Medallion as part of the anti-slavery campaign by Josiah Wedgwood, 1787]] . Circa 1850.]] Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.

In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the new world, Spain enacted the first European law abolishing colonial slavery in the 16th century, although it was not to last. In the 17th century when Quaker and evangelical religious groups condemned it as un-Christian and the 18th century, when rationalist thinkers of the Enlightenment criticized it for violating the rights of man. Though anti-slavery sentiments were widespread by the late 18th century, they had little immediate effect on the centers of slavery: the West Indies, South America, and the Southern United States. The Somersett's case in 1772 that emancipated slaves in England, helped launch the movement to abolish slavery. Pennsylvania passed An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery in 1780. Britain banned the importation of African slaves in its colonies in 1807, and the United States followed in 1808. Britain abolished slavery throughout the British Empire with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, the French colonies abolished it 15 years later, while slavery in the United States was abolished in 1865 with the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Abolitionism in the West was preceded by the New Laws of the Indies in 1542, in which Emperor Charles V declared free all Native American slaves, abolishing slavery of these races, and declaring them citizens of the Empire with full rights. The move was inspired by writings of the Spanish monk Bartolome de las Casas and the School of Salamanca. Spanish settlers replaced the Native American slaves with enslaved laborers brought from Africa and thus did not abolish slavery altogether.

In Eastern Europe, abolitionism has played out in movements to end the enslavement of the Roma in Wallachia and Moldavia and to emancipate the serfs in Russia.

In East Asia, abolitionism was evidenced in, for instance, the writings of Yu Hyongwon, a 17th-century Korean Confucian scholar who wrote extensively against slave-holding in 17th-century Korea.

Today, child and adult slavery and forced labour are illegal in most countries, as well as being against international law.

Great Britain

(1705–1793), whose opinion in Somersett's Case (1772) was widely taken to have held that slavery was illegal in England.]]

Some of the first court cases to challenge the legality of slavery took place in Scotland. The cases were Montgomery v Sheddan (1756), Spens v Dalrymple (1769), and set the precedent of legal procedure in British courts that would later lead to successful outcomes for the plaintiffs.

William Wilberforce later took on the cause of abolition in 1787 after the formation of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, in which he led the parliamentary campaign to abolish the slave trade in the British Empire with the Slave Trade Act 1807. He continued to campaign for the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, which he lived to see in the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.

The last known form of enforced servitude of adults (villeinage) had disappeared in Britain at the beginning of the 17th century. But by the 18th century, traders began to import African and Indian and East Asian slaves to London and Edinburgh to work as personal servants. Men who migrated to the North American colonies often took their East Indian slaves or servants with them, as East Indians were documented in colonial records. They were not bought or sold in London, and their legal status was unclear until 1772, when the case of a runaway slave named James Somersett forced a legal decision. The owner, Charles Steuart, had attempted to abduct him and send him to Jamaica to work on the sugar plantations. While in London, Somersett had been baptised and his godparents issued a writ of habeas corpus. As a result Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of the Court of the King's Bench, had to judge whether the abduction was legal or not under English Common Law, as there was no legislation for slavery in England.

In his judgment of 22 June 1772 Mansfield declared: "Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged." Although the exact legal implications of the judgement are actually unclear when analysed by lawyers, it was generally taken at the time to have decided that the condition of slavery did not exist under English law in England. This judgment emancipated the 10,000-14,000 slaves or possible slaves in England, who were mostly domestic servants. It also laid down the principle that slavery contracted in other jurisdictions (such as the North American colonies) could not be enforced in England.

The Somersett case became a significant part of the common law of slavery in the English speaking world, and helped launch the movement to abolish slavery. After reading about the Somersett's Case, Joseph Knight, an enslaved African in Scotland, left his master John Wedderburn. A similar case to Steuart's was brought by Wedderburn in 1776, with the same result: chattel slavery was ruled not to exist under the law of Scotland. Nonetheless, legally mandated, hereditary slavery of Scots in Scotland existed from 1606 until 1799, when colliers and salters were legally emancipated by an act of the Parliament of Great Britain (39 Geo.III. c56). A prior law enacted in 1775 (15 Geo.III. c. 28) was intended to end what the act referred to as "a state of slavery and bondage," but it was ineffectual, necessitating the 1799 act.

(c1729–1780) gained fame in his time as "the extraordinary Negro". To 18th-century British abolitionists, he became a symbol of the humanity of Africans and immorality of the slave trade.]]

First steps

Despite the ending of slavery in Great Britain, slavery was a strong institution in the Southern Colonies of British America and the West Indian colonies of the British Empire. By 1783, an anti-slavery movement was beginning among the British public. That year the first British abolitionist organization was founded by a group of Quakers. The Quakers continued to be influential throughout the lifetime of the movement, in many ways leading the campaign. On 17 June 1783 the issue was formally brought to government by Sir Cecil Wray (Member of Parliament for Westminster), who presented the Quaker petition to parliament. Also in 1783, Dr Beilby Porteus issued a call to the Church of England to cease its involvement in the slave trade and to formulate a workable policy to draw attention to and improve the conditions of Afro-Caribbean slaves. The exploration of the African continent, by such British groups as the African Association (1788), promoted the abolitionists' cause by showing Europeans that the Africans had legitimate, complex cultures. The African Association also had close ties with William Wilberforce, perhaps the most important political figure in the battle for abolition in the British Empire.

Black people also played an important part in the movement for abolition. In Britain, Olaudah Equiano, whose autobiography was published in nine editions in his lifetime, campaigned tirelessly against the slave trade

Growth of the movement

(1759–1833), politician and philanthropist who was a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade.]] In May 1787, the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was formed, referring to the Atlantic slave trade, the trafficking in slaves by British merchants who took manufactured goods from ports such as Bristol and Liverpool, sold or exchanged these for slaves in West Africa where the African chieftain hierarchy was tied to slavery, shipped the slaves to British colonies and other Caribbean countries or the American colonies, where they sold or exchanged them mainly to the Planters for rum and sugar, which they took back to British ports. This was the so-called Triangle trade because these mercantile merchants traded in three places each round-trip. Political influence against the inhumanity of the slave trade grew strongly in the late 18th century. Many people, some African, some European by descent, influenced abolition. Well known abolitionists in Britain included James Ramsay who had seen the cruelty of the trade at first hand, Granville Sharp, Thomas Clarkson, and other members of the Clapham Sect of evangelical reformers, as well as Quakers who took most of the places on the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, having been the first to present a petition against the slave trade to the British Parliament and who founded the predecessor body to the Committee. As Dissenters, Quakers were not eligible to become British MPs in the late eighteenth and early 19th century, so the Anglican evangelist William Wilberforce was persuaded to become the leader of the parliamentary campaign. Clarkson became the group's most prominent researcher, gathering vast amounts of information about the slave trade, gaining first hand accounts by interviewing sailors and former slaves at British ports such as Bristol, Liverpool and London. (c1745–1797) was one of the most prominent people of African heritage involved in the British debate for the abolition of the slave trade.]] Mainly because of Clarkson's efforts, a network of local abolition groups was established across the country. They campaigned through public meetings and the publication of pamphlets and petitions. One of the earliest books promoted by Clarkson and the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was the autobiography of the freed slave Olaudah Equiano. The movement had support from such freed slaves, from many denominational groups such as Swedenborgians, Quakers, Baptists, Methodists and others, and reached out for support from the new industrial workers of the cities in the midlands and north of England. Even women and children, previously un-politicised groups, became involved in the campaign although at this date women often had to hold separate meetings and were ineligible to be represented in the British Parliament, as indeed were the majority of the men in Britain.

One particular project of the abolitionists was the negotiation with African chieftains for the purchase of land in West African kingdoms for the establishment of 'Freetown' – a settlement for former slaves of the British Empire and the United States, back in west Africa. This privately negotiated settlement, later part of Sierra Leone eventually became protected under a British Act of Parliament in 1807–8, after which British influence in West Africa grew as a series of negotiations with local Chieftains were signed to stamp out trading in slaves. These included agreements to permit British navy ships to intercept Chieftains' ships to ensure their merchants were not carrying slaves. "A Negro Hung Alive by the Ribs to a Gallows", an illustration to J. G. Stedman's Narrative, of a Five Years' Expedition, against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam (1796).]]

In 1796, John Gabriel Stedman published the memoirs of his five-year voyage to Surinam as part of a military force sent out to subdue bosnegers, former slaves living in the inlands. The book is critical of the treatment of slaves and contains many images by William Blake and Francesco Bartolozzi depicting the cruel treatment of runaway slaves. It became part of a large body of abolitionist literature.

Slave Trade Act 1807

the abolition of the slave trade in 1807.]]

The Slave Trade Act was passed by the British Parliament on 25 March 1807, making the slave trade illegal throughout the British Empire. The Act imposed a fine of £100 for every slave found aboard a British ship. Such a law was bound to be eventually passed, given the increasingly powerful abolitionist movement. The timing might have been connected with the Napoleonic Wars raging at the time. At a time when Napoleon took the retrograde decision to revive slavery which had been abolished during the French Revolution and to send his troops to re-enslave the people of Haiti and the other French Caribbean possessions, the British prohibition of the slave trade gave the British Empire the high moral ground.

The act's intention was to entirely outlaw the slave trade within the British Empire, but the trade continued and captains in danger of being caught by the Royal Navy would often throw slaves into the sea to reduce the fine. In 1827, Britain declared that participation in the slave trade was piracy and punishable by death. Between 1808 and 1860, the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron seized approximately 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans who were aboard. Action was also taken against African leaders who refused to agree to British treaties to outlaw the trade, for example against "the usurping King of Lagos", deposed in 1851. Anti-slavery treaties were signed with over 50 African rulers.

Slavery Abolition Act 1833

in 1833.]] After the 1807 act, slaves were still held, though not sold, within the British Empire. In the 1820s, the abolitionist movement again became active, this time campaigning against the institution of slavery itself. In 1823 the first Anti-Slavery Society was founded in Britain. Many of the campaigners were those who had previously campaigned against the slave trade. Sam Sharpe contributed to the abolition of slavery with his Christmas rebellion in 1831.

On 28 August 1833, the Slavery Abolition Act was given Royal Assent, which paved the way for the abolition of slavery within the British Empire and its colonies. On 1 August 1834, all slaves in the British Empire were emancipated, but they were indentured to their former owners in an apprenticeship system which was abolished in two stages; the first set of apprenticeships came to an end on 1 August 1838, while the final apprenticeships were scheduled to cease on 1 August 1840, six years later.

On 1 August 1834, an unarmed group of mainly elderly Negroes being addressed by the Governor at Government House in Port of Spain, Trinidad, about the new laws, began chanting: "Pas de six ans. Point de six ans" ("Not six years. No six years"), drowning out the voice of the Governor. Peaceful protests continued until a resolution to abolish apprenticeship was passed and de facto freedom was achieved. Full emancipation for all was legally granted ahead of schedule on 1 August 1838, making Trinidad the first British colony with slaves to completely abolish slavery. The government set aside £20 million to cover compensation of slave owners across the Empire, but the former slaves received no compensation or reparations.

Convention, 1840" by Benjamin Haydon (1841).]]

Campaigning after the act

In 1839, a successor organization to the Anti-Slavery Society was formed, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, which worked to outlaw slavery in other countries and also to pressure the government to help enforce the suppression of the slave trade by declaring slave traders pirates and pursuing them. This organization continues today as Anti-Slavery International.

France

As in other "New World" colonies, the Atlantic slave trade provided the French colonies with manpower for the sugar cane plantations. The French West Indies included Anguilla (briefly), Antigua and Barbuda (briefly), Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haïti, Montserrat (briefly), Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Sint Eustatius (briefly), St Kitts and Nevis (St Kitts, but not Nevis), Trinidad and Tobago (Tobago only), Saint Croix (briefly), Saint-Barthélemy (until 1784 when became Swedish for nearly a century), the northern half of Saint Martin, and the current French overseas départements of Martinique and Guadeloupe in the Caribbean sea. (1754–1793), who organised the Society of the Friends of the Blacks in 1788 in the midst of the French Revolution.]] The slave trade was regulated by Louis XIV's Code Noir. The revolt of slaves in the largest French colony of St. Domingue in 1791 was the beginning of what became the Haïtian Revolution led by Toussaint L'Ouverture. The institution of slavery was first abolished in St. Domingue in 1793 by Sonthonax, who was the Commissioner sent to St. Domingue by the Convention, after the slave revolt of 1791, in order to safeguard the allegiance of the population to revolutionary France. The Convention, the first elected Assembly of the First Republic (1792–1804), then abolished slavery in law in France and its colonies on 4 February 1794. Abbé Grégoire and the Society of the Friends of the Blacks (Société des Amis des Noirs), led by Jacques Pierre Brissot, were part of the abolitionist movement, which had laid important groundwork in building anti-slavery sentiment in the metropole. The first article of the law stated that "Slavery was abolished" in the French colonies, while the second article stated that "slave-owners would be indemnified" with financial compensation for the value of their slaves. The constitution of France passed in 1795 included in the declaration of the Rights of Man that slavery was abolished.

However, Napoleon did not include any declaration of the Rights of Man in the Constitution promulgated in 1799, and decided to re-establish slavery after becoming First Consul, promulgating the law of 20 May 1802 and sending military governors and troops to the colonies to impose it. On 10 May 1802, Colonel Delgrès launched a rebellion in Guadeloupe against Napoleon's representative, General Richepanse. The rebellion was repressed, and slavery was re-established. The news of this event sparked the rebellion that led to the loss of the lives of tens of thousands of French soldiers, a greater loss of civilian lives, and Haïti's gaining independence in 1804, and the consequential loss of the second most important French territory in the Americas, Louisiana, which was sold to the United States of America. The French governments refused to recognise Haiti and only did so in the 1830s when Haiti agreed to pay a substantial amount of reparations. Then, on 27 April 1848, under the Second Republic (1848–52), the decree-law Schœlcher again abolished slavery. The state bought the slaves from the colons (white colonists; Békés in Creole), and then freed them. (1849).]] At about the same time, France started colonising Africa. Its activities there included transferring the population to mines, forestry, and rubber plantations under isolated, harsh working conditions often compared to slavery.

Debates about the dimensions of colonialism continue. On 10 May 2001, the Taubira law officially acknowledge slavery and the Atlantic Slave Trade as a crime against humanity. 10 May was chosen as the day dedicated to recognition of the crime of slavery. Anti-colonial activists also want the French Republic to recognise African Liberation Day.

Although the crime of slavery was formally recognised, four years later, the conservative Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) voted on 23 February 2005 for a law to require teachers and textbooks to "acknowledge and recognise in particular the positive role of the French presence abroad, especially in North Africa." This resolution was met with public uproar and accusations of historic revisionism, both inside France and abroad. Because of this law, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, president of Algeria, refused to sign the envisioned "friendly treaty" with France. Famous writer Aimé Césaire, leader of the Négritude movement, refused to meet UMP leader Nicolas Sarkozy, who cancelled his planned visit to Martinique. President Jacques Chirac (UMP) repealed the controversial law at the beginning of 2006.

Moldavia and Wallachia

In the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia (both now part of Romania), the enslavement of the Roma (often referred to as Gypsies) was still legal at the beginning of the 19th century. Abolitionism was associated with the progressive pro-European and anti-Ottoman movement, which gradually gained power in the two principalities. Between 1843 and 1855, all of the 250,000 enslaved Roma people were liberated. Many migrated to Western Europe and North America.

