"Gentlemen of Property and Standing": Anti-Abolition Mobs in Jacksonian America

Richards, Leonard L.

doi:10.2307/1918187

Cited by 47 publications

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“…By the 1830s, there was no measurable support for abolition in the antebellum South (Stampp 1943), but there was support for slavery in the North, as reflected in the violence and vandalism perpetrated by Northern anti-abolition mobs (Harrold 1995;Richards 1970). Membership in antislavery societies throughout the nation was small; in 1838 it was probably between 72,000 (AASS 1838: 129-52) and 150,000 (Birney 1838: 7), less than 1% of the combined white and free Black population of the United States (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1840).…”

Section: This-worldly Theology and Denominational Schismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Ministering at the Altar of Slavery”: Religious slavery conflict and social movement repression

George

2023

Soc. sci. hist.

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Why did some American Protestant denominations experience slavery-related schism during the nineteenth century, while others appear to have been unaffected by slavery conflict? I conduct a comparative case study of four national Protestant denominations and find that slavery-related schism was not a consequence of a particular theological orientation, but instead occurred when denominational leaders lacked the capacity to repress abolitionism. In all four denominations, leaders attempted to stifle the abolition movement to avoid conflict. Their capacities to do so differed, however: in some denominations, diffusely distributed authority created openings for abolitionist mobilization, eventually leading to irreconcilable conflict and schism. In other denominations, concentrated authority enabled repression, leaders blocked abolitionist mobilization, and schism was avoided. This research shows that non-state targets of social movements can use “soft” forms of repression to undermine movement mobilization, but that their capacity to do so is constrained by organizational characteristics. It also demonstrates the critical role of organizational dynamics in shaping religious responses to contentious issues more broadly.

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Section: This-worldly Theology and Denominational Schismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Ministering at the Altar of Slavery”: Religious slavery conflict and social movement repression

George

2023

Soc. sci. hist.

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“…Both movements were menaced by mobs. According to data compiled by Richards (1970), there was an unprecedented wave of riots from 1834 to 1836. This wave crested in 1835-a high-water mark for mob action for the years 1812 to 1849.…”

Section: The First Us National Social Movements and Possible Institut...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The American Colonization Society mixed a specialized foreign mission to evangelize Africa with a nominal commitment to antislavery. The society launched colonies in Africa for freed slaves with the joint plan of Christianizing the continent and providing a means to gradually abolish slavery through expatriation (American Colonization Society 1820 ;Richards 1970;Stewart 1996). The American Temperance Society was formed as a result of a rationalization of the production and distribution of religious tracts.…”

Section: Signs Of Reconciliation In the Late 1820smentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As with temperance, calls to bear witness against a special sin coincided with the growth of support (Goodman 1998;Scott 1979). This support emerged as activists within organized benevolence attacked the American Colonization Society-the leading antislavery society at the time and an integral part of organized benevolence-for its temporizing with sin (Richards 1970). The American Colonization Society officially recognized that slavery as wrong but it never claimed that slaveholders were responsible, much less sinners.…”

Section: Explaining the Timing And Spread Of Temperance And Antislaverymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION can alone save her from the vengeance of Heaven, and cancel the debt of ages! (Liberator, September 3, 1831, p. 143) Garrison's paper influenced distant society supporters, and in the early l830s an insurgency within organized benevolence to renounce the sin of slavery and ties with the society emerged (Friedman 1982;Richards 1970).…”

Section: Explaining the Timing And Spread Of Temperance And Antislaverymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Confessional Protest: The Religious Birth of U.S. National Social Movements

Young

2002

Am Sociol Rev

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Western forms of protest were fundamentally altered in the early nineteenth century. Scholars from a “contentious politics” perspective have identified this rupture in protest forms with the emergence of the “national social movement” and explain the rupture as the result of interactions with national states. Scholars from a “life politics” perspective argue that the paradigmatic movements of today have moved beyond the political struggles of the nineteenth century and toward a new form of protest that unfolds within civil society and fuses matters of personal and social change. Protests in the United States in the 1830s, however, raise serious doubts about both of these claims. The first U.S. national social movements were not a heritage of the state and they engaged in a form of life politics. The temperance and antislavery movements emerged in interaction with religious institutions—not state institutions—and pursued goals that mixed personal and social transformation. A cultural mechanism combining the evangelical schemas of public confession and the special sins of the nation launched sustained and interregional protests. The intensive and extensive power of these confessional protests called individual and nation to repent and reform, and mobilized actors and resources within a national infrastructure of religious institutions to challenge drinking and slavery.

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Rape, murder and revenge in ‘slavery's pleasant homes’: Lydia Maria child's antislavery fiction and the limits of genre

Karcher

1986

Women's Studies International Forum

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"Gentlemen of Property and Standing": Anti-Abolition Mobs in Jacksonian America

Cited by 47 publications

References 0 publications

“Ministering at the Altar of Slavery”: Religious slavery conflict and social movement repression

“Ministering at the Altar of Slavery”: Religious slavery conflict and social movement repression

Confessional Protest: The Religious Birth of U.S. National Social Movements

Rape, murder and revenge in ‘slavery's pleasant homes’: Lydia Maria child's antislavery fiction and the limits of genre

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