Not many social movements in American history can challenge the abolitionist crusade in terms of entertainment, excitement, and violence. As Ernest Bormann notes, “few reforms have been supported by so many inspired, dedicated, involved, and admirable people and few by as many crackpots, radicals, neurotics, and fanatics.”[1] The antislavery movement was at its peak between 1830 and 1860.[2]  During this period, agents for the American Antislavery Society travelled across the nation preaching on the immortality of human bondage to anyone who would listen. Other activists formed political parties in order to elect antislavery men to positions of power. At the same time, abolitionist pamphleteers sent thousands of tracts to each part of the country, while clergymen, legislators, and journalists took every opportunity to express themselves on this controversial issue.

            Not surprisingly, scholars of rhetoric have found the abolitionist movement to be fertile ground for research. A number of students, for example, have written theses and dissertations that analyze the oratory of one or more leading speakers for the antislavery cause. Other works have focused on rhetoric that occurred within the structure of a particular abolitionist organization, such as the Free Soil Party. However, less attention has been devoted to the rhetoric of the various subgroups that collectively composed the abolitionist movement.[3] These subgroups often disagreed sharply over the measures that should be employed to eradicate human bondage from our continent.

            The subgroup which Bormann calls the “evangelicals” believed that slavery was first and foremost a sin against God. As such, they asserted, the best way to destroy it was to make the Southern slaveholder as well as the apathetic Northerner perceive a contradiction between Biblical teachings and the practice of American slavery. Once they saw this contradiction, they would change their ideas on how black people should be treated. The evangelicals engaged in a revivalist type of oratory that emphasized man’s sinful nature and the need for repentance. At the same time, however, this oratory was based on a belief that people could be motivated to do good by appealing to such abstractions as patriotism and Christian love.[4]

            This paper will attempt to provide an explanation of evangelical abolitionist rhetoric with the hope of providing answers to the following questions: (1) What was the rhetorical strategy underlying the evangelicals’ message? (2) What rhetorical devices or tactics did they use? (3) How did these devices make their proposals more acceptable to their audience?

            The observations that Golden, Berquist, and Coleman make on the rhetoric of conversion can be effectively applied in this study. As the evidence will show, the evangelical abolitionists were interested in effectuating a moral regeneration among people who directly or indirectly supported the South’s system of involuntary servitude. They sought to eliminate deeply entrenched prejudice against blacks and alter popularly held beliefs about the Bible and the U.S. Constitution.[5] To attain these ends, the evangelicals adhered to a pattern of rhetoric that closely resembled the type that revivalist preachers employed to convert people to Christianity. For this reason, the analysis on the rhetoric of conversion provided by Golden, Berquist, and Coleman should be helpful.

            The phenomenon of conversion has been studied intensely for centuries. Scholars as diverse as Plato, Francis Bacon, William James, and Eric Hoffer have tried to define it or outline the conditions necessary for its occurrence. For Golden, Berquist, and Coleman, conversion is “a far-reaching, long-term change in the belief system and/or self-concept of the individual.”[6] But the three authors of The Rhetoric of Western Thought are less interested in conversion itself than they are in the rhetoric of conversion, i.e., the genre of discourse an evangelist uses to dramatically alter a person’s self-concept and belief-value system. They ultimately conclude that conversion rhetoric revolves around a three-stage process.

            In the first stage, the evangelist makes the potential convert aware of a severe problem that directly affects him or her. The listener must perceive that “something is amiss in his life and that his existence falls short of expectations.” At the same time, the listener must believe he or she has the power to correct this deficiency. In the second stage, the evangelist shows the potential convert a solution to the problem. The listener is urged to reject his or her old unsatisfying approach to life and adopt a system which will solve the shortcoming described in stage one. The evangelist takes care to make the potential convert perceive only one favorable choice of action, specifically, the course he or she is advocating. Consequently, the evangelist makes alternative solutions appear to be inappropriate or undesirable.[7]

            Once the listener accepts the new ideas, the evangelist is ready to enter the third and final stage. At this point, the main concern is to teach the new adherent the associated values and attitudes that go along with his or her new outlook on life. Most importantly, the evangelist must make the convert aware of the types of behavior to be displayed as well as those to be avoided. Golden, Berquist, and Coleman explain that the purpose of this indoctrination stage is “to consolidate gains and to provide a deterrent to possible backsliding.”[8]

            Significant to this study is the fact that the rhetoric generated by the evangelical abolitionists appears to be centered around the three stages which Golden and his colleagues identify with conversion rhetoric. Indeed, as we shall see, the rhetorical strategy of the evangelical abolitionists can be plausibly explained in terms of these three stages.