In the Americas

Bartolomé de las Casas was a 16th-century Spanish Dominican priest, the first resident Bishop of Chiapas, who as a settler in the New World witnessed, and was driven to oppose, the poor treatment of the Native Americans by the Spanish colonists and advocated before King Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor on behalf of rights for the natives. Originally having proposed to replace the slave labor of the natives with the importation of slaves from Africa, he eventually recanted this stance as well, and became an advocate for the Africans in the colonies. His book, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, is largely responsible for the passage of the new Spanish colonial laws known as the New Laws of 1542, which abolished native slavery for the first time in European colonial history and ultimately led to the Valladolid debate.

Latin America

Slavery was abolished in most of Latin America during the Independence Wars (1810–1822), but slavery remained a practice in the region up to 1873 in Puerto Rico, 1886 in Cuba, and 1888 in Brazil. In some parts of Africa and in much of the Islamic world, it persisted as a legal institution well into the 20th century.

Canada

Anti-slavery legislation was passed in Upper Canada (1793) and Lower Canada (1803) long before such measures were enacted in the rest of the British Empire.

United States

In eleven States constituting the American South, slavery was a social and powerful economic institution, integral to the agricultural economy. By the 1860 United States Census, the slave population in the United States had grown to four million. American abolitionism labored under the handicap that it was accused of threatening the harmony of North and South in the Union. The abolitionist movement in the North was led by social reformers such as William Lloyd Garrison, founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society; writers such as John Greenleaf Whittier and Harriet Beecher Stowe; former slaves such as Frederick Douglass; and free blacks such as brothers Charles Henry Langston and John Mercer Langston, who helped found the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society.

The 1860 presidential victory of Abraham Lincoln, who opposed the spread of slavery to the Western United States, marked a turning point in the movement. Convinced that their way of life was threatened, the Southern states seceded from the Union, which led to the American Civil War. In 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves held in the Confederate States; the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1865) prohibited slavery throughout the country.

Calls for abolition

The first American movement to abolish slavery came in the spring of 1688 when German and Dutch Quakers of Mennonite descent in Germantown, Pennsylvania (now part of Philadelphia) wrote a two-page condemnation of the practice and sent it to the governing bodies of their Quaker church, the Society of Friends. Though the Quaker establishment took no immediate action, the 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery, was an unusually early, clear and forceful argument against slavery and initiated the process that finally led to the banning of slavery in the Society of Friends (1776) and in the state of Pennsylvania(1780). (1737–1805), whose 1775 article "African Slavery in America" was the first article published in what would become the United States which advocated abolishing slavery and freeing the slaves.]] The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage was the first American abolition society, formed 14 April 1775, in Philadelphia, primarily by Quakers who had strong religious objections to slavery. The society ceased to operate during the Revolution and the British occupation of Philadelphia. After the Revolution, it was reorganized in 1784, with Benjamin Franklin as its first president.Rhode Island Quakers, associated with Moses Brown, co-founder of Brown University, and who also settled at Uxbridge, Massachusetts prior to 1770, were among the first in America to free slaves. Benjamin Rush was another leader, as were many Quakers. John Woolman gave up most of his business in 1756 to devote himself to campaigning against slavery along with other Quakers. The first article published in what later became the United States advocating the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery was allegedly written by Thomas Paine. Titled "African Slavery in America", it appeared on 8 March 1775 in the Postscript to the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser, more popularly known as The Pennsylvania Magazine, or American Museum.

Abolition in the North

Through the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 under the Congress of the Confederation, slavery was prohibited in the territories north west of the Ohio River. By 1804, abolitionists succeeded in passing legislation that would eventually (in conjunction with the 13th amendment) emancipate the slaves in every state north of the Ohio River and the Mason-Dixon Line. However, emancipation in the free states was so gradual that both New York and Pennsylvania listed slaves in their 1840 census returns, and a small number of black slaves (18) were held in New Jersey in 1860.

(1745–1829), who founded the New York Manumission Society in 1785.]] The principal organized bodies to advocate this reform were the Pennsylvania Antislavery Society and the New York Manumission Society. The last was headed by powerful politicians: John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, later Federalists and Aaron Burr, later Democratic-Republican Vice-President of the United States. That bill did not pass, because of controversy over the rights of freed slaves; every member of the Legislature, but one, voted for some version of it. New York did enact a bill in 1799, which did end slavery over time, but made no provision for the freedmen. New Jersey in 1804 was the last northern state to enact the gradual elimination slavery (again in a gradual fashion); there were still eighteen "perpetual apprentices" in New Jersey in the 1860 Census. Despite the actions of abolitionists, free blacks were subject to racial segregation in the North.

At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, agreement was reached that allowed the Federal government to abolish the importation of slaves into the United States, but not prior to 1808. By that time, all the states had passed individual laws abolishing or severely limiting the international buying or selling of slaves. The importation of slaves into the United States was officially banned on January 1, 1808. but not its internal slave trade.

Manumission by owners

After 1776, Quaker and Moravian advocates helped persuade numerous slaveholders in the Upper South to free their slaves. Manumissions increased for nearly two decades. Many individual acts of manumission freed thousands of slaves in total. Slaveholders freed slaves in such number that the percentage of free Negroes in the Upper South increased sharply from one to ten percent, with most of that increase in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. By 1810 three-quarters of blacks in Delaware were free. The most notable of individuals was Robert Carter III of Virginia, who freed more than 450 people by "Deed of Gift", filed in 1791. This number was more slaves than any single American had freed or would ever free. Often slaveholders came to their decisions by their own struggles in the Revolution; their wills and deeds frequently cited language about the equality of men supporting their manumissions. Slaveholders were also encouraged to do so because the economics of the area was changing. They were shifting from labor-intensive tobacco culture to mixed crop cultivation and did not need as many slaves.

The free black families began to thrive, together with African Americans free before the Revolution, mostly descendants of unions between working class white women and African men. By 1860, in Delaware 91.7 percent of the blacks were free, and 49.7 percent of those in Maryland. These first free families often formed the core of artisans, professionals, preachers and teachers in future generations. Northern teachers suspected of abolitionism were expelled from the South, and abolitionist literature was banned. Southerners rejected the denials of Republicans that they were abolitionists. They pointed to John Brown's attempt in 1859 to start a slave uprising as proof that multiple Northern conspiracies were afoot to ignite bloody slave rebellions. Although some abolitionists did call for slave revolts, no evidence of any other Brown-like conspiracy has been discovered. The North felt threatened as well, for as Eric Foner concludes, "Northerners came to view slavery as the very antithesis of the good society, as well as a threat to their own fundamental values and interests". However, many conservative Northerners were uneasy at the prospect of the sudden addition to the labor pool of a huge number of freed laborers who were used to working for very little, and thus seen as being willing to undercut prevailing wages.. The famous, "fiery" Abolitionist, Abby Kelley Foster, from Massachusetts, was considered an "ultra" abolitionist who believed in full civil rights for all black people. She held to the views that the freed slaves would colonize Liberia. Parts of the anti-slavery movement became known as "Abby Kellyism". She recruited Susan B Anthony to the movement.

Colonization and the founding of Liberia

(1777–1852), one of the three founders of the American Colonization Society.]] In the early part of the 19th century, a variety of organizations were established advocating the movement of black people from the United States to locations where they would enjoy greater freedom; some endorsed colonization, while others advocated emigration. During the 1820s and 1830s the American Colonization Society (A.C.S.) was the primary vehicle for proposals to return black Americans to freedom in Africa. It had broad support nationwide among white people, including prominent leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, Henry Clay and James Monroe, who saw this as preferable to emancipation, with Clay stating: "unconquerable prejudice resulting from their color, they never could amalgamate with the free whites of this country. It was desirable, therefore, as it respected them, and the residue of the population of the country, to drain them off". Clay argued that as blacks could never be fully integrated into society due to "unconquerable prejudice" by white Americans, it would be better for them to emigrate to Africa.

Emigration

The emigrationist tradition dated back to the Revolutionary War era. Initially, the thought was that free African Americans would want to emigrate to Africa, but over time other ideas became popular. After Haiti became independent, it tried to recruit African Americans to migrate there after it re-established trade relations with the United States. The Haytian Union was the name of a group formed to promote relations between the countries.

Cincinnati's Black community sponsored founding the Wilberforce Colony, an initially successful settlement of African American immigrants to Canada. The colony was one of the first such independent political entities. It lasted for a number of decades and provided a destination for about 200 black families emigrating from a number of locations in the United States.

After O'Connell's failure, the American Repeal Associations broke up; but the Garrisonians rarely relapsed into the "bitter hostility" of American Protestants towards the Roman Church. Some antislavery men joined the Know Nothings in the collapse of the parties; but Edmund Quincy ridiculed it as a mushroom growth, a distraction from the real issues. Although the Know-Nothing legislature of Massachusetts honored Garrison, he continued to oppose them as violators of fundamental rights to freedom of worship. , the novel caught the public imagination just at a turning point in popular support for American abolition.]]

Abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison repeatedly condemned slavery for contradicting the principles of freedom and equality on which the country was founded. In 1854, Garrison wrote:

I am a believer in that portion of the Declaration of American Independence in which it is set forth, as among self-evident truths, "that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Hence, I am an abolitionist. Hence, I cannot but regard oppression in every form – and most of all, that which turns a man into a thing – with indignation and abhorrence. Not to cherish these feelings would be recreancy to principle. They who desire me to be dumb on the subject of slavery, unless I will open my mouth in its defense, ask me to give the lie to my professions, to degrade my manhood, and to stain my soul. I will not be a liar, a poltroon, or a hypocrite, to accommodate any party, to gratify any sect, to escape any odium or peril, to save any interest, to preserve any institution, or to promote any object. Convince me that one man may rightfully make another man his slave, and I will no longer subscribe to the Declaration of Independence. Convince me that liberty is not the inalienable birthright of every human being, of whatever complexion or clime, and I will give that instrument to the consuming fire. I do not know how to espouse freedom and slavery together.

History of abolition in the United States

In The Struggle for Equality, historian James M. McPherson defines an abolitionist "as one who before the Civil War in the United States had agitated for the immediate, unconditional, and total abolition of slavery in the United States."

Although there were several groups that opposed slavery (such as the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage), at the time of the founding of the Republic, there were few states which prohibited slavery outright. The Constitution had several provisions which accommodated slavery, although none used the word. Passed unanimously by the Congress of the Confederation in 1787, the Northwest Ordinance forbade slavery in the Northwest Territory, a vast area which had previously belonged to individual states in which slavery was legal. (1652-1730), judge who wrote The Selling of Joseph (1700) which denounced the spread of slavery in the American colonies.]] American abolitionism began very early, well before the United States was founded as a nation. An early law abolishing slavery (but not temporary indentured servitude) in Rhode Island in 1652 floundered within 50 years. Samuel Sewall, a prominent Bostonian and one of the judges at the Salem Witch Trials, wrote The Selling of Joseph in protest of the widening practice of outright slavery as opposed to indentured servitude in the colonies. This is the earliest-recorded anti-slavery tract published in the future United States.

Abolitionists included those who joined the American Anti-Slavery Society or its auxiliary groups in the 1830s and 1840s as the movement fragmented. The fragmented anti-slavery movement included groups such as the Liberty Party; the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society; the American Missionary Association; and the Church Anti-Slavery Society. McPherson describes three types of abolitionists prior to the Civil War:

On the ideological spectrum, from immediate abolition on the Left to conservative antislavery on the Right, it is often hard to tell where "abolition" (which demanded unconditional emancipation and usually envisaged civil equality for the free slaves.) ended and "antislavery" or "free soil" (which desired only the containment of slavery and was ambivalent on the question of equality) began. In New England particularly, many free soilers were abolitionists at heart; in the mid-Atlantic states and even more in the old Northwest, political abolitionists tended to submerge their abolitionist identity in the broader but shallower stream of free soil.

In 1777, Vermont, not yet one of the United States, became the first jurisdiction in North America to prohibit slavery: slaves were not directly freed, but masters were required to remove slaves from Vermont. The first state to begin a gradual abolition of slavery was Pennsylvania, in 1780, and the process was very gradual indeed: all importation of slaves was prohibited, but none freed at first; only the slaves of masters who failed to register them with the state, along with the "future children" of enslaved mothers. Those enslaved in Pennsylvania before the 1780 law went into effect were not freed until 1847.

Massachusetts took an opposite and much more radical position. Its Supreme Court ruled in 1783, that a black man was, indeed, a man; and therefore free under the state's constitution.

All of the other states north of Maryland began gradual abolition of slavery between 1781 and 1804, based on the Pennsylvania model. Rhode Island had limited slave trading in 1774 (Virginia had also attempted to do so before the Revolution, but the Privy Council had vetoed the act), all the other northern states also limited the slave trade by 1786, and Georgia in 1798. These northern emancipation acts typically provided that slaves born before the law was passed would be freed at a certain age, and so remnants of slavery lingered; in New Jersey, a dozen "permanent apprentices" were recorded in the 1860 census. on 7 November 1837, which resulted in the murder of abolitionist Elijah Parish Lovejoy (1802-1837).]] The institution remained solid in the South, however and that region's customs and social beliefs evolved into a strident defense of slavery in response to the rise of a stronger anti-slavery stance in the North. In 1835 alone abolitionists mailed over a million pieces of anti-slavery literature to the south. In response southern legislators banned abolitionist literature and encouraged harassment of anyone distributing it. Anti-slavery sentiment among many people in the North was jolted by the murder of Elijah Parish Lovejoy, a white man and editor of an abolitionist newspaper on 7 November 1837, by a pro-slavery mob which destroyed his printing press. The majority of Northerners rejected the extreme positions of the abolitionists; Abraham Lincoln, for example. Indeed many northern leaders including Lincoln, Stephen Douglas (the Democratic nominee in 1860), John C. Fremont (the Republican nominee in 1856), and Ulysses S. Grant married into slave owning southern families without any moral qualms.

(1808-1887), an individualist anarchist who wrote The Unconstitutionality of Slavery (1845).]] (1800–1859), abolitionist who advocated armed insurrection to overthrow the institution of slavery. He organized the Pottawatomie Massacre (1856) and was later executed for leading an unsuccessful 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.]] Abolitionism as a principle was far more than just the wish to limit the extent of slavery. Most Northerners recognized that slavery existed in the South and the Constitution did not allow the federal government to intervene there. Most Northerners favored a policy of gradual and compensated emancipation. After 1849 abolitionists rejected this and demanded it end immediately and everywhere. John Brown was the only abolitionist known to have actually planned a violent insurrection, though David Walker promoted the idea. The abolitionist movement was strengthened by the activities of free African-Americans, especially in the black church, who argued that the old Biblical justifications for slavery contradicted the New Testament.

African-American activists and their writings were rarely heard outside the black community; however, they were tremendously influential to some sympathetic white people, most prominently the first white activist to reach prominence, William Lloyd Garrison, who was its most effective propagandist. Garrison's efforts to recruit eloquent spokesmen led to the discovery of ex-slave Frederick Douglass, who eventually became a prominent activist in his own right. Eventually, Douglass would publish his own, widely distributed abolitionist newspaper, the North Star.

