of abolitionists' motives, strategies and tactics, the dynamics of antiabolitionism and racism, and will abo become acquainted with some of the movement's white and black leaders. BOOK REVIEWS181 Yet brevity has its occasional drawbacks. To encapsulate the whole movement from its origins through Reconstruction in 168 pages of text sometimes causes Sorin to employ a didactic approach. As a consequence , some important issues are de-emphasized. Anxious to remind his readers that the abolitionists "were generally sincere idealists, impelled by a vision of a better society," Sorin does not deal as effectively as he might have with the views of John Thomas, George Frederickson, or especially of Stanley Elkins. There was, after all, in abolitionism a vibrant and potent romanticism which needs clear explanation, in conjunction with and even apart from the specific issues of abolitionist "guilt," "anti-institutionalism" or "status anxiety." Likewise, Sorin might have better served his readers had he given them a more comprehensive picture of the "traditional" southern culture, which abolitionists and antislavery partisans found so disturbing. These criticisms aside, Sorin has furnished a useful text which generally delineates the limitations, as well as the appropriateness of abolitionists ' visions and choices. His occasional practice of referring to the issues of today when explaining events of the past usually has a clarifying effect, not a distorting one. Professor Sorin writes crisply and provides a most useful bibliographic essay, qualities which make this book a most serviceable one for beginning students. James Brewer Stewart Macalester College Iowa on the Eve of the Civil War: A Decade of Frontier Politics. By Morton M...