            There can be little doubt the evangelicals wanted the American public to feel guilty about slavery.[9] In their rhetoric, they made a concerted effort to convince people that slavery was an intolerable atrocity; a stain upon the character of the entire nation. Moreover, Northerners as well as Southerners were held responsible. In a sermon entitled “The Nation’s Duty to Slavery,” Henry Ward Beecher linked the continuance of human bondage in the South to the North’s mistreatment of free blacks:

How are the free colored people treated at the North? They are almost without education, and with but little sympathy for their ignorance. They are refused the common rights of citizenship which whites enjoy. They cannot even ride in the cars of our city railroads. They are snuffed at in the House of God, or tolerated with ill-concealed disgust. If we would benefit the African at the South, we must begin at the North…. The lever with which to lift the load of Georgia is in New York.[10]

            James G. Birney, presidential candidate of the antislavery Liberty Party in 1840 and 1844, expressed similar feelings in a letter to fellow abolitionist William Wright:

            We cannot limit ourselves to the oppression of the tyrant over his slave…. The colored people of the North need to be set up erect on their feet with full liberty to use their faculties of whatever kind, as others do, for their own improvement…. The repeal of all laws making a difference because of color or descent is indispensible (sic). Without this, no effectual improvement of the colored people can be brought about.[11]

            The evangelical abolitionists contended there were at least two reasons why Americans could not in good conscience support a system of human bondage. First, slavery was completely incompatible with basic American values and beliefs. How, they asked, could a nation that proclaimed itself a haven for the poor and unwanted, that boasted of its democratic institutions, and that stressed in its founding documents the equality of all men, tolerate a system as viciously oppressive and degrading as slavery?  The evangelical rhetors used two similar techniques to make their listeners aware of this contradiction. In his pamphlet The Missouri Compromise or The Extension of the Slave Power, James Appleton attempted to prove that most of the Founding Fathers opposed slavery. After citing antislavery statements by James Madison, Elbridge Gerry, and Gouverneur Morris, Appleton noted that the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, the first major piece of legislation passed after the Constitutional Convention, expressly prohibited slavery in any state formed out of the Northwest Territory. “In this feature of the ordinance,” Appleton declared, “we have the best evidence of the feeling of the American people, at that time, in relation to slavery…. No one can doubt how the Missouri question would have been settled by the fathers of the republic.”[12]

            In an address before the Massachusetts House of Representatives, Henry Brewster Stanton also portrayed the Founding Fathers as opponents of slavery:

            The North returned from the convention and commenced the work of abolition…. Numerous addresses and sermons denouncing slavery were put forth by the Pinckneys, the Jays, the Franklins, the Rushes, the Edwards, the Hopkins, and the Stiles…. Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson were not silent. And, by the great mass of the country, it was believed, hoped, and understood that long, long ere this, the last vestige of slavery was to have rotted in a dishonored grave.[13]

            For his part, James G. Birney focused directly on the incompatibility between slavery and the U.S. Constitution. Noting that the Fourth Amendment declared that no person shall be deprived of liberty without due process of law, Birney argued that “those who are called ‘slaves’ at the South are called ‘persons’ in the Constitution.” And if they were persons, he continued, were they “not entitled to the benefits of the constitutional provision within the words and spirit of which they are so expressly brought?” Earlier, in a letter to the Liberty Party Nominating Committee, Birney referred to the Declaration of Independence:

            We contend for liberty as she presents herself in the Declaration of Independence asserting that all men are created equal, that they are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and treating these rights as the gift of the Creator to man as man. We struggle for her installation. We long to see the first work of her reign – the abolition of slavery.[14]

            How did the tactic of contrasting the Constitution and Declaration of Independence with the practice of slavery along with the complementary tactic of portraying the Founding Fathers as opponents of slavery make abolitionism more acceptable to Americans?  Most importantly, these measures served to create a degree of identification between abolitionism and the hallowed principles outlined in the two key documents. Consequently, abolitionism came to be regarded less as a dangerously radical idea and more as a concept that derived from the well-established beliefs upon which our country had been founded. At the same time, through the use of these tactics, the evangelicals created an element of identification between themselves and the Founding Fathers. Like Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin, they were concerned about extending freedom and equality to a group of oppressed people – a people who deserved as much as anyone “the blessings of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Seen in this light, the evangelicals were not seditious fanatics but rather dedicated patriots who were continuing the gallant struggle for human rights initiated by their forefathers.[15]

            Significantly, those people who were persuaded the Founding Fathers opposed slavery and that the Constitution and Declaration of Independence were antislavery documents often began to feel guilty.[16] Had they not sacrificed principle for expediency in allowing slavery to exist within the U.S. for all these years? Was it not hypocritical for Americans to condemn the tyrannical policies of European states as long as they tolerated a tyrannical form of human servitude within their own country? As people asked themselves these questions, they began to feel unhappy with themselves. Something was “amiss” in the country they admired and loved. It had fallen “short of expectations” and they, the American people, were to blame.

