What this book terms first movement abolitionism was composed of an ideological and strategic coalition of black and white activists with three shared ideals for abolishing slavery: a commitment to enforcing Northern emancipation statutes and enlarging the elemental rights of people of color through pragmatic, on the ground activism; the belief that free blacks were entitled to the rights of American citizenship and could become virtuous members of the body politic; and the expectation that through black uplift and incorporation, and a campaign of public persuasion, white prejudice could be defeated and the arguments of slavery’s defenders about the incapacity of people of African descent for freedom proved wrong. This book is the first to fully recover America’s first abolition movement as a movement in its own right—tracing its origins, restoring the full breadth of its program and agenda, and accounting for its eventual fall and relative historical marginalization.