In the early 1850s, the American abolitionist movement split into two camps over the issue of the United States Constitution. This issue arose in the late 1840s after the publication of The Unconstitutionality of Slavery by Lysander Spooner. The Garrisonians, led by Garrison and Wendell Phillips, publicly burned copies of the Constitution, called it a pact with slavery, and demanded its abolition and replacement. Another camp, led by Lysander Spooner, Gerrit Smith, and eventually Douglass, considered the Constitution to be an antislavery document. Using an argument based upon Natural Law and a form of social contract theory, they said that slavery existed outside of the Constitution's scope of legitimate authority and therefore should be abolished.

Another split in the abolitionist movement was along class lines. The artisan republicanism of Robert Dale Owen and Frances Wright stood in stark contrast to the politics of prominent elite abolitionists such as industrialist Arthur Tappan and his evangelist brother Lewis. While the former pair opposed slavery on a basis of solidarity of "wage slaves" with "chattel slaves", the Whiggish Tappans strongly rejected this view, opposing the characterization of Northern workers as "slaves" in any sense. (Lott, 129–130) being adored by an enslaved mother and child as he walks to his execution.]] Many American abolitionists took an active role in opposing slavery by supporting the Underground Railroad. This was made illegal by the federal Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Nevertheless, participants like Harriet Tubman, Henry Highland Garnet, Alexander Crummell, Amos Noë Freeman and others continued with their work. Abolitionists were particularly active in Ohio, where some worked directly in the Underground Railroad. Since the state shared a border with slave states, it was a popular place for slaves' escaping across the Ohio River and up its tributaries, where they sought shelter among supporters who would help them move north to freedom. Two significant events in the struggle to destroy slavery were the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue and John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. In the South, members of the abolitionist movement or other people opposing slavery were often targets of lynch mob violence before the American Civil War.

Numerous known abolitionists lived, worked, and worshipped in Downtown Brooklyn, from Henry Ward Beecher, who auctioned slaves into freedom from the pulpit of Plymouth Church, to Nathan Egelston, a leader of the African and Foreign Antislavery Society, who also preached at Bridge Street AME and lived on Duffield Street. His fellow Duffield Street residents, Thomas and Harriet Truesdell were leading members of the Abolitionist movement. Mr. Truesdell was a founding member of the Providence Anti-slavery Society before moving to Brooklyn in 1851. Harriet Truesdell was also very active in the movement, organizing an antislavery convention in Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia. The Tuesdell's lived at 227 Duffield Street. Another prominent Brooklyn-based abolitionist was Rev. Joshua Leavitt, trained as a lawyer at Yale who stopped practicing law in order to attend Yale Divinity School, and subsequently edited the abolitionist newspaper The Emancipator and campaigned against slavery, as well as advocating other social reforms. In 1841 Leavitt published his The Financial Power of Slavery, which argued that the South was draining the national economy due to its reliance on slavery.

After the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation on 1 January 1863, abolitionists continued to pursue the freedom of slaves in the remaining slave states, and to better the conditions of black Americans generally. The passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 officially ended slavery in the United States.

Notable opponents of slavery

==National abolition dates== Slavery was abolished in these nations in these years: Persia: Cyrus the Great, the King of Persia, declared (around 600 BCE) that all slaves would be freed, one of many unheard of liberal reforms in his time. Hungary: Stephen I of Hungary, the first Hungarian Christian king, declared in his laws (near the year 1000) that any slave that lives, stays or enters the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary would become free immediately. Sweden: Magnus IV of Sweden declared the end of thralldom in 1335 "for thralls born by Christian parents in the thing areas of Västergötland and Värend". Swedish participation in the transatlantic slave trade was forbidden in 1813, and in 1847, slavery was abolished, after an initial decision taken in 1846. (The last legally owned slaves in the Swedish colony of St Barthélemy were bought by the state and freed on 9 October 1847.)

Japan: In 1587 Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered all slave trading to be abolished. His successor Tokugawa Ieyasu also continued abolition of slavery although severe servitude was still in practice until the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate in the 1860s.

Portugal: 1761 in Portugal and Portuguese India (1869, African colonies)

England and Wales: In practice, 1772, as a result of Somersett's case; although the legal effect of this was much more limited; see Slavery at common law

Vermont Republic: 1777, Commonwealth of Vermont, an independent republic created after the American Revolution, on 8 July 1777. Vermont joined the United States of America in 1791.

Bukovina: 1783, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor issued an order abolishing slavery on 19 June 1783 in Czernowitz.

Central Great Lakes Region of the United States: 1787, pre-dating the United States Constitution by the Northwest Ordinance which re-affirmed it in 1789.

Haiti: 1791, revolt among nearly half a million slaves in the North; the French commissioner of the colony ended slavery in 1794.

Upper Canada: 1793, by Act Against Slavery (this free-womb act did not free any slaves, but stated that children of current slaves would become free at age 25)

France (first time): 1794–1802, including all colonies (although abolition was never carried out in some colonies, because of resistance by local assemblies, or because the colonies were under British occupation)

Scotland: 1799 by an act of the Parliament of Great Britain (39 Geo.III. c. 56).

Chile: The Spanish crown abolished slavery in 1683. 1811 partially, and in 1823 for all who remained as slave and "whoever slave setting a foot on Chilean soil".

Argentina: Freedom of wombs in 1813, full abolition in 1853

Gran Colombia (Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, and Venezuela): 1821, through a gradual emancipation plan incorporating free-womb laws and compensated emancipation (New Granada in 1853, Venezuela in 1854)

Federal Republic of Central America, present (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica): 1824

Mexico: 1829

British Empire: 1833, including all colonies (with effect from 1 August 1834; in East Indies from 1 August 1838). Slavery was ruled illegal in England in 1772. In 1807, slave trading was abolished, and the Royal Navy tasked with suppressing it, even when carried on by non-British subjects.

Mauritius: 1 February 1835, under the British government. This day is now a public holiday.

Spain: 1837, only for metropolis, not for colonies.

Denmark: 1848, including all colonies (3 July, Danish West Indies)

France (second time): 1848, including all colonies

Peru: African-Peruvian slaves were nominally released in 1821 by Gen. San Martin, but they did not get actual freedom until Ramon Castilla's decree of 1851. Chinese labourers replaced the African slaves since then and worked on a semi-slavery regime, until they were mostly freed by Chilean troops during the War of the Pacific in 1880. Native Peruvians in some regions of the country continued working in slave-like conditions under a regime that had begun as encomiendas during the Spanish rule, which was finally abolished by Gen. Juan Velasco in 1969, the year de facto slavery finally ended in Peru.

Moldavia: 1855

Wallachia: 1856

The Netherlands: 1863, including all colonies, but kept using 'Recruits' from Africa until 1940

The United States: 1865, after the American Civil War (Many states abolished slavery for themselves at various dates between 1777 and 1864)

Puerto Rico 1873 and Cuba: 1886 (both were colonies of Spain at the time)

Ottoman Empire: 1876.

Brazil: 1888. The last country in the Americas to abolish slavery. The Imperial Princess Isabel de Bragança abolished all forms of slavery existent in the Brazilian Empire.

Korea: 1894 (hereditary slavery ended in 1886)

Madagascar: 1896

Zanzibar: 1897 (slave trade abolished in 1873)

Siam (Thailand): 1905 China: 1910 Somalia: 1920 Afghanistan: 1923 Sudan: Officially abolished in 1924, actually still practiced today. See Slavery in Sudan.

Ethiopia: 1923 (slavery was officially abolished at this time as a prerequisite for admission into the League of Nations, though it took many years for the law to be enforced throughout the empire)

Iraq: 1924 Nepal: 1926

Iran: 1928

Burma: 1929

Morocco: Slavery was outlawed in the 1930s. Northern Nigeria: 1936

Qatar: 1952

Saudi Arabia: 1962

Yemen: 1962

United Arab Emirates: 1963

Oman: 1970

Mauritania: July 1980 (still formally abolished by French authorities in 1905, then implicitly in the new constitution of 1961 and expressly in October that year when the country joined the United Nations), actually still practiced. Slavery in Mauritania was criminalized in August 2007.

Niger: 2003. Slave markets in Niger were closed during the French colonization, but slavery in Niger was finally criminalized as late as in 2003 (came into force a year later). Nepal: 2008. The government abolished the Haliya system of forced labour, freeing about 20,000 people.

Commemoration

The abolitionist movements and the abolition of slavery have been commemorated in different ways around the world in modern times. The United Nations General Assembly declared 2004 the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition. This proclamation marked the bicentenary of the birth of the first black state, Haiti. Numerous exhibitions, events and research programmes were connected to the initiative.

2007 witnessed major exhibitions in British museums and galleries to mark the anniversary of the 1807 abolition act – 1807 Commemorated 2008 marks the 201st anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade in the British Empire. It also marks the 175th anniversary of the Abolition of Slavery in the British Empire.

The Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa held a major international conference entitled, "Routes to Freedom: Reflections on the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade", from 14 to 16 March 2008. Actor and human rights activist Danny Glover delivered the keynote speech announcing the creation of two major scholarships intended for University of Ottawa law students specializing in international law and social justice at the conference's gala dinner.

Brooklyn, New York has begun work on commemorating the abolitionist movement in New York.

Contemporary abolitionism

On December 10, 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 4 states: :No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Although outlawed in most countries, slavery is nonetheless practiced secretly in many parts of the world. Enslavement still takes place in the United States, Europe, and Latin America, as well as parts of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. There are an estimated 27 million victims of slavery worldwide. In Mauritania alone, estimates are that up to 600,000 men, women and children, or 20% of the population, are enslaved. Many of them are used as bonded labour.

Modern-day abolitionists have emerged over the last several years, as awareness of slavery around the world has grown, with groups such as Anti-Slavery International, the American Anti-Slavery Group, International Justice Mission, and Free the Slaves working to rid the world of slavery. Zach Hunter, for example, began a movement called Loose Change to Loosen Chains when he was in seventh grade. Also featured on CNN and other national news organizations, Hunter has gone on to help inspire other teens and young adults to take action against injustice with his books, Be the Change and Generation Change.

In the United States, The Action Group to End Human Trafficking and Modern-Day Slavery is a coalition of NGOs, foundations and corporations working to develop a policy agenda for abolishing slavery and human trafficking. Since 1997, the United States Department of Justice has, through work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, prosecuted six individuals in Florida on charges of slavery in the agricultural industry. These prosecutions have led to freedom for over 1000 enslaved workers in the tomato and orange fields of South Florida. This is only one example of the contemporary fight against slavery worldwide. Slavery exists most widely in agricultural labor, apparel and sex industries, and service jobs in some regions.

In 2000, the United States passed the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (TVPA) "to combat trafficking in persons, especially into the sex trade, slavery, and involuntary servitude." The TVPA also "created new law enforcement tools to strengthen the prosecution and punishment of traffickers, making human trafficking a Federal crime with severe penalties."

The United States Department of State publishes the annual Trafficking in Persons Report, identifying countries as either Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 2 Watch List or Tier 3, depending upon three factors: "(1) The extent to which the country is a country of origin, transit, or destination for severe forms of trafficking; (2) The extent to which the government of the country does not comply with the TVPA's minimum standards including, in particular, the extent of the government's trafficking-related corruption; and (3) The resources and capabilities of the government to address and eliminate severe forms of trafficking in persons."

See also

Abolition of slavery timeline

Abolitionism and Queen Charlotte's paintings

American Anti-Slavery Society

American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, a spin-off of the American Anti-Slavery Society

Anti-Slavery Society

Come-outer

Compensated emancipation

List of opponents of slavery

Slavery in the British and French Caribbean

Slavery in the British Virgin Islands

The Slave Power

Footnotes

References

Great Britain and World

Brown, Christopher Leslie. Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism (2006)

Davis, David Brion, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823 (1999); The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (1988)

Drescher, Seymour. Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery (2009)

Finkelman, Paul, ed. Encyclopedia of Slavery (1999)

Gordon, M. Slavery in the Arab World (1989)

Gould, Philip. Barbaric Traffic: Commerce and Antislavery in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World (2003)

Hellie, Richard. Slavery in Russia: 1450–1725 (1982)

Hinks, Peter, and John McKivigan, eds. Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolition (2 vol. 2006) ISBN 0-313-33142-1; 846pp; 300 articles by experts

Hochschild, Adam. Bury the Chains, Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves (2005)

Kolchin, Peter. Unfree Labor; American Slavery and Russian Serfdom (1987)

Morgan, Kenneth. Slavery and the British Empire: From Africa to America (2008)

Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. "Encyclopedia of Emancipation and Abolition in the Transatlantic World" (2007)

Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery (1997)

Thomas, Hugh. The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440–1870 (2006)

United States

Abzug, Robert H. Cosmos Crumbling: American Reform and the Religious Imagination. Oxford, 1994. ISBN 0-19-503752-9.

Bacon, Jacqueline. The Humblest May Stand Forth: Rhetoric, Empowerment, and Abolition. Univ of South Carolina Press, 2002. ISBN 1-57003-434-6.

Barnes, Gilbert H. The Anti-Slavery Impulse 1830–1844. Reprint, 1964. ISBN 0-7812-5307-1.

Berlin, Ira and Leslie Harris. Slavery in New York. New Press, 2005. ISBN 1-56584-997-3.

Blue, Frederick J. No Taint of Compromise: Crusaders in Antislavery Politics. Louisiana State Univ Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8071-2976-3.

Bordewich, Fergus M. Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America. HarperCollins, 2005. ISBN 0-06-052430-8.

Davis, David Brion, Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World Oxford, 2006. ISBN 0-19-514073-7.

Filler, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery 1830–1860. 1960. ISBN 0-917256-29-8.

David Nathaniel Gellman. Emancipating New York: The Politics of Slavery And Freedom, 1777–1827 Louisiana State Univ Press, 2006. ISBN 0-8071-3174-1.

Griffin, Clifford S. Their Brothers' Keepers: Moral Stewardship in the United States 1800–1865. Rutgers Univ Press, 1967. ISBN 0-313-24059-0.

Harrold, Stanley. The Abolitionists and the South, 1831–1861. Univ Press of Kentucky, 1995. ISBN 0-8131-0968-X.

Harrold, Stanley. The American Abolitionists. Longman, 2000. ISBN 0-582-35738-1.

Harrold, Stanley. The Rise of Aggressive Abolitionism: Addresses to the Slaves. Univ Press of Kentucky, 2004. ISBN 0-8131-2290-2.

Horton, James Oliver. "Alexander Hamilton: Slavery and Race in a Revolutionary Generation" New-York Journal of American History 2004 65(3): 16–24. ISSN 1551–5486

Huston, James L. "The Experiential Basis of the Northern Antislavery Impulse." Journal of Southern History 56:4 (November 1990): 609–640.

Mayer, Henry All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery St. Martin's Press, 1998. ISBN 0-312-18740-8.

McKivigan, John R. The War Against Proslavery Religion: Abolitionism and the Northern Churches, 1830–1865 Cornell Univ Press, 1984. ISBN 0-8014-1589-6.

McPherson, James M. The Abolitionist Legacy: From Reconstruction to the NAACP Princeton Univ Press, 1975. ISBN 0-691-04637-9.