            The evangelical abolitionists argued that there was at least one more reason why Americans should not tolerate slavery. Human bondage, they affirmed, was contrary to God’s will. Thus, everyone who supported slavery in any way was committing a sin and alienating themselves from God. Some evangelicals went further and said people who abetted the slave system lost their salvation and faced damnation to hell. To validate such contentions, the evangelicals cited passages from the Bible and gave them an antislavery interpretation. They often referred to Exodus 21:16: “And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.” The evangelicals claimed this passage revealed God’s hostility to slavery. After all, did not the slave trader steal the African from his native land and then sell him into bondage for profit?[17]  Another commonly cited verse was Deuteronomy 23:15: “Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee.” According to the evangelicals, this statement proved that people who assisted in the capture of runaway slaves were sinning against God.[18]

            Actually, each abolitionist in the evangelical camp found different reasons why God should be displeased with slavery. The Reverend Charles E. Beecher based his objections to the South’s “peculiar institution” on the ground that it destroyed the family unit. He enunciated this argument in a sermon appropriately titled “The God of the Bible Against Slavery”:

            God is revealed in the Bible as the Author of the family state and the jealous defender of its purity. The family is the oldest, simplest, strongest, and most sacred institution of God on earth.  Two of the Ten Commandments aim directly to establish the family: ‘Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery,’ and ‘Honor Thy Father and Mother.’ But a slave cannot even contract matrimony. Children may be sold from parents; husband from wife. No law shields the female Negro from her owner’s passion.[19]

            For her part, Angelina Grimke sought to show that Jesus Christ would naturally have hated slavery. She based her case on Jesus’ commandments “love thy neighbor as thyself” and “whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” Observing that Jesus, by his own admission, came to minister to all people, Grimke asked rhetorically, “Can you for a moment imagine the meek and lowly, the compassionate Saviour a slaveholder?”[20]

            By using the Bible in the same way, they used the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, the evangelical abolitionists hoped people would see them as God’s loyal servants, as crusaders striving for a holy cause. Even if they were not considered as such, the evangelicals hoped people would see that slavery was inconsistent with God’s word.

            The “Bible against slavery” tactic was potentially effective because a large proportion of pre-Civil War Americans were fundamental Christians who ostensibly believed every word of the book from which the evangelicals drew their arguments.[21] In using this ploy, the evangelicals were also, once again, trying to instill feelings of guilt in their listeners. They wanted slaveholders (at least those who professed to be Christians) to realize that they were living according to a double standard; that they could not in good faith profess to believe in Christ’s teachings on one hand and hold slaves on the other. At the same time, the evangelicals wished apathetic citizens in both sections of the country to believe they were committing a sin of omission by ignoring the slave’s plight. They emphasized that like the Levite who refused to help the injured man in the Good Samaritan parable, the individual who did nothing for the helpless slave acted against God’s will.

            Golden and his colleagues state that in the second stage of conversion rhetoric, the evangelical presents the potential convert with a solution to the problem outlined in stage one. To those people who were upset over the apparent irreconcilability of slavery with Christian beliefs and American principles, the evangelical abolitionists offered a simple solution: join the abolitionist cause. This meant more than just believing slavery was wrong; it meant taking an active role in its destruction. Everyone, no matter what their station in life, could do something helpful. In her Appeal to the Christian Women of the South, Angelina Grimke declared that even women living in the very midst of slavery could play an important part in its overthrow:

            Let them (Southern women) embody themselves in societies, and send petitions up to their different legislatures, entreating their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons to abolish the institution of slavery…. Such appeals to your legislatures would be irresistible, for there is something in the heart of man which will bend under moral suasion.[22]

            The evangelical abolitionists asserted that by joining the antislavery movement, American citizens served both God and country. They worked for the eradication of a labor system that not only offended God but also undermined the ideological foundation of the United States. Thus, abolitionists could consider themselves both Christians and patriots. Best of all, abolitionists had no reason to feel guilty. The burden of ignoring or abetting an immoral institution was no longer weighing on their shoulders.

