On Freedom's Altar

Description: ON FREEDOM'S ALTAR: THE MARTYR COMPLEX IN THE ABOLI. TION MOVEMENT. By Hazel Catherine Wolf. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 1952. Pp. xii, 195..) Miss Wolf finds chattel slavery to have been made "the most disquieting of all issues" of the 1830-1860 period, and principally by propagandists "in the best tradition of the term." The abolitionists, she believes, brought to their work an earnestness and zeal "not so characteristic" of fighters for women's rights, tem-perance, and lesser crusades which she notes, and others, like education, pacifism, and anti-capital punishment which might properly have been considered in the generalization. This may be seriously doubted, and contrasts with her own awareness that "the abolitionist attitude came from the integration of the martyr concept with a new humanitarianism." The origin of this new humanitarianism constitutes a problem in itself. Its precise relationship to the larger issue of sectional strife still another. On Freedom's Altar consists largely of a succession of accounts of individual "martyrs," including John Woolman, Charles Osborne, Benjamin Lundy, Gar-rison, Elijah P. Lovejoy, Charles T. Torrey, Jonathan Walker, and others who emerged, particularly in the 18zo's and 1840's-the list is repeated on numerous pages, but its composite significance is not probed. What is contended is that their experiences had a cumulative effect upon Northern opinion. The study appreciates that the two decades before the war began saw an "Appeal to Ballot and Statute, ," and abolition politicalized, but argues that it was the emotional impact of abolitionist appeals which made compromise between the sections impossible, particularly after the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin returned abolitionism "to the realm of a moral crusade." John Brown is made to symbolize "a new antislavery synthesis" of humanitarianism and political abolitionism; from this point of view the war becomes a fight for freedom which claims such new "martyrs" as Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth and Lincoln himself. Dust cover is worn throughout. Hardcover and pages unmarked and unstained.

Price: 12 USD

Location: Menasha, Wisconsin

End Time: 2025-01-17T22:00:36.000Z

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