Osofsky, Gilbert. "Abolitionists, Irish Immigrants, and the Dilemmas of Romantic Nationalism" American Historical Review 1975 80(4): 889–912. ISSN 0002-8762 in JSTOR

Perry, Lewis and Michael Fellman, eds. Antislavery Reconsidered: New Perspectives on the Abolitionists. Louisiana State Univ Press, 1979. ISBN 0-8071-0889-8.

Peterson, Merrill D. John Brown: The Legend Revisited. Univ Press of Virginia, 2002. ISBN 0-8139-2132-5.

Pierson, Michael D. Free Hearts and Free Homes: Gender and American Antislavery Politics. Univ of North Carolina Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8078-2782-7.

Schafer, Judith Kelleher. Becoming Free, Remaining Free: Manumission and Enslavement in New Orleans, 1846–1862. Louisiana State Univ Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8071-2862-7.

Salerno, Beth A. Sister Societies: Women's Antislavery Organizations in Antebellum America. Northern Illinois Univ Press, 2005. ISBN 0-87580-338-5.

Speicher, Anna M. The Religious World of Antislavery Women: Spirituality in the Lives of Five Abolitionist Lecturers. Syracuse Univ Press, 2000. ISBN 0-8156-2850-1.

Stauffer, John. The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race. Harvard Univ Press, 2002. ISBN 0-674-00645-3.

Vorenberg, Michael. Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment. Cambridge Univ Press, 2001. ISBN 0-521-65267-7.

Zilversmit, Arthur. The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North. University of Chicago Press, 1967. ISBN 0-226-98332-3.

External links

Mémoire St Barth | History of St Barthélemy (archives & history of slavery, slave trade and their abolition), Comité de Liaison et d'Application des Sources Historiques.

Largest Surviving Anti Slave Trade Petition from Manchester, UK 1806

Original Document Proposing Abolition of Slavery 13th Amendment

"John Brown's body and blood" by Ari Kelman: a review in the TLS, 14 February 2007.

Scotland and the Abolition of the Slave Trade – schools resource

Report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice

Twentieth Century Solutions of the Abolition of Slavery

Elijah Parish Lovejoy: A Martyr on the Altar of American Liberty

Brycchan Carey's pages listing British abolitionists

Teaching resources about Slavery and Abolition on blackhistory4schools.com

The National Archives (UK): The Abolition of the Slave Trade

Towards Liberty: Slavery, the Slave Trade, Abolition and Emancipation Produced by Sheffield City Council's Libraries and Archives (UK)]

The slavery debate

The slave trade: myths and preconceptions

John Brown Museum

American Abolitionism

History of the British abolitionist movement by Right Honourable Lord Archer of Sandwell

"Slavery – The emancipation movement in Britain", lecture by James Walvin at Gresham College, 5 March 2007 (available for video and audio download)

Underground Railroad: Escape from Slavery | Scholatic.com

Canada and the Journey to Freedom"

1807 Commemorated

The Action Group

US Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report 2008

National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio

The Liberator Files, Horace Seldon's collection and summary of research of William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator original copies at the Boston Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts.

University of Detroit Mercy Black Abolitionist Archive, a collection of over 800 speeches by antebellum blacks and approximately 1,000 editorials from the period.

Abolitionist movement

Category:Political movements Category:African diaspora history Category:Slavery

Name	Frederick Douglass
Birth date	February 1818
Birth place	Talbot County, Maryland, United States
Death date	February 20, 1895 (aged about 78)
Death place	Washington, D.C., United States
Occupation	Abolitionist, author, editor, diplomat
Spouse	Anna Murray (c. 1839)Helen Pitts (1884)
Parents	Harriet Bailey and perhaps Aaron Anthony
Political party	Republican
Children	Charles Remond DouglassRosetta DouglassLewis Henry DouglassFrederick Douglass Jr.Annie Douglass (died at 10)
Signature	Douglass Signature.svg

Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining renown for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing. He stood as a living counter-example to slaveholders' arguments that slaves did not have the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens. He became a major speaker for the cause of abolition.

In addition to his oratory, Douglass wrote several autobiographies, eloquently describing his life as a slave, and his struggles to be free. His classic autobiography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, is one of the best known accounts of American slavery.

After the Civil War, Douglass remained very active in America's struggle to reach its potential as a "land of the free". Douglass actively supported women's suffrage. Following the war, he worked on behalf of equal rights for freedmen, and held multiple public offices.

Douglass was a firm believer in the equality of all people, whether black, female, Native American, or recent immigrant. He was fond of saying, "I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong."

Life as a slave

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, who later became known as Frederick Douglass, was born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland, between Hillsboro and Cordova, probably in his grandmother's shack east of Tappers Corner and west of Tuckahoe Creek. He was separated from his mother, Harriet Bailey, when he was still an infant and lived with his maternal grandmother Betty Bailey. His mother died when Douglass was about seven.

The identity of his father is obscure. Douglass originally stated that he was told his father was a white man, perhaps his master Aaron Anthony. Later he said he knew nothing of his father's identity. At age seven, Douglass was separated from his grandmother and moved to the Wye House plantation, where Anthony worked as overseer. When Anthony died, Douglass was given to Lucretia Auld, wife of Thomas Auld. She sent Douglass to serve Thomas' brother Hugh Auld in Baltimore.

When Douglass was about twelve years old, Hugh Auld's wife Sophia started teaching him the alphabet despite the fact that it was against the law to teach slaves to read. Douglass described her as a kind and tender-hearted woman, she treated Douglass like one human being ought to treat another. When Hugh Auld discovered her activity, he strongly disapproved, saying that if a slave learned to read, he would become dissatisfied with his condition and desire freedom. Douglass later referred to this statement as the "first decidedly antislavery lecture" he had ever heard. As detailed in his autobiography, Douglass succeeded in learning to read from white children in the neighborhood and by observing the writings of men with whom he worked. Mrs.Auld one day saw Douglass reading a newspaper she ran over to him and snatched it from him, with a face that said education and slavery were incompatible with each other.

He continued, secretly, to teach himself how to read and write. Douglass is noted as saying that "knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom." As Douglass learned and began to read newspapers, political materials, and books of every description, he was exposed to a new realm of thought that led him to question and then condemn the institution of slavery. In later years, Douglass credited The Columbian Orator, which he discovered at about age twelve, with clarifying and defining his views on freedom and human rights.

When Douglass was hired out to William Freeland, he taught other slaves on the plantation to read the New Testament at a weekly Sunday school. As word spread, the interest among slaves in learning to read was so great that in any week, more than 40 slaves would attend lessons. For about six months, their study went relatively unnoticed. While Freeland was complacent about their activities, other plantation owners became incensed that their slaves were being educated. One Sunday they burst in on the gathering, armed with clubs and stones, to disperse the congregation permanently.

In 1833, Thomas Auld took Douglass back from Hugh after a dispute ("[A]s a means of punishing Hugh," Douglass wrote). Dissatisfied with Douglass, Thomas Auld sent him to work for Edward Covey, a poor farmer who had a reputation as a "slave-breaker." There Douglass was whipped regularly. The sixteen-year-old Douglass was indeed nearly broken psychologically by his ordeal under Covey, but he finally rebelled against the beatings and fought back. After losing a confrontation with Douglass, Covey never tried to beat him again.

In 1837, Douglass met Anna Murray, a free black in Baltimore. They married soon after he obtained his freedom.

From slavery to freedom

Douglass first unsuccessfully tried to escape from Freeland, who had hired him out from his owner Colonel Lloyd. In 1836, he tried to escape from his new owner Covey, but failed again.

On September 3, 1838, Douglass successfully escaped by boarding a train to Havre de Grace, Maryland. Dressed in a sailor's uniform, he carried identification papers provided by a free black seaman. He crossed the Susquehanna River by ferry at Havre de Grace, then continued by train to Wilmington, Delaware. From there he went by steamboat to "Quaker City" (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) and continued to New York; the whole journey took less than 24 hours.

Frederick Douglass later wrote of his arrival in New York City: }}

Abolitionist activities

of the Johnsons, where Douglass lived in New Bedford]] Douglass settled in New Bedford, where he joined several organizations, including a black church, and regularly attended abolitionist meetings. He subscribed to William Lloyd Garrison's weekly journal The Liberator, and in 1841 heard Garrison speak at a meeting of the Bristol Anti-Slavery Society. At one of these meetings, Douglass was unexpectedly asked to speak.

After he told his story, he was encouraged to become an anti-slavery lecturer. Douglass was inspired by Garrison and later stated that "no face and form ever impressed me with such sentiments [of the hatred of slavery] as did those of William Lloyd Garrison." Garrison was likewise impressed with Douglass and wrote of him in The Liberator. Several days later, Douglass delivered his first speech at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society's annual convention in Nantucket. Then 23 years old, Douglass conquered his nervousness and gave an eloquent speech about his rough life as a slave.

In 1843, Douglass participated in the American Anti-Slavery Society's Hundred Conventions project, a six-month tour of meeting halls throughout the Eastern and Midwestern United States.

Autobiography

Douglass' best-known work is his first autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, published in 1845. At the time, some skeptics attacked the book and questioned whether a black man could have produced such an eloquent piece of literature. The book received generally positive reviews and it became an immediate bestseller. Within three years of its publication, it had been reprinted nine times with 11,000 copies circulating in the United States; it was also translated into French and Dutch and published in Europe.

Douglass published three versions of his autobiography during his lifetime (and revised the third of these), each time expanding on the previous one. The 1845 Narrative, which was his biggest seller, was followed by My Bondage and My Freedom in 1855. In 1881, after the Civil War, Douglass published Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, which he revised in 1892.

Travels to the United Kingdom and Ireland

, Northern Ireland.]]

Douglass' friends and mentors feared that the publicity would draw the attention of his ex-owner, Hugh Auld, who might try to get his "property" back. They encouraged Douglass to tour Ireland, as many other former slaves had done. Douglass set sail on the Cambria for Liverpool on August 16, 1845, and arrived in Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine was beginning.

Douglass spent two years in the United Kingdom and Ireland, where he gave many lectures, in churches and chapels. His draw was such that some facilities were "crowded to suffocation"; an example was his hugely popular London Reception Speech, which Douglass delivered at Alexander Fletcher's Finsbury Chapel in May 1846. Douglass remarked that in England he was treated not "as a color, but as a man." He met and befriended the Irish nationalist Daniel O'Connell.

It was during this trip that Douglass became officially free, when Irish and British supporters arranged to purchase his freedom from his owner. British sympathizers led by Ellen Richardson of Newcastle upon Tyne collected the money needed to purchase his freedom. In 1846 Douglass met with Thomas Clarkson, one of the last living British abolitionists who persuaded Parliament to abolish slavery in Great Britain and its colonies.

Return to the United States

After his return to the United States, Douglass produced some regular abolitionist newspapers: The North Star, Frederick Douglass Weekly, Frederick Douglass' Paper, Douglass' Monthly and New National Era. The motto of The North Star was "Right is of no Sex — Truth is of no Color — God is the Father of us all, and we are all brethren."

Women's Rights

In 1848, Douglass attended the first women's rights convention, the Seneca Falls Convention, as the only African American. Elizabeth Cady Stanton asked the assembly to pass a resolution asking for women's suffrage. Many of those present opposed the idea, including influential Quakers James and Lucretia Mott. Douglass's powerful words rang true with enough attendees that the resolution passed.

Douglass refines his ideology

In 1851, Douglass merged the North Star with Gerrit Smith's Liberty Party Paper to form Frederick Douglass' Paper, which was published until 1860. Douglass came to agree with Smith and Lysander Spooner that the United States Constitution was an anti-slavery document. This reversed his earlier agreement with William Lloyd Garrison that it was pro-slavery. Garrison had publicly expressed his opinion by burning copies of the document. Further contributing to their growing separation, Garrison was worried that the North Star competed with his own National Anti-Slavery Standard and Marius Robinson's Anti-Slavery Bugle.

On July 5, 1852, Douglass delivered an address to the Ladies of the Rochester Anti Slavery Sewing Society, which eventually became known as "What to the slave is the 4th of July?" It was a blistering attack on the hypocrisy of the United States in general and the Christian church in particular.

Douglass' change of position on the Constitution was one of the most notable incidents of the division in the abolitionist movement after the publication of Spooner's book The Unconstitutionality of Slavery in 1846. This shift in opinion, and other political differences, created a rift between Douglass and Garrison. Douglass further angered Garrison by saying that the Constitution could and should be used as an instrument in the fight against slavery.

Douglass believed that education was key for African Americans to improve their lives. For this reason, he was an early advocate for desegregation of schools. In the 1850s, he was especially outspoken in New York. While the ratio of African American to white students there was 1 to 40, African Americans received education funding at a ratio of only 1 to 1,600. This meant that the facilities and instruction for African-American children were vastly inferior. Douglass criticized the situation and called for court action to open all schools to all children. He stated that inclusion within the educational system was a more pressing need for African Americans than political issues such as suffrage.

Douglass was acquainted with the radical abolitionist John Brown but disapproved of Brown's plan to start an armed slave rebellion in the South. Brown visited Douglass' home two months before he led the raid on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry. After the raid, Douglass fled for a time to Canada, fearing guilt by association and arrest as a co-conspirator. Douglass believed that the attack on federal property would enrage the American public. Douglass later shared a stage at a speaking engagement in Harpers Ferry with Andrew Hunter, the prosecutor who successfully convicted Brown.

In March 1860, Douglass' youngest daughter Annie died in Rochester, New York, while he was still in England. Douglass returned from England the following month. He took a route through Canada to avoid detection.

Civil War years

Before the Civil War

By the time of the Civil War, Douglass was one of the most famous black men in the country, known for his orations on the condition of the black race and on other issues such as women's rights. His eloquence gathered crowds at every location. His reception by leaders in England and Ireland added to his stature.

Fight for emancipation

Douglass and the abolitionists argued that because the aim of the Civil War was to end slavery, African Americans should be allowed to engage in the fight for their freedom. Douglass publicized this view in his newspapers and several speeches. Douglass conferred with President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 on the treatment of black soldiers, and with President Andrew Johnson on the subject of black suffrage.

President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect on January 1, 1863, declared the freedom of all slaves in Confederate-held territory. (Slaves in Union-held areas and Northern states would become freed with the adoption of the 13th Amendment on December 6, 1865.) Douglass described the spirit of those awaiting the proclamation: "We were waiting and listening as for a bolt from the sky...we were watching...by the dim light of the stars for the dawn of a new day...we were longing for the answer to the agonizing prayers of centuries."

With the North no longer obliged to return slaves to their owners in the South, Douglass fought for equality for his people. He made plans with Lincoln to move the liberated slaves out of the South. During the war, Douglass helped the Union by serving as a recruiter for the 54th Massachusetts Regiment. His son Frederick Douglass Jr. also served as a recruiter and his other son, Lewis Douglass, fought for the 54th Massachusetts Regiment at the Battle of Fort Wagner.

Slavery everywhere in the United States was outlawed by the post-war (1865) ratification of the 13th Amendment. The 14th Amendment provided for citizenship and equal protection under the law. The 15th Amendment protected all citizens from being discriminated against in voting because of race.

Lincoln's death

At the unveiling of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington's Lincoln Park, Douglass was the keynote speaker. In his speech, Douglass spoke frankly about Lincoln, balancing the good and the bad in his account. He called Lincoln "the white man's president" and cited his tardiness in joining the cause of emancipation. He noted that Lincoln initially opposed the expansion of slavery but did not support its elimination. But Douglass also asked, "Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all men, ever forget the night which followed the first day of January 1863, when the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to be as good as his word?"