            The authors of The Rhetoric of Western Thought note that in the second stage of the conversion process, the evangelist must make the potential convert perceive only one favorable solution to his or her problem. This means the evangelist must discredit other solutions which would compete with the one he or she offers. The evangelical abolitionists found their chief competition coming from the colonizationists. These people tended to oppose slavery on economic and political grounds rather than on moral grounds as the evangelicals did. The colonizationists wanted to send both slaves and free blacks back to Africa. They purchased provisions, chartered ships, and even found uninhabited land in Africa where blacks could settle. In contrast to the abolitionists, the colonizationists envisioned a gradual phaseout of slavery and wanted slaveowners to be reimbursed for any blacks they released.[23] To the evangelical abolitionists, colonization was a totally unacceptable answer to the slavery question. James G. Birney complained that colonization was impractical:

            The whole number of emigrants sent out in twenty-three expeditions last year was 2,061. Of these, only 613 were slaves. Compare the proportion of these numbers with that shown by more recent expeditions – say by the four dispatched in March and April of this year…. The aggregate number on these expeditions may be set down at two hundred and sixty, of whom two hundred were slaves. Such facts tend to demonstrate the impractical operation of the principles on which colonization is recommended.[24]

            But even if all blacks could be returned to Africa, the evangelicals said, colonization was still undesirable because it avoided the moral issue that was directly linked to the elimination of slavery. The Reverend O.B. Frothingham enunciated this complaint in his pamphlet Colonization:

            To the destruction of slavery throughout the world, we are compelled to say that we believe colonization to be an obstruction. It takes its root from a cruel prejudice and alienation in the whites of America against the colored people, slave or free. This being its source, the effects are what might be expected; that it fosters and increases the spirit of caste; that it widens the breach between the two races; exposes the colored people to great practical persecution, in order to force them to emigrate; and, finally, is calculated to swallow up and divert that feeling which America, as a Christian and a free country, cannot but entertain, that slavery is alike incompatible with the law of God and with the well being of man.[25]

            The evangelist reaches the third and final stage of conversion only after at least some of his or her listeners have accepted the solution offered in the second stage. At this point, the evangelist focuses on teaching the new converts the value system and world view that are interrelated with the newly adopted beliefs. The leading national spokesmen for the evangelical abolitionists seldom took their audiences beyond the first two stages of conversion. Speakers such as Theodore Weld, James G. Birney, and Henry B. Stanton were in such great demand across the country that they could not stay in one place long enough to consolidate whatever gains they made. Thus, the task of organizing and educating new recruits to evangelical abolitionism fell to local antislavery groups. Community, county, and a few state societies had specially designated cadres who were responsible for indoctrinating new members. One of their principal tasks was to impress upon the convert that abolitionism was only one part of a more-comprehensive humanitarian crusade; that other reforms, particularly temperance, were intimately related to the eradication of human bondage.[26] James Thome described other “facts” the new evangelical abolitionist had to learn:

            We must recognize that the Constitution was formed as a bona fide instrument of liberty. Its framers never thought that it would be twisted into an instrument to build up slavery. We must acknowledge that the principles of the American Antislavery Society commend themselves to the conscience and interest of the slaveholders, for while he retains a particle of human nature the slaveholder must be accessible to moral suasion…. We can regard the enslaved as the children of our common Father, Saviour, and Sanctifier. Thus regarding them, we may own, and cherish, and honor, the dear and strong links which bind us indissolubly together.[27]

            Up until 1840, those people who wanted to speak in public on behalf of evangelical abolitionism received training and guidance sponsored by the American Antislavery Society.[28] In 1836, the society selected seventy men to go on a two-year speaking tour across the North. Before embarking on their crusade, “The Seventy,” as they were called, underwent an intensive training and orientation program at the American Antislavery Society’s New York City headquarters. From such people as Theodore Weld and Lewis Tappan, “The Seventy” learned how to handle hecklers and project their voices over the din of a noisy crowd. Equally important was the philosophical orientation. Each member of the group was required to read the Bible daily and be totally familiar with both the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Significant pieces of abolitionist literature such as Anthony Benezet’s A Historical Account of Guinea were also required reading. When the training ended, the basic antislavery arguments discussed in this paper were deeply ingrained in each speaker’s mind.[29]

            In closing, let us look once again at the questions posed at the beginning. What was the rhetorical strategy underlying the evangelicals’ message? From what has been presented here, it appears their strategy paralleled the three stages of the conversion process outlined by Golden, Berquist, and Coleman. First, they sought to engender feelings of guilt in the American public; slavery was portrayed as a serious problem to all Americans who loved their country and believed in the Bible. Then, they presented a solution to the problem: participate in the abolitionist cause; do something to overthrow the system that was ultimately the cause of the guilty feelings. Lastly, steps were taken – mainly at the local level – to equip each new recruit with the beliefs and values that were linked to evangelical abolitionism.

