The Anti-Corn Law League and British Anti-Slavery in Transatlantic Perspective, 1838–1846

Abstract

This article reassesses relations between the free-trade and anti-slavery movements in the mid-nineteenth century. It places well-known controversies over the removal of preferential import duties on free-grown sugar into the context of a broader and more complex relationship, in which the Anti-Corn Law League borrowed many of the tactics pioneered by the abolitionists, while also attempting to assume anti-slavery's mantle of moral reform. In particular, the article situates the campaigns in a transatlantic context complicated by the domestic agendas of American anti-slavery groups and southern cotton growers, both of whom tried to take advantage of the British free-trade movement for their own ends. Finally, it is argued that the apparent success of the League in forcing the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 not only contributed to the decline of anti-slavery as an effective extra-parliamentary movement, but also ensured that other moral reform campaigns such as the peace movement were forced to adopt the language and tactics of free-trade liberalism to survive, generating a lasting legacy that came to fruition with the emergence of the Gladstonian Liberal Party.

The nineteenth century liberal tradition and the English School historical narrative

“…In this light, the Great Exhibition of 1851 was to be a giant celebration of the prosperity held to have been generated by the repeal of the protectionist Corn Laws in 1846, and the great advertiser of the new British civilization and model (Davis, 1997; Kaiser, 2005); “to unite the world in peaceful commercial competition in order to supplant violent military confrontation” (Ashworth, 2014: 71). Free trade’s beneficial spillovers made it “the first step towards universal peace among nations” (Morgan, 2009: 89). Indeed, as Cobden wrote in 1842, “[I]t would be well to engraft our Free Trade agitation upon the Peace movement.…”

“…There was a dimension of the divine, of revelation, and of natural law, situated in the evangelical influences of what has been termed an “Age of Atonement” reformism (Hilton, 1988). This perspective viewed the Corn Laws of 1826, tariffs on food imports that benefited British landed elites, as “a sin against the natural order” (Morgan, 2009: 88). The free trade principle was “God’s Diplomacy” (Cain, 1979: 240).…”

“…No British government from 1807 onwards gave up on the campaign to suppress the slave trade, a decades-long commitment that also thereby bolstered plans for “legitimate trade.” The same techniques of organization were used in the next big reform battle after and alongside anti-slavery, the campaign to repeal the protectionist Corn Laws of 1826. Middle-class reformers went directly from anti-slavery organizations to (Morgan, 2009; the Anti-Corn Law League of 1838) using the same skills and techniques. It was in British economic interest to do this after the 1833 abolition of slavery in the British empire (Hyam, 2002: 81), and especially, after the “apprenticeship” pseudo-slavery system was ended in 1838.…”

Liberal Ambivalences: The Anti-Corn Law League and “Democracy”, 1838-1848

“…Bien qu'il se distancie par la suite de cette défense du gouvernement mixte, Cobden ne souscrit jamais à l'idée d'une démocratie pure durant ses années à la Ligue. La mention des États-Unis comme régime démocratique est à souligner, puisque selon Simon Morgan, ceux-ci jouent un rôle périphérique dans l'argumentaire des libres-échangistes 58 . Ceci reflète d'ailleurs la vision négative de la démocratie états-unienne dans l'imaginaire victorien, au moins jusque dans les années 1870 59 .…”

Crossing boundaries: Harriet Beecher Stowe as literary celebrity and anti-slavery campaigner

“…First, her lack of formal involvement in American abolitionism allowed her to position herself above the internecine strife that had paralysed the movement since it split in 1840, and to appear as a unifying figure (Hedrick, 1994, 235-6;Donald Ross, 2006). As an American, Stowe stood outside the domestic divisions of British Anti-Slavery caused by debates over free-trade (Morgan, 2009).…”