The crowd, roused by his speech, gave him a standing ovation. A long-told anecdote claims that the widow Mary Lincoln gave Lincoln's favorite walking stick to Douglass in appreciation. Lincoln's walking stick still rests in Douglass' house known as Cedar Hill. It is both a testimony and a tribute to the effect of Douglass' powerful oratory.

Reconstruction era

of Washington, D.C. He built 2000–2004 17th Street, N.W., in 1875.]] After the Civil War, Douglass was appointed to several political positions. He served as president of the Reconstruction-era Freedman's Savings Bank; and as chargé d'affaires for the Dominican Republic. After two years, he resigned from his ambassadorship because of disagreements with U.S. government policy. In 1872, he moved to Washington, D.C., after his house on South Avenue in Rochester, New York burned down; arson was suspected. Also lost was a complete issue of The North Star.

In 1868, Douglass supported the presidential campaign of Ulysses S. Grant. President Grant signed into law the Klan Act and the second and third Enforcement Acts. Grant used their provisions vigorously, suspending habeas corpus in South Carolina and sending troops there and into other states; under his leadership over 5,000 arrests were made and the Ku Klux Klan received a serious blow. Grant's vigor in disrupting the Klan made him unpopular among many whites, but Frederick Douglass praised him. An associate of Douglass wrote of Grant that African Americans "will ever cherish a grateful remembrance of his name, fame and great services."

In 1872, Douglass became the first African American nominated for Vice President of the United States, as Victoria Woodhull's running mate on the Equal Rights Party ticket. He was nominated without his knowledge. During the campaign, he neither campaigned for the ticket nor acknowledged that he had been nominated. , Douglass' house in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, D.C., is preserved as a National Historic Site.]] Douglass continued his speaking engagements. On the lecture circuit, he spoke at many colleges around the country during the Reconstruction era, including Bates College in Lewiston, Maine in 1873. He continued to emphasize the importance of voting rights and exercise of suffrage. In a speech delivered on 15 November 1867, Douglass said "A man's rights rest in three boxes. The ballot box, jury box and the cartridge box. Let no man be kept from the ballot box because of his color. Let no woman be kept from the ballot box because of her sex".

White insurgents had quickly arisen in the South after the war, organizing first as secret vigilante groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Through the years, armed insurgency took different forms, the last as powerful paramilitary groups such as the White League and the Red Shirts during the 1870s in the Deep South. They operated as "the military arm of the Democratic Party", turning out Republican officeholders and disrupting elections. Their power continued to grow in the South; more than 10 years after the end of the war, white Democrats regained political power in every state of the former Confederacy and began to reassert white supremacy. They enforced this by a combination of violence, late 19th century laws imposing segregation and a concerted effort to disfranchise African Americans. From 1890–1908, white Democrats passed new constitutions and statutes in the South that created requirements for voter registration and voting that effectively disfranchised most blacks and tens of thousands of poor whites. This disfranchisement and segregation were enforced for more than six decades into the 20th century.

Douglass's stump speech for 25 years after the end of the Civil War was to emphasize work to counter the racism that was then prevalent in unions.

Family life

Douglass and Anna had five children: Rosetta Douglass, Lewis Henry Douglass, Frederick Douglass, Jr., Charles Remond Douglass, and Annie Douglass (died at the age of ten). Charles and Rossetta helped produce his newspapers.

In 1877, Douglass bought their final home in Washington D.C., on a hill above the Anacostia River. He and Anna named it Cedar Hill (also spelled CedarHill). They expanded the house from 14 to 21 rooms, and included a china closet. One year later, Douglass purchased adjoining lots and expanded the property to 15 acres (61,000 m²). The home has been designated the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site.

His wife, Anna Murray Douglass, died in 1882, leaving him with a sense of great loss and depressed for a time. He found new meaning from working with activist Ida B. Wells.

(sitting). The woman standing is her sister Eva Pitts.]] In 1884, Douglass married again, to Helen Pitts, a white feminist from Honeoye, New York. Pitts was the daughter of Gideon Pitts, Jr., an abolitionist colleague and friend of Douglass. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College (then called Mount Holyoke Female Seminary), she worked on a radical feminist publication named Alpha while living in Washington, D.C. The couple faced a storm of controversy with their marriage, since Pitts was both white and nearly 20 years younger than Douglass. Her family stopped speaking to her; his was bruised, as his children felt his marriage was a repudiation of their mother. But feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton congratulated the couple. The new couple traveled to England, France, Italy, Egypt and Greece from 1886 to 1887.

After Reconstruction

As white Democrats regained power in the state legislatures of the South after Reconstruction, they began to impose new laws that disfranchised blacks and to create labor and criminal laws limiting their freedom. Many African Americans, called Exodusters, moved to Kansas to form all-black towns where they could be free. Douglass spoke out against the movement, urging blacks to stick it out. He had become out of step with his audiences, who condemned and booed him for this position.

In 1877, Douglass was appointed a United States Marshal. In 1881, he was appointed Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia.

At the 1888 Republican National Convention, Douglass became the first African American to receive a vote for President of the United States in a major party's roll call vote.

He was appointed minister-resident and consul-general to the Republic of Haiti (1889–1891). In 1892 the Haitian government appointed Douglass as its commissioner to the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition. He spoke for Irish Home Rule and the efforts of leader Charles Stewart Parnell in Ireland. He briefly revisited Ireland in 1886.

Also in 1892, Douglass constructed rental housing for blacks, now known as Douglass Place, in the Fells Point area of Baltimore. The complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.

Death

, Rochester, New York]] On February 20, 1895, Douglass attended a meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, D.C. During that meeting, he was brought to the platform and given a standing ovation by the audience. Shortly after he returned home, Frederick Douglass died of a massive heart attack or stroke in Washington, D.C. He was buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York.

Legacy and honors

In 1921, members of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity designated Frederick Douglass as an honorary member. Theirs was the first African-American intercollegiate fraternity. Douglass was the only man to receive an honorary membership posthumously.

1965, the U.S. Postal Service honored Douglass with a postage stamp in the Prominent Americans series.

1988, Cedar Hill in Anacostia was designated the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site.

1999, Yale University established the Frederick Douglass Book Prize for works in the history of slavery and abolition, in his honor. The annual $25,000 prize is administered by the Gilda Lehrman Institute for American History and the Gilda Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University.

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante named Frederick Douglass to his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

2003, Douglass Place, rental housing units built in Baltimore by Douglass in 1892 for blacks, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Douglass is honored with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on February 20.

Numerous public schools have been named in his honor.

2007, The former Troup-Howell bridge which carried Interstate 490 over the Genesee River was redesigned and renamed the Frederick Douglass-Susan B. Anthony Memorial Bridge.

2010, A statue and memorial of Douglass were unveiled at Frederick Douglass Circle at the northwest corner of Central Park in New York City.

Establishing date of birth

In successive autobiographies, Douglass gave more precise estimates of when he was born, his final estimate being 1817. He adopted February 14 as his birthday because his mother Harriet Bailey used to call him her "little valentine". Douglass was born at

Works

Writings

A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845)

"The Heroic Slave". Autographs for Freedom. Ed. Julia Griffiths, Boston: Jewett and Company, 1853. pp. 174–239.

My Bondage and My Freedom (1855)

Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881, revised 1892)

Douglass also was editor of the abolitionist newspaper The North Star from 1847 to 1851. He merged The North Star with another paper to create the Frederick Douglass' Paper.

Speeches

"The Church and Prejudice"

Self-Made Men

"Speech at National Hall, Philadelphia July 6, 1863 for the Promotion of Colored Enlistments"

"What to a slave is the 4th of July?"

Cultural representation

The 1989 film Glory featured Frederick Douglass as a friend of Francis George Shaw. He was played by Raymond St. Jacques.

Douglass is the protagonist of the novel Riversmeet (Richard Bradbury, Muswell Press, 2007), a fictionalized account of his 1845 speaking tour of the British Isles.

The 2004 mockumentary film, an alternative history called , featured the figure of Douglass.

Frederick Douglass is a major character in the alternate history novel How Few Remain by Harry Turtledove.

Frederick Douglass appears as a Great Humanitarian in the 2008 strategy video game Civilization Revolution.

Douglass, his wife, and his mistress, Ottilie Assing, are the main characters in Jewell Parker Rhodes' Douglass' Women, a novel (New York: Atria Books, 2002).

See also

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave

List of African-American abolitionists

Slave narrative

African-American literature

The Columbian Orator

References

Houston A. Baker, Jr., Introduction, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Penguin, 1986 edition.

Further reading

;Scholarship

Gates, Jr., Henry Louis, ed. Frederick Douglass, Autobiography (Library of America, 1994) ISBN 978-0-940450-79-0

Foner, Philip Sheldon. The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass. New York: International Publishers, 1950.

Huggins, Nathan Irvin, and Oscar Handlin. Slave and Citizen: The Life of Frederick Douglass. Library of American Biography. Boston: Little, Brown, 1980; Longman (1997). ISBN 0-673-39342-9

Lampe, Gregory P. Frederick Douglass: Freedom's Voice,. Rhetoric and Public Affairs Series. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1998. ISBN-X (alk. paper) ISBN (pbk. alk. paper) (on his oratory)

Levine, Robert S. Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass, and the Politics of Representative Identity. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. ISBN (alk. paper). ISBN (pbk.: alk. paper) (cultural history)

McFeely, William S. Frederick Douglass. New York: Norton, 1991. ISBN 0-393-31376-X

McMillen, Sally Gregory. Seneca Falls and the origins of the women's rights movement. Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN 0-19-518265-0

Oakes, James. The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2007. ISBN 0-393-06194-9

Quarles, Benjamin. Frederick Douglass. Washington: Associated Publishers, 1948.

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady; edited by Theodore Stanton and Harriot Stanton Blatch. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, As Revealed in Her Letters, Diary and Reminiscences, Harper & Brothers, 1922.

Webber, Thomas, Deep Like Rivers: Education in the Slave Quarter Community 1831–1865. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. (1978).

Woodson, C.G., The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861: A History of the Education of the Colored People of the United States from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil War. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, (1915); Indy Publ. (2005) ISBN 1-4219-2670-9

;For young readers

Miller, William. Frederick Douglass: The Last Day of Slavery. Illus. by Cedric Lucas. Lee & Low Books, 1995. ISBN 1-880000-42-3

Weidt, Maryann N. Voice of Freedom: a Story about Frederick Douglass. Illus. by Jeni Reeves. Lerner Publications, (2001). ISBN 1-57505-553-8

;Documentary films

Frederick Douglass and the White Negro [videorecording] / Writer/Director John J Doherty, produced by Camel Productions, Ireland. Irish Film Board/TG4/BCI.; 2008

Frederick Douglass [videorecording] / produced by Greystone Communications, Inc. for A&E; Network ; executive producers, Craig Haffner and Donna E. Lusitana.; 1997

Frederick Douglass: When the Lion Wrote History [videorecording] / a co-production of ROJA Productions and WETA-TV.

Frederick Douglass, Abolitionist Editor [videorecording]/a production of Schlessinger Video Productions.

Race to Freedom [videorecording] : the story of the underground railroad / an Atlantis

External links

Douglass sources online

The Frederick Douglass Papers Edition : A Critical Edition of Douglass' Complete Works, including speeches, autobiographies, letters, and other writings.

Works by Frederick Douglass at Internet Archive (scanned books original editions illustrated)

Works by Frederick Douglass at Online Books Page

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Written by Himself. Boston: Anti-Slavery Office, 1845.

The Heroic Slave. From Autographs for Freedom, Ed. Julia Griffiths. Boston: John P. Jewett and Company. Cleveland, Ohio: Jewett, Proctor, and Worthington. London: Low and Company., 1853.

My Bondage and My Freedom. Part I. Life as a Slave. Part II. Life as a Freeman. New York: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1855.

Life and Times of Frederick Douglass: His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape from Bondage, and His Complete History to the Present Time. Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., 1881.

Frederick Douglass lecture on Haiti – Given at the World's Fair in Chicago, January 1893.

Fourth of July Speech

Letter to Thomas Auld (September 3, 1848)

The Liberator Files, Items concerning Frederick Douglass from Horace Seldon's collection and summary of research of William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator original copies at the Boston Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts.

Resource Guides

Frederick Douglass: Online Resources from the Library of Congress

Biographical information

Frederick Douglass Project at the University of Rochester.

Frederick Douglass (American Memory, Library of Congress) Includes timeline.

Timeline of Frederick Douglass and family

Timeline of "The Life of Frederick Douglass" – Features key political events

Read more about Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass NHS – Douglass' Life

Frederick Douglass NHS – Cedar Hill National Park Service site

Frederick Douglass Western New York Suffragists

Mr. Lincoln and Freedom: Frederick Douglass

Mr. Lincoln's White House: Frederick Douglass

Memorials to Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass National Historic Site The Washington, DC home of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass Gardens at Cedar Hill Frederick Douglass Gardens

Frederick Douglass Circle in Harlem overlooking Central Park has a statue of Frederick Douglass. North of this point, 8th Avenue is referred to as Frederick Douglass Boulevard

The Frederick Douglass Prize A national book prize

Lewis N. Douglas as a Sergeant Major in the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry

Category:1818 births Category:1895 deaths Category:19th-century American newspaper editors Category:19th-century American newspaper publishers (people) Category:African American United States presidential candidates Category:African American United States vice-presidential candidates Category:African American memoirists Category:African American publishers (people) Category:African Americans' rights activists Category:African American writers Category:American Methodists Category:American abolitionists Category:American autobiographers Category:American newspaper founders Category:American slaves Category:American suffragists Category:Anglican saints Category:Burials at Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction Category:Journalists from Upstate New York Category:People from Baltimore, Maryland Category:People from Rochester, New York Category:People from Talbot County, Maryland Category:United States Marshals Category:United States ambassadors to Haiti Category:United States ambassadors to the Dominican Republic Category:United States presidential candidates, 1888 Category:United States vice-presidential candidates, 1872

Name	Abraham Lincoln
Nationality	American
Alt	Iconic black and white photograph of Lincoln showing his head and shoulders.
Order	16th President of the United States
Term start	March 4, 1861
Term end	April 15, 1865
Predecessor	James Buchanan
Successor	Andrew Johnson
State2	Illinois
District2	7th
Term start2	March 4, 1847
Term end2	March 3, 1849
Predecessor2	John Henry
Successor2	Thomas L. Harris
Birth date	February 12, 1809
Birth place	Hardin County, Kentucky
Death date	April 15, 1865
Death place	Washington, D.C.
Restingplace	Oak Ridge CemeterySpringfield, Illinois
Spouse	Mary Todd Lincoln
Children	Robert Todd Lincoln Edward Lincoln Willie Lincoln Tad Lincoln
Profession	LawyerPolitician
Religion	See: Abraham Lincoln and religion
Party	Whig (1832–1854) Republican (1854–1865)
Vicepresident	Hannibal Hamlin (1861–1865)Andrew Johnson (1865)
Signature	Abraham Lincoln Signature.svg
Signature alt	Cursive signature in ink
Branch	Illinois Militia
Serviceyears	1832
Battles	Black Hawk War

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led the country through its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War, preserved the Union, and ended slavery. Reared in a poor family on the western frontier, he was mostly self-educated. He became a country lawyer, an Illinois state legislator, and a one-term member of the United States House of Representatives, but failed in two attempts at a seat in the United States Senate. He was an affectionate, though often absent, husband, and father of four children.