            What were the rhetorical devices or tactics used to implement this strategy?  To instill guilty feelings, the evangelicals stressed the incompatibility of slavery with Christianity and American precepts of equality and freedom. To entice people to join their cause, they affirmed that new adherents would be freed from their guilt and would ultimately perform a valuable service to God and country. At the same time, the evangelicals portrayed the competing colonization movement as an unrealistic and even immoral enterprise.

            How did these tactics make their proposals more acceptable to their audience? All the arguments that the evangelicals advanced served to link abolitionism with firmly established American values and beliefs. Abolitionism was depicted as an extension of the principals outlined in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence; as a cause that correlated with God’s commandments.

            No doubt, the explanation this paper provides of the evangelical abolitionists’ rhetoric can be supplemented. Another study, for example, might compare the rhetoric of the evangelicals with that of the Garrisonian abolitionists. In any event, more scholars need to be aware of the fact that the abolition movement, far from being a united front, was composed of several factions, each of which had its own distinguishing features.

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[1] Ernest G. Bormann, ed., Forerunners of Black Power (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971), p.1.

[2] Gilbert H. Barnes, The Antislavery Impulse, 1830-1860 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1933), p.98.

[3] Bormann identifies five such subgroups: Agitators, Evangelicals, Black Abolitionists, Female Abolitionists, and Establishment Spokesmen. All sought the elimination of slavery by the quickest possible means, but each had different motives and/or techniques for achieving that objective. Some scholars have criticized Bormann’s categories for not being mutually exclusive.

[4] Barnes, p.102.

[5] Supporters of slavery noted that Jewish law provided for a type of slavery; that Abraham and the other Hebrew patriarchs possessed slaves. They chose not to recognize that slavery, as it existed among the Israelites, was quite different from American slavery. Slavery supporters also cited the Constitution’s 3/5 Clause as evidence the Founding Fathers endorsed slavery. Abolitionists retorted that the clause’s presence in the Constitution only indicated the Founding Fathers acknowledged slavery’s existence, not that they sanctioned it in any way.

[6] James L. Golden, et al., The Rhetoric of Western Thought (Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 1976), p.212.

[7] Golden et al., p.213.

[8] Golden, et. al., p.214.

[9] Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Lewis Tappan and the Evangelical War Against Slavery (Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University Press, 1969), p.17.

[10] Henry Ward Beecher, Patriotic Addresses in America and England from 1850 to 1885, ed. John R. Howard (New York: Fords, Howard, and Hulbert, 1891), p.39.

[11] Dwight L. Dumond, ed., Letters of James Gillespie Birney, 1831-1857 (New York: Appleton-Century, 1938), p.378.

[12] Statement taken from p.2 of the pamphlet reprinted in Antislavery Records and Pamphlets (Westport, Connecticut: Negro Universities Press, 1970).

[13] Cited in Bormann, p.29.

[14] Dumond, p.418.

[15] Barnes, p.119.

[16] Barnes, p.121.

[17] Hazel Catherine Wolf, On Freedom’s Altar, The Martyr Complex in the Abolition Movement (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1952), p.62.

[18] Wolf, p.66.

[19] Statement taken from pp.3-4 of sermon reprinted in Antislavery Tracts (Westport, Connecticut: Negro Universities Press, 1970), I, 1855-1856.

[20] Angelina E. Grimke, Appeal to the Christian Women of the South (1836; rpt. New York: Arno Press, 1969), p.15.

[21] Wyatt-Brown, p.73.

[22] Grimke, p.25.

[23] Louis Filler, The Crusade Against Slavery (New York: Harper and Row, 1960), pp.134-135.

[24] James G. Birney’s letter on colonization addressed to the Reverend Thornton J. Mills; reprinted as a pamphlet in 1834. Letter reprinted in Antislavery Records and Pamphlets (Westport, Connecticut: Negro Universities Press, 1970), p.35.

[25] Statement taken from p.7 of the pamphlet, which is reprinted in Antislavery Tracts (Westport, Connecticut: Negro Universities Press, 1970), I, 1855-1856.

[26] Wolf, p.127.

[27] James A. Thome, “Address to the Females of Ohio,” (New York: Office of the American Antislavery Society, 1836), p.20.

[28] Until 1840, the American Antislavery Society was controlled by the evangelicals under the leadership of Lewis Tappan. In that year, however, a large faction of agitators headed by William Lloyd Garrison managed to wrest control of the society away from the evangelicals, who promptly left the organization for good. Tappan subsequently established the American and Foreign Antislavery Society, but this group never had enough financial support to sponsor an aggressive lecture campaign.

[29] Barnes, p.106.