Refuting popular beliefs that the early nineteenth century was an era of stagnation in regard to anti-slavery sentiments, Adams describes abolitionist activities preceding William Lloyd Garrison.

Newman traces the abolition movement's transformation from the American Revolution to 1830, showing how what began in late-18th-century Pennsylvania as an elite movement espousing gradual legal reform had by the 1830s become a radical, egalitarian mass movement based in Massachusetts.

Excerpt from The Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery in America (1808-1831) This monograph is the result of research work done under the direction of Professor Albert Bushnell Hart, ph.d., of Harvard University, during 1898 - 1899, and in the intervals of other work, in 1902 - 1904. The work was undertaken with the simple purpose of gaining inspiration, and help in methods, from association with one so justly famed in historical circles, with no idea of any further result. A study of the period, 1808 - 1831, however, showed such a wealth of material, and reversed so many of the ideas prevalent among historians, that the results have been put into permanent form with the hope that the work may prove of some material aid to other students and writers of history. The period 1808 has most commonly, perhaps, received the name of the'period of Stagnation. It is credited with no aggressive anti-slavery work; it is rarely credited with even real anti-slavery sentiment of any sort. The anti-slavery workers are said to have trusted that the abolition of the African slave trade would do all the work necessary for the benefit of the slave, even to his ultimate emancipation, until William Lloyd Garrison with his trumpet - blast waked the sleepers and began the new era, whose history is familiar to all. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."