Lincoln was an outspoken opponent of the expansion of slavery in the United States, which he deftly articulated in his campaign debates and speeches. As a result, he secured the Republican nomination and was elected president in 1860. As president he concentrated on the military and political dimensions of the war effort, always seeking to reunify the nation after the secession of the eleven Confederate States of America. He vigorously exercised unprecedented war powers, including the arrest and detention, without trial, of thousands of suspected secessionists. He issued his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and promoted the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, abolishing slavery.

Lincoln closely supervised the war effort, especially the selection of top generals, including Ulysses S. Grant. He brought leaders of various factions of his party into his cabinet and pressured them to cooperate. He defused a confrontation with Britain in the Trent affair late in 1861. Under his leadership, the Union took control of the border slave states at the start of the war and tried repeatedly to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond. Each time a general failed, Lincoln substituted another, until finally Grant succeeded in 1865. A shrewd politician deeply involved with patronage and power issues in each state, he reached out to War Democrats and managed his own re-election in the 1864 presidential election.

As the leader of the moderate faction of the Republican party, Lincoln came under attack from all sides. Radical Republicans wanted harsher treatment of the South, Democrats desired more compromise, and secessionists saw him as their enemy. Lincoln fought back with patronage, by pitting his opponents against each other, and by appealing to the American people with his powers of oratory; for example, his Gettysburg Address of 1863 became one of the most quoted speeches in history. It was an iconic statement of America's dedication to the principles of nationalism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy. At the close of the war, Lincoln held a moderate view of Reconstruction, seeking to speedily reunite the nation through a policy of generous reconciliation in the face of lingering and bitter divisiveness. Just six days after the decisive surrender of the commanding general of the Confederate army, Lincoln fell victim to an assassin — the first President to suffer such a fate. Lincoln has consistently been ranked by scholars as one of the greatest U.S. Presidents.

Early life

Abraham Lincoln (no middle name) was born on February 12, 1809, the second child to Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Lincoln (née Hanks), in a one-room log cabin on the Sinking Spring Farm in southeast Hardin County, Kentucky (now LaRue County).

Little is known about Lincoln's ancestors. Historical investigations have traced his family back to Samuel Lincoln, an apprentice weaver who arrived in Hingham, Massachusetts, from Norfolk, England, in 1637. However, Lincoln himself was only able to trace his heritage back as far as his paternal grandfather and namesake, Abraham Lincoln, a local militia captain, and a substantial landholder with an inherited 200 acre estate in Rockingham County, Virginia) Mordecai's marksmanship with a rifle saved Thomas from the same fate. As the eldest son, by law, Mordecai inherited his father's entire estate.

Thomas became a poor but respected citizen of rural Kentucky. He bought and sold several farms, including the Sinking Spring Farm. The family belonged to a Separate Baptists church, which had high moral standards and opposed alcohol, dancing, and slavery, though Lincoln himself never joined a church. In 1816, the Lincoln family lost their lands because of a faulty title and made a new start in Perry County, Indiana (now Spencer County). Lincoln later noted that this move was "partly on account of slavery" but mainly due to land title difficulties.

When Lincoln was nine, his 34-year-old mother died of milk sickness. However, he became increasingly distant from his father. Lincoln regretted his father's lack of education, and did not like the hard labor associated with frontier life. Still, he willingly took responsibility for all chores expected of him as a male in the household; he became an adept axeman in his work building rail fences. Lincoln also agreed with the customary obligation of a son to give his father all earnings from work done outside the home until age 21. In later years, he occasionally loaned his father money.

In 1830, fearing a milk sickness outbreak, the family settled on public land in Macon County, Illinois. In 1831, when his father relocated the family to a new homestead in Coles County, Illinois, 22-year-old Lincoln struck out on his own, canoeing down the Sangamon River to the village of New Salem in Sangamon County. In spring 1831, hired by New Salem businessman Denton Offutt and accompanied by friends, he took goods by flatboat from New Salem to New Orleans via the Sangamon, Illinois, and Mississippi rivers. After arriving in New Orleans—and witnessing slavery firsthand—he walked back home.

Lincoln's formal education consisted of approximately 18 months of classes from several itinerant teachers; he was mostly self-educated and was an avid reader. He attained a reputation of brawn and audacity after a very competitive wrestling match, to which he was challenged by the renowned leader of a group of ruffians, "the Clary's Grove boys." His family and neighbors considered him to be lazy. Lincoln avoided hunting and fishing out of an aversion to killing animals.

Marriage and family

, wife of Abraham Lincoln, age 28]]

Lincoln's first romantic interest was Ann Rutledge, whom he met when he first moved to New Salem; by 1835, they were in a relationship but not formally engaged. Ann wanted to notify a former love before "consummating the engagement to Mr. L. with marriage." Rutledge died, however, on August 25, most likely of typhoid fever.

In the early 1830s, he met Mary Owens from Kentucky when she was visiting her sister. Late in 1836, Lincoln agreed to a match with Mary if she returned to New Salem. Mary did return in November 1836, and Lincoln courted her for a time; however, they both had second thoughts about their relationship. On August 16, 1837, Lincoln wrote Mary a letter from his law practice in Springfield, suggesting he would not blame her if she ended the relationship. She never replied, and the courtship was over.

In 1840, Lincoln became engaged to Mary Todd, who was from a wealthy slave-holding family in Lexington, Kentucky. They met in Springfield in December 1839, and were engaged sometime in late December. A wedding was set for January 1, 1841, but the couple split as the wedding approached. While preparing for the nuptials and having cold feet again, Lincoln, when asked where he was going, replied, "To hell, I suppose." photo depicts President Lincoln reading a book with his youngest son, Tad]] In 1844, the couple bought a house in Springfield near Lincoln's law office. Mary Todd Lincoln worked diligently in their home, assuming household duties which had been performed for her in her own family. She also made efficient use of the limited funds available from her husband's law practice. One evening, Mary asked Lincoln four times to restart the fire and, getting no reaction, as he was absorbed in his reading, she grabbed a piece of firewood and rapped him on the head. The Lincolns had a budding family, with the birth of Robert Todd Lincoln in 1843, and Edward Baker Lincoln in 1846. According to a house girl, Abraham "was remarkably fond of children" and the Lincolns were not thought to be strict with their children.

Robert was the only child of the Lincolns to live past the age of 18. Edward Lincoln died on February 1, 1850, in Springfield, likely of tuberculosis. The Lincolns' grief over this loss was somewhat assuaged by the birth of William "Willie" Wallace Lincoln nearly 11 months later, on December 21. However, Willie died of a fever at the age of 11 on February 20, 1862, in Washington, D.C., during President Lincoln's first term. The Lincolns' fourth son, Thomas "Tad" Lincoln, was born on April 4, 1853 and outlived his father, but died at the age of 18 on July 16, 1871, in Chicago.

The death of their sons had profound effects on both parents. Later in life, Mary struggled with the stresses of losing her husband and sons; Robert Lincoln committed her to a mental health asylum in 1875. Abraham Lincoln suffered from "melancholy", a condition which now may be referred to as clinical depression.

Lincoln's father-in-law was based in Lexington, Kentucky; he and most of the Todd family were slave owners and some members were slave traders. Lincoln was close to the Todds and he and his family occasionally visited the Todd estate in Lexington. Lincoln's connections in Lexington could have accelerated his ambitions, but he remained in Illinois, where, to his liking, slavery was almost nonexistent.

Early career and military service

In 1832, at age 23, Lincoln bought a small general store in New Salem, Illinois. He purchased it on credit along with a partner. While the economy was booming in the region, the business struggled and Lincoln eventually sold his share of the business. When his partner later died, Lincoln became liable for a $1,000 debt. Unable to pay he was forced to declare bankruptcy and did not finish repaying his creditors for another 17 years. That same year he began his political career with a campaign for the Illinois General Assembly. He had attained local popularity, and could draw crowds as a natural raconteur in New Salem, though he lacked an education, powerful friends, and money. He advocated navigational improvements on the Sangamon River. Before the election, he served briefly as a captain in the Illinois militia during the Black Hawk War, although he never saw combat. Lincoln returned from the militia and was able to campaign for the August 6 election. At , he was tall and "strong enough to intimidate any rival." At his first speech, he grabbed an antagonist by his "neck and the seat of his trousers" and threw him. Lincoln finished eighth out of 13 candidates (the top four were elected), though he got 277 of the 300 votes cast in the New Salem precinct.

Lincoln served as New Salem's postmaster and, after more dedicated self-study, as county surveyor. In 1834, he won election to the state legislature after a bipartisan campaign, though he ran as a Whig. He then decided to become a lawyer, and began teaching himself law by reading Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England and others. Lincoln's description of his learning method was: "I studied with nobody." Admitted to the bar in 1837, he moved to Springfield, Illinois, and began to practice law under John T. Stuart, Mary Todd's cousin. Lincoln became an able and successful lawyer with a reputation as a formidable adversary during cross-examinations and closing arguments. In 1841, he partnered with Stephen Logan until 1844, when he began his practice with William Herndon, whom Lincoln thought "a studious young man." He served four successive terms in the Illinois House of Representatives as a Whig representative from Sangamon County.

In the 1835–1836 legislative session, he voted to continue the restriction on suffrage to white males only while removing the condition of land ownership. He was known for his "free soil" stance of opposing both slavery and abolitionism. He first articulated this in 1837, saying the "institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy, but the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils." He closely followed Henry Clay in supporting the American Colonization Society program of making the abolition of slavery practical by helping the freed slaves return to Liberia in Africa.

Early national politics

From the early 1830s, Lincoln was a steadfast Whig and professed to friends in 1861, "I have always been an old-line Henry Clay Whig." The party favored economic modernization in banking, railroads, and internal improvements, and supported urbanization as well as protective tariffs, and Lincoln supported these positions.

In 1846, Lincoln was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served one two-year term. He was the only Whig in the Illinois delegation, but showed his party loyalty by participating in almost all votes and making speeches that echoed the party line. Lincoln developed a plan to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, with compensation for the owners and a popular vote on the matter, but dropped it when he could not get enough Whig supporters. He used his office as an opportunity to speak out against the Mexican–American War, which he attributed to President Polk's desire for "military glory—that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood."

Lincoln articulated his opposition to Polk by drafting and introducing his Spot Resolutions. The war had begun with a violent confrontation on territory disputed by Mexico and the U.S., but Polk insisted that Mexican soldiers had "invaded our territory and shed the blood of our fellow-citizens on our own soil." Lincoln demanded that Polk show Congress the exact spot on which blood had been shed, and prove that the spot was on American soil.

Realizing Clay was unlikely to win the presidency, Lincoln endorsed war hero General Zachary Taylor for the Whig nomination in the 1848 presidential election. Some of Lincoln's statements he would later regret, especially his attack on the presidential war-making powers. Taylor won and Lincoln wanted to be Commissioner of the General Land Office, but that lucrative patronage job went to a rival in Illinois. The administration offered him the consolation prize of secretary or governor of the Oregon Territory. The territory was a Democratic stronghold and acceptance would have ended his legal and political career in Illinois, so he declined.

Prairie lawyer

Lincoln returned to practicing law in Springfield, handling "every kind of business that could come before a prairie lawyer." Twice a year for 16 years, he "rode the circuit" for 10 weeks at a time, appearing in county seats in the mid-state region when the county courts were in session. Lincoln handled many transportation cases in the midst of the nation's western expansion, particularly the conflicts arising from the operation of river barges under the many new railroad bridges. As a riverboat man, Lincoln initially favored those interests, but ultimately represented whoever hired him. His reputation grew, and he appeared before the Supreme Court of the United States, arguing a case involving a canal boat that sank after hitting a bridge. In 1849, he received a patent for a "device to buoy vessels over shoals." The idea was never commercialized, but Lincoln is the only president to hold a patent.

In 1851, he represented Alton & Sangamon Railroad in a dispute with one of its shareholders, James A. Barret, who had refused to pay the balance on his pledge to buy shares in the railroad, on the grounds that the company had changed its original train route. Lincoln successfully argued that the railroad company was not bound by its original charter in existence at the time of Barret's pledge; the charter was amended in the public interest, to provide a newer, superior and less expensive route, and the corporation retained the right to demand Mr. Barret's payment. The decision by the Illinois Supreme Court has been cited by numerous other courts in the nation. From 1853 to 1860 Lincoln was a lawyer and lobbyist for the Illinois Central Railroad, one of the largest corporations in the world at that time.

Lincoln's most notable criminal trial occurred in 1858 when he defended William "Duff" Armstrong, who was on trial for the murder of James Preston Metzker. The case is famous for Lincoln's use of a fact established by judicial notice in order to challenge an eyewitness' credibility. After an opposing witness testified seeing the crime in the moonlight, Lincoln produced a Farmers' Almanac showing the moon was at a low angle, drastically reducing visibility. Based on this evidence, Armstrong was acquitted.

Republican politics 1854–1860

Lincoln returned to politics, in opposition to the pro-slavery Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), which repealed the slavery-restricting Missouri Compromise (1820). Senior Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois incorporated popular sovereignty into the Act, and thus mandated that the people have the right to determine locally whether to allow slavery in their territory, rather than have such a decision imposed on them by the national Congress.

On October 16, 1854, in his "Peoria Speech," Lincoln declared his opposition to slavery which he repeated en route to the presidency. Speaking in his Kentucky accent, with a very powerful voice, he said the Kansas Act had a "'declared' indifference, but as I must think, a covert 'real' zeal for the spread of slavery. I cannot but hate it. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world..."

In late 1854, Lincoln decided to run as a Whig for an Illinois seat in the United States Senate, which was, at that time, elected by the state legislature. After leading in the first six rounds of voting in the Illinois assembly, once his support began to dwindle, Lincoln instructed his backers to vote for Lyman Trumbull, who defeated opponent Joel Aldrich Matteson. The Whigs had been irreparably split by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Lincoln said, "I think I am a Whig, but others say there are no Whigs, and that I am an abolitionist, even though I do no more than oppose the extension of slavery." Drawing on remnants of the old Whig party, and on disenchanted Free Soil, Liberty, and Democratic party members, he was instrumental in forging the shape of the new Republican Party. At the Republican convention in 1856, Lincoln placed second in the contest to become the party's candidate for Vice-President.

In 1857–58, Douglas broke with President Buchanan, leading to a fight for control of the Democratic Party. Some eastern Republicans even favored the re-election of Douglas for the Senate in 1858, since he had led the opposition to the Lecompton Constitution, which would have admitted Kansas as a slave state. In March 1857, the Supreme Court issued its controversial pro-slavery decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford; Chief Justice Taney opined that blacks were not citizens, and derived no rights from the Declaration of Independence or Constitution. Lincoln, though strong in his disagreement with the Court's opinion, was as a lawyer unequivocal in his deference to the Court's authority. Lincoln historian David Herbert Donald provides Lincoln's immediate reaction to the decision, showing his evolving position on slavery: "The authors of the Declaration of Independence never intended 'to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity', but they 'did consider all men created equal—equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'." After the state Republican party convention nominated him for the U.S. Senate in 1858 (the second instance of this in the country), Lincoln then delivered his famous speech: "'A house divided against itself cannot stand'.(Mark 3:25) I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other." The speech created an evocative image of the danger of disunion caused by the slavery debate, and rallied Republicans across the North. The stage was then set for the campaign for statewide election of the Illinois legislature which would, in turn, select Lincoln or Douglas as its U.S. Senator.

