ANTISLAVERY: THE CRUSADE FOR FREEDOM and A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ANTISLAVERY IN AMERICA

Together these volumes constitute the most intensive story of slavery in the U.S. that has been made, and one that will be considered definitive in the annals of the history of chattel slavery. While the direction is towards the growth and development of a great reform movement, the record backgrounding the movement is as important as the study of antislavery itself. From the brief glimpses into the slave trade-through the ramifications of slavery in operation the country over, the slow steps as it receded in areas where economic conditions did not provide cause for its retention, the permeation of politics, churches, the social scene, and the far-reaching trade with all its brutal aspects the story of slavery and the battlefield it became is told with intense and burning determination to lay all before the eyes of those interested in justice. For Dwight Dumond does not feel the battle won until the heritage of slavery is eliminated. The crusade for freedom"" enlisted men and women of all types:_-leading professional people such as Benjamin Bush, Theodore Weld, Charles Finney; the N.J. tailor John Woolman, the saddle maker, Benjamin Lundy, and so on. Antislavery became a political football-a court issue an educational problem; it reached into every side of life. And all of it is reflected here:--the men and women who dedicated their lives to the cause; the Negro men and women who rose above their status-and those who were its victims. Here-for the sentimentalists- in a revealing picture of the truth about slavery-and the long grim battle fought before the Proclamation of Emancipation....The accompanying volume, a Bibliography which is a basic listing of primary sources, will probably be limited in circulation to large libraries and college and university libraries needing it for students. Antislavery should have a wide distribution.