Lincoln–Douglas debates and Cooper Union speech

The 1858 campaign featured the seven Lincoln–Douglas debates of 1858, generally considered the most famous political debates in American history. The principals stood in stark contrast both physically and politically. Lincoln warned that "The Slave Power" was threatening the values of republicanism, and accused Douglas of distorting the values of the Founding Fathers that all men are created equal, while Douglas emphasized his Freeport Doctrine, that local settlers were free to choose whether to allow slavery or not, and accused Lincoln of having joined the abolitionists.

Though the Republican legislative candidates won more popular votes, the Democrats won more seats, and the legislature re-elected Douglas to the Senate. Despite the bitterness of the defeat for Lincoln, his articulation of the issues gave him a national political reputation. In May 1859, Lincoln purchased the Illinois Staats-Anzeiger, a German-language newspaper which was consistently supportive; most of the state's 130,000 German Americans voted Democratic but there was Republican support that a German-language paper could mobilize.

On February 27, 1860, New York party leaders invited Lincoln to give a speech at Cooper Union to a group of powerful Republicans. Lincoln argued that the Founding Fathers had little use for popular sovereignty and had repeatedly sought to restrict slavery. Lincoln insisted the moral foundation of the Republicans required opposition to slavery, and rejected any "groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong." Despite his inelegant appearance—many in the audience thought him awkward and even ugly—Lincoln demonstrated an intellectual leadership that brought him into the front ranks of the party and into contention for the Republican presidential nomination. Journalist Noah Brooks reported, "No man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience." Donald described the speech as a "superb political move for an unannounced candidate, to appear in one rival's (William H. Seward) own state at an event sponsored by the second rival's (Salmon P. Chase) loyalists, while not mentioning either by name during its delivery." In response to an inquiry about his presidential intentions, Lincoln said, "The taste is in my mouth a little."

1860 Presidential nomination and election

, Horace Greeley, ed]]

On May 9–10, 1860, the Illinois Republican State Convention was held in Decatur. Lincoln's followers organized a campaign team led by David Davis, Norman Judd, Leonard Swett, and Jesse DuBois, and Lincoln received his first endorsement to run for the presidency. Tapping on the distorted legend of his pioneering days with his father, Lincoln's supporters adopted the label of "The Rail Candidate." On May 18, at the 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Lincoln became the Republican candidate on the third ballot, beating candidates such as William H. Seward and Salmon P. Chase. Former Democrat Hannibal Hamlin of Maine received the nomination for Vice President to balance the ticket. Lincoln's nomination has been attributed in part to his moderate views on slavery, as well as his support of internal improvements and the protective tariff. In terms of the actual balloting, Pennsylvania put him over the top. (Lincoln made known to Pennsylvania iron interests his support for protective tariffs.) Lincoln's managers had been adroitly focused on this delegation as well as the others, while following Lincoln's strong dictate to "Make no contracts that bind me."

Most Republicans agreed with Lincoln that the North was the aggrieved party of the Slave Power, as it tightened its grasp on the national government with the Dred Scott decision and the presidency of James Buchanan. Throughout the 1850s, Lincoln doubted the prospects of civil war, and his supporters rejected claims that his election would incite secession. Meanwhile, Douglas was selected as the candidate of the Northern Democrats, with Herschel Vespasian Johnson as the vice-presidential candidate. Delegates from 11 slave states walked out of the Democratic convention, disagreeing with Douglas's position on popular sovereignty, and ultimately selected John C. Breckinridge as their candidate.

As Douglas and the other candidates went through with their campaigns, Lincoln was the only one of them who gave no speeches. Instead, he monitored the campaign closely and relied on the enthusiasm of the Republican Party. The party did the leg work that produced majorities across the North, and produced an abundance of campaign posters, leaflets, and newspaper editorials. There were thousands of Republican speakers who focused first on the party platform, and second on Lincoln's life story, emphasizing his childhood poverty. The goal was to demonstrate the superior power of "free labor," whereby a common farm boy could work his way to the top by his own efforts. The Republican Party's production of campaign literature dwarfed the combined opposition; a Chicago Tribune writer produced a pamphlet that detailed Lincoln's life, and sold one million copies.

Presidency

1860 election and secession

On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected as the sixteenth president of the United States, beating Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, John C. Breckinridge of the Southern Democrats, and John Bell of the new Constitutional Union Party. He was the first Republican president, winning entirely on the strength of his support in the North; he was not on the ballot in ten states in the South, and won only two of 996 counties in all the Southern states. Lincoln received 1,866,452 votes, Douglas 1,376,957 votes, Breckinridge 849,781 votes, and Bell 588,789 votes. The electoral vote was decisive: Lincoln had 180 and his opponents added together had only 123. Turnout was 82.2%, with Lincoln winning the free Northern states. Douglas won Missouri, and split New Jersey with Lincoln. Bell won Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, and Breckinridge won the rest of the South. There were fusion tickets in which all of Lincoln's opponents combined to form one ticket in New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, but even if the anti-Lincoln vote had been combined in every state, Lincoln still would have won a majority in the electoral college.

As Lincoln's election became evident, secessionists made clear their intent to leave the Union. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina took the lead; by February 1, 1861, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed. The seven states soon declared themselves to be a sovereign nation, the Confederate States of America. The upper South (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas) listened to, but initially rejected, the secessionist appeal. President Buchanan and President-elect Lincoln refused to recognize the Confederacy.

There were attempts at compromise, such as the Crittenden Compromise, which would have extended the Missouri Compromise line of 1820, and which some Republicans even supported. Lincoln rejected the idea, saying, "I will suffer death before I consent...to any concession or compromise which looks like buying the privilege to take possession of this government to which we have a constitutional right." Lincoln, however, did support the Corwin Amendment to the Constitution, which had passed in Congress and protected slavery in those states where it already existed. A few weeks before the war, he went so far as to pen a letter to every governor asking for their support in ratifying the Corwin Amendment as a means to avoid secession.

En route to his inauguration, President-elect Lincoln evaded possible assassins in Baltimore, who were uncovered by Lincoln's head of security, Allan Pinkerton, and on February 23, 1861, arrived in disguise in Washington, D.C., which was placed under substantial military security. Lincoln directed his inaugural speech to the South, saying, "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies...The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." A copy of this inaugural address was delivered to California via the newly-created Pony Express in seven days, three days sooner than advertised and in the midst of the Paiute War. By the time Lincoln took office, the Confederacy was an established area, The failure of the Peace Conference of 1861 rendered legislative compromise practically implausible. By March 1861, Lincoln and nearly every Republican leader agreed the Union could not be dismantled.

War begins

The commander of Fort Sumter, South Carolina sent a request for provisions to Washington, and the execution of Lincoln's order to meet that request was seen by the secessionists as an act of war. On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired on Union troops at Fort Sumter, forced them to surrender, and began the war. Historian Allan Nevins argued that the newly inaugurated Lincoln miscalculated in believing that he could preserve the Union, and future general William Tecumseh Sherman, then a civilian, visited Lincoln in the White House during inauguration week and was "sadly disappointed" at Lincoln's seeming failure to realize that "the country was sleeping on a volcano" and the South was "'preparing for war'." Donald concluded Lincoln fairly estimated the events leading to the initiation of war. "His repeated efforts to avoid collision in the months between inauguration and the firing on Ft. Sumter showed he adhered to his vow not to be the first to shed fraternal blood. But he also vowed not to surrender the forts. The only resolution of these contradictory positions was for the confederates to fire the first shot; they did just that." to recapture forts, protect the capital, and "preserve the Union," which, in his view, still existed intact despite the actions of the seceding states. These events forced the states to choose sides. Virginia declared its secession, after which the Confederate capital was moved from Montgomery to Richmond. North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas also voted for secession over the next two months. Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland threatened secession, John Merryman, a leader in the secessionist group in Maryland, asked Chief Justice Roger Taney to issue a writ of habeas corpus, saying Lincoln's action of holding Merryman without a hearing was unlawful. Lincoln ignored it.

Assuming command for the Union in the war

, Edwin Stanton, William Seward, and Gideon Welles take a swing at the Lincoln administration.]]

As Commander in Chief, Lincoln confronted in the war an unprecedented crisis, and he responded using unprecedented powers which no President had wielded. He used his war powers to impose a blockade, to disburse funds before appropriation by Congress, and to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, arresting and imprisoning thousands of suspected Confederate sympathizers without warrant.

The war effort was the source of continued disparagement of Lincoln from every direction, and occupied most of his time and attention, while he also mourned the death of his son, Willie. From the start, it was clear that bipartisan support would be essential to success in the war effort, and any manner of compromise alienated factions on both sides of the aisle, such as the appointment of Republicans and Democrats to command positions in the Union Army. Copperheads and other opponents of the war criticized Lincoln for refusing to compromise on the slavery issue. Conversely, the Radical Republicans criticized him for moving too slowly in abolishing slavery.

In August 1861, General John C. Frémont created controversy on the Republican side when he issued, without consulting Lincoln, a proclamation of martial law in Missouri. He declared that any citizen found bearing arms could be court-martialed and shot, and that slaves of persons aiding the rebellion would be freed. Charges of negligence in his command of the Department of the West were compounded with allegations of fraud and corruption. Lincoln's efforts to reign him in were futile, and he was given another command in November. This decision, in part, prevented the secession of Kentucky while incurring the violence in the North.

The war assumed foreign policy implications in 1861 when James Mason and John Slidell, ministers of the Confederacy to Great Britain and France, boarded the British ship Trent in Havana, Cuba. The U.S. Navy illegally intercepted the Trent on the high seas and seized the two Confederate envoys; Britain protested vehemently while the American public cheered. Lincoln managed to resolve the issue by releasing the two men.

Lincoln's foreign policy approach had been initially hands off, due to his inexperience; he left most diplomacy appointments and other foreign policy matters to his Secretary of State, William Seward. Seward's initial reaction to the Trent affair, however, was too bellicose, so Lincoln also turned to Sen. Charles Sumner, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and an expert in British diplomacy.

Despite his lack of expertise in military affairs, Lincoln studied books from the Library of Congress and devoured the telegraphic reports. He kept close tabs on all phases of the military effort, consulted with governors, and selected generals based on their past success. In January 1862, after numerous complaints about the running of the War Department, Lincoln dismissed the inept Secretary Simon Cameron and replaced him with Edwin Stanton, a reputedly successful leader. In terms of war strategy, Lincoln articulated two priorities: to ensure that Washington was well defended, and to conduct an aggressive war effort that would satisfy the demand in the North for prompt, decisive victory; major Northern newspaper editors expected victory within 90 days. Two days per week, Lincoln would meet with his cabinet in the afternoon, and occasionally his wife would force him to take a carriage ride because she was concerned he was working too hard. Lincoln grasped the need to control strategic points, such as the Mississippi River and the fortress city of Vicksburg, and understood the importance of defeating the enemy's army, rather than simply capturing territory.

General McClellan

One of Lincoln's Democrat commanders, General George B. McClellan, refused to move against the enemy as aggressively as Lincoln directed. He became general-in-chief of all the Union armies in the wake of a Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run and after the retirement of the aged Winfield Scott in late 1861. McClellan, a young West Point graduate and railroad executive, took several months to plan and attempt his Peninsula Campaign, with the objective of capturing Richmond by moving the Army of the Potomac by boat to the peninsula and then overland to Richmond. McClellan's repeated delays frustrated Lincoln and Congress, as did his position that no troops were needed to defend Washington. Lincoln insisted on holding some of McClellan's troops in defense of the capital; McClellan, who consistently overestimated the strength of Confederate troops, blamed this decision for the ultimate failure of the Peninsula Campaign.

Lincoln removed McClellan as general-in-chief and appointed Henry Wager Halleck after McClellan's Harrison's Landing Letter, in which he offered unsolicited political advice to Lincoln urging caution in the war effort. McClellan's letter incensed Radical Republicans, who successfully pressured Lincoln to appoint John Pope, a Republican, as head of the new Army of Virginia. Pope complied with Lincoln's strategic desire to move toward Richmond from the north, thus protecting the capital from attack. However, lacking requested reinforcements from McClellan, now commanding the Army of the Potomac, Pope was soundly defeated at the Second Battle of Bull Run in the summer of 1862, forcing the Army of the Potomac to defend Washington for a second time. The war also expanded with naval operations in 1862 when the CSS Virginia, formerly the USS Merrimack, damaged or destroyed three Union vessels in Norfolk before being engaged and damaged by the USS Monitor. Lincoln closely reviewed the dispatches and interrogated naval officers concerning the battles.

Despite his dissatisfaction with McClellan's failure to reinforce Pope, Lincoln was desperate, and restored him to command of all forces around Washington, to the dismay of all in his cabinet but Seward. Two days after McClellan's return to command, General Robert E. Lee's forces crossed the Potomac River into Maryland, leading to the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. The ensuing Union victory, one of the bloodiest in American history, enabled Lincoln to announce that he would issue an Emancipation Proclamation in January. He had actually written this some time earlier but could not issue it in the wake of previous military defeats. McClellan then resisted the President's demand that he pursue Lee's retreating and exposed army, while his counterpart General Don Carlos Buell likewise refused orders to move the Army of the Ohio against rebel forces in eastern Tennessee. As a result, Lincoln replaced Buell with William Rosecrans; and, after the 1862 midterm elections, he replaced McClellan with Republican Ambrose Burnside. Both of these replacements were political moderates and prospectively more supportive of the Commander in Chief.

Burnside, against the advice of the president, prematurely launched an offensive across the Rappahannock River and was stunningly defeated by Lee at Fredericksburg in December. Not only had Burnside been defeated on the battlefield, but his soldiers were disgruntled and undisciplined. The average monthly desertion rate during 1863 was 4,650, and it increased after Fredericksburg. Lincoln brought in Joseph Hooker, despite his history of loose talk about a military dictatorship.

The mid-term elections in 1862 brought the Republicans severe losses due to sharp disfavor with the Administration over its failure to deliver a speedy end to the war, as well as rising inflation, high new taxes, rumors of corruption, the suspension of habeas corpus, the military draft law, and fears that freed slaves would undermine the labor market. The Emancipation Proclamation announced in September gained votes for the Republicans in the rural areas of New England and the upper Midwest, but it lost votes in the cities and the lower Midwest. While Republicans were discouraged, Democrats were energized and did especially well in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and New York. The Republicans did maintain their majorities in Congress and in the major states, except New York. The Cincinnati Gazette contended that the voters, "are depressed by the interminable nature of this war, as so far conducted, and by the rapid exhaustion of the national resources without progress."

In the spring of 1863, Lincoln was optimistic about a group of upcoming battle plans, to the point of thinking the end of the war could be near if a string of victories could be put together; these plans included Hooker's attack on Lee north of Richmond, Rosecrans' on Chattanooga, Grant's on Vicksburg, and a naval assault on Charleston. The Commander in Chief became despondent when none of these plans, at least initially, succeeded.

Hooker was routed by Lee at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May, but continued to command his troops for some weeks. He ignored Lincoln's order to divide his troops, and possibly force Lee to do the same in Harper's Ferry, and tendered his resignation, which was accepted. He was replaced by George Meade, who proceeded with the troops to follow Lee into Pennsylvania for the Gettysburg Campaign, which was a victory for the Union, though Lee's army avoided capture. At the same time, after initial setbacks, Grant laid siege to Vicksburg and the Union navy attained some success in Charleston harbor.

After the Battle of Gettysburg, Lincoln began to understand that his wishes as to the movement of Union troops could most effectively be carried out by using his War Secretary or his general-in-chief as an intermediary with his generals, who resented "civilian" interference with their plans. Even so, he often would continue to give detailed directions to his generals as Commander in Chief.

Emancipation Proclamation

Lincoln maintained that his power to end slavery was limited by the Constitution. He expected the eventual extinction of slavery would result from preventing its expansion into new U.S. territory. He also sought to persuade the states to accept compensated emancipation in return for their prohibition of slavery (an offer that took effect only in Washington, D.C.). Lincoln believed that curtailing slavery in this manner would economically expunge it, as envisioned by the Founding Fathers. President Lincoln rejected two emancipation attempts by Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont in August, 1861 and by Maj. Gen. David Hunter in May, 1862 on the grounds that it would upset the border states loyal to the Union.

In July 1862, Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act, which freed the slaves of anyone convicted of aiding the rebellion. Although Lincoln believed it was not within Congress's power to free the slaves, he approved the bill in deference to the legislature. He felt freeing the slaves could only be done by the Commander in Chief using war powers granted by the Constitution. In that month, Lincoln discussed a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation with his cabinet. In it, he stated that "as a fit and necessary military measure, on January 1, 1863, all persons held as a slaves in the Confederate states will thenceforward, and forever, be free."

In a shrewd reply to a denigrating editorial by Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune which urged emancipation as a prerequisite to military success, the President subordinated the goal of ending slavery to the primary goal of preserving the Union. Privately, Lincoln had concluded at this point that the war could not be won without freeing the slaves, and so it was a necessity "to do more to help the cause":

The Emancipation Proclamation, issued on September 22, 1862 and put into effect on January 1, 1863, freed slaves in territories not already under Union control. Once the abolition of slavery in the rebel states became a military objective, as Union armies advanced south, more slaves were liberated until over three million of them in Confederate territory were freed. Lincoln's comment on the signing of the Proclamation was: "I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper." A few days after the Emancipation was announced, 13 Republican governors met at the War Governors' Conference; they supported the president's Proclamation, but suggested the removal of General George B. McClellan as commander of the Union Army.

For some time, Lincoln continued earlier plans to set up colonies for the newly freed slaves. He commented favorably on colonization in the Emancipation Proclamation, but all attempts at such a massive undertaking failed. Lincoln later sought to incorporate the policy of the proclamation into the Constitution through passage of the 13th Amendment, permanently abolishing slavery throughout the nation. He personally lobbied individual Congressmen for the amendment, which was passed by Congress in early 1865 shortly before his death.

Using former slaves in the military was official government policy after the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. At first, Lincoln was reluctant to fully implement this program, but by the spring of 1863, he was ready to initiate "a massive recruitment of Negro troops." In a letter to Andrew Johnson, the military governor of Tennessee, encouraging him to lead the way in raising black troops, Lincoln wrote, "The bare sight of 50,000 armed and drilled black soldiers on the banks of the Mississippi would end the rebellion at once." By the end of 1863, at Lincoln's direction, General Lorenzo Thomas had recruited 20 regiments of blacks from the Mississippi Valley. Frederick Douglass once observed that Lincoln was "the first great man that I talked with in the United States freely who in no single instance reminded me I was a Negro."

Gettysburg Address

With the great Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, and the defeat of the Copperheads in the Ohio election in the fall, Lincoln maintained a strong base of party support and was in a strong position to redefine the war effort; this, despite the New York Draft Riots. The stage was set for his address at the Gettysburg battlefield cemetery on November 19.

The Gettysburg Address, one of the most quoted speeches in history, was delivered at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863. In 272 words, and three minutes, Lincoln asserted the nation was born, not in 1789, but in 1776, "conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." He defined the war as an effort dedicated to these principles of liberty and equality. He declared that the deaths of so many brave soldiers would not be in vain, that slavery would end as a result of the losses, and the future of democracy would be assured, that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." He concluded that the Civil War had a profound objective - a new founding of the nation.

General Grant

Meade's failure to capture Lee's army as it retreated from Gettysburg, and the continued passivity of the Army of the Potomac, persuaded Lincoln that a change in command was needed. Lincoln was much impressed by the successes of General Ulysses S. Grant in the west, which made him a strong candidate to head the Union Army. Responding to criticism of Grant after the 1862 Battle of Shiloh, Lincoln had said, "I can't spare this man. He fights." With Grant in command, Lincoln felt the Union Army could relentlessly pursue a series of coordinated offensives in multiple theaters, and have a top commander who agreed on the use of black troops. , with Allan Pinkerton and Major General John Alexander McClernand, at Antietam]]

Nevertheless, he had some reservation that Grant might be considering a candidacy for President, as McCllellan then was. Lincoln arranged for an intermediary to make inquiry into Grant's political intentions, and finding none at that time, decided to promote Grant to commander of the Union Army. He obtained Congress' consent to reinstate for Grant the rarely used full rank of Lieutenant General, once held by George Washington.

Grant waged his bloody Overland Campaign in 1864. This is often characterized as a war of attrition, given high Union losses at battles such as the Battle of the Wilderness and Cold Harbor. Even though they had the advantage of fighting on the defensive, the Confederate forces had "almost as high a percentage of casualties as the Union forces." The high casualty figures of the Union alarmed the North; Grant had lost a third of his army, and Lincoln asked what Grant's plans were, to which the general replied, "I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer."

The Confederacy lacked reinforcements, so Lee's army shrank with every battle, forcing it back to trenches outside Petersburg, Virginia, where Grant began a siege. Lincoln then made an extended visit to Grant's headquarters at City Point, Virginia. This allowed the president to confer in person with Grant and Sherman about the hostilities, as Sherman coincidentally managed a hasty visit to Grant from his position in North Carolina. Lincoln and the Republican party mobilized support for the draft throughout the North, and replaced his losses.

Lincoln authorized Grant to target the Confederate infrastructure—such as plantations, railroads, and bridges—hoping to destroy the South's morale and weaken its economic ability to continue fighting. Grant's move to Petersburg resulted in the obstruction of three railroads between Richmond and the South. This strategy allowed Generals Sherman and Sheridan to destroy plantations and towns in the Shenandoah Valley. The damage caused by Sherman's March to the Sea through Georgia totaled more than $100 million by the general's own estimate.

Confederate general Jubal Anderson Early began a series of assaults in the North that threatened the Capital. During his raid on Washington, D.C. in 1864, Lincoln was watching the combat from an exposed position; captain Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. shouted at him, "Get down, you damn fool, before you get shot!" After repeated calls on Grant to defend Washington, Philip Sheridan was appointed and the threat from Early was dispatched.

As Grant continued to wear down Lee's forces, efforts to discuss peace began. Confederate Vice President Stephens led a group to meet with Lincoln, Seward, and others at Hampton Roads. Lincoln refused to allow any negotiation with the Confederacy as a coequal; his sole objective was an agreement to end the fighting and the meetings produced no results. On April 1, Grant successfully outflanked Lee's forces in the Battle of Five Forks and nearly encircled Petersburg, prompting Lee to warn Jefferson Davis to evacuate Richmond. On April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Virginia.

1864 re-election

When Grant's spring campaigns turned into bloody stalemates, Lincoln supported Grant's determination to wear down Lee's Confederate army even at the cost of heavy Union casualties. With an election looming, he easily defeated efforts to deny his renomination. At the Convention, the Republican Party selected Andrew Johnson, a War Democrat from the Southern state of Tennessee, as his running mate to form a broader coalition. They ran on the new Union Party ticket, uniting Republicans and War Democrats.

The lack of military success wore heavily on the President's re-election prospects, and many Republicans across the country feared that Lincoln would be defeated and a number began looking for a substitute. Acknowledging this fear, Lincoln wrote and signed a pledge that, if he should lose the election, he would still defeat the Confederacy before turning over the White House:

Lincoln did not show the pledge to his cabinet, but asked them to sign the sealed envelope. While the Democratic platform followed the Peace wing of the party and called the war a "failure," their candidate, General George B. McClellan, supported the war and repudiated the platform. Lincoln provided Grant with new replacements and mobilized his party to renew its support of Grant in the war effort. Sherman's capture of Atlanta in September and David Farragut's capture of Mobile ended defeatist jitters; the Democratic Party was deeply split, with some leaders and most soldiers openly for Lincoln. By contrast, the Union Party was united and energized as Lincoln made emancipation the central issue, and state Republican parties stressed the perfidy of the Copperheads. Lincoln was re-elected in a landslide, carrying all but three states, and receiving 78% of the Union soldiers' vote.

On March 4, 1865, Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address. In it, he deemed the high casualties on both sides to be God's will. Historian Mark Noll concludes it ranks "among the small handful of semi-sacred texts by which Americans conceive their place in the world." Lincoln said:

Reconstruction

Reconstruction began during the war as Lincoln and his associates pondered questions of how to reintegrate the Southern states and what to do with Confederate leaders and the freed slaves. Lincoln led the "moderates" regarding Reconstruction policy, and was opposed by the Radical Republicans, under Rep. Thaddeus Stevens, Sen. Charles Sumner and Sen. Benjamin Wade, political allies of the president on other issues. Determined to find a course that would reunite the nation and not alienate the South, Lincoln urged that speedy elections under generous terms be held throughout the war. His Amnesty Proclamation of December 8, 1863, offered pardons to those who had not held a Confederate civil office, had not mistreated Union prisoners, and would sign an oath of allegiance.

As Southern states were subdued, critical decisions had to be made as to their leadership while their administrations were reforming from the fall of the Confederacy. Of special importance were Tennessee and Arkansas, where Lincoln appointed General Andrew Johnson (the future Vice President and President in 1865) and General Frederick Steele as military governors, respectively. In Louisiana, Lincoln ordered General Nathaniel P. Banks to promote a plan that would restore statehood when 10% of the voters agreed to it. Lincoln's Democratic opponents seized on these appointments to accuse him of using the military to insure his and the Republicans' political aspirations. On the other hand, the Radicals denounced his policy as too lenient, and passed their own plan, the Wade-Davis Bill, in 1864. When Lincoln vetoed the bill, the Radicals retaliated by refusing to seat representatives elected from Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee.

Lincoln's appointments were designed to keep both the moderate and Radical factions in harness. To fill the late Chief Justice Taney's seat on the Supreme Court, he named the choice of the Radicals, Salmon P. Chase, who Lincoln believed would uphold the emancipation and paper money policies.

After implementing the Emancipation Proclamation in January, 1863 President Lincoln extensively lobbied that slavery be outlawed throughout all the nation with a constitutional amendment. Lincoln mentioned concerning the slavery issue that a constitutional amendment would "clinch the whole matter". By December, 1863 a constitutional amendment proposal to outlaw slavery was brought to the Congress for passage. This first attempt at an amendment failed to pass; unable to get a 2/3 majority on June 15, 1864 in the House of Representatives. A second attempt, after a long debate in the House, was successful and passed Congress on January 13, 1865 to be ratified by the nation. Lincoln was very grateful that his home state of Illinois was the first to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment saying, "This ends the job."^p. 554

When Richmond finally fell in April 1865, Lincoln went to the vanquished Confederate capital. As he walked through the city, Whites were stonefaced, but freedmen greeted him as a hero. When a general asked Lincoln how the defeated Confederates should be treated, Lincoln replied, "Let 'em up easy." On April 9, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox and the war was effectively over.

Redefining Republicanism

Lincoln's rhetoric defined the issues of the war for the nation, the world, and posterity. The Gettysburg Address defied Lincoln's own prediction that "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here." In recent years, historians have stressed Lincoln's redefinition of republican values. As early as the 1850s, a time when most political rhetoric focused on the sanctity of the Constitution, Lincoln redirected emphasis to the Declaration of Independence as the foundation of American political values—what he called the "sheet anchor" of republicanism. The Declaration's emphasis on freedom and equality for all, rather than the Constitution's tolerance of slavers, shifted the debate. As Diggins concludes regarding the highly influential Cooper Union speech of early 1860, "Lincoln presented Americans a theory of history that offers a profound contribution to the theory and destiny of republicanism itself." His position gained strength because he highlighted the moral basis of republicanism, rather than its legalisms. Nevertheless, in 1861, Lincoln justified the war in terms of legalisms (the Constitution was a contract, and for one party to get out of a contract all the other parties had to agree), and then in terms of the national duty to guarantee a "republican form of government" in every state.

In March 1861, in his famous First Inaugural Address, Lincoln explored the nature of democracy. He denounced secession as anarchy, and explained that majority rule had to be balanced by constitutional restraints in the American system. He said "A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people."

Domestic measures

Lincoln adhered to the Whig theory of the presidency, which gave Congress primary responsibility for writing the laws while the Executive enforced them. Lincoln only vetoed four bills passed by Congress; the only important one was the Wade-Davis Bill with its harsh program of Reconstruction. He signed the Homestead Act in 1862, making millions of acres of government-held land in the West available for purchase at very low cost. The Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act, also signed in 1862, provided government grants for agricultural colleges in each state. The Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 and 1864 granted federal support for the construction of the United States' First Transcontinental Railroad, which was completed in 1869. The passage of the Homestead Act and the Pacific Railway Acts was made possible by the absence of Southern congressmen and senators who had opposed the measures in the 1850s.

Other important legislation involved two measures to raise revenues for the Federal government: tariffs (a policy with long precedent), and a new Federal income tax. In 1861, Lincoln signed the second and third Morrill Tariff, the first having become law under James Buchanan. In 1861, Lincoln signed the Revenue Act of 1861, creating the first U.S. income tax. This created a flat tax of 3% on incomes above $800 ($}} in current dollars), which was later changed by the Revenue Act of 1862 to a progressive rate structure.

Lincoln also presided over the expansion of the federal government's economic influence in several other areas. The creation of the system of national banks by the National Banking Act provided a strong financial network in the country. It also established a national currency. In 1862, Congress created, with Lincoln's approval, the Department of Agriculture. In 1862, Lincoln sent a senior general, John Pope, to put down the "Sioux Uprising" in Minnesota. Presented with 303 death warrants for convicted Santee Dakota who were accused of killing innocent farmers, Lincoln conducted his own personal review of each of these warrants, eventually approving 39 for execution (one was later reprieved).

In the wake of Grant's casualties in his campaign against Lee, Lincoln had considered yet another executive call for a military draft, but it was never issued. In response to rumors of one, however, the editors of the New York World and the Journal of Commerce published a false draft proclamation which created an opportunity for the editors and others employed at the publications to corner the gold market. Lincoln's reaction was to send the strongest of messages to the media about such behavior; he ordered the military to seize the two papers. The seizure lasted for two days.

Abraham Lincoln is largely responsible for the institution of the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. Prior to Lincoln's presidency, Thanksgiving, while a regional holiday in New England since the 17th century, had only been proclaimed by the federal government sporadically, and on irregular dates. The last such proclamation was during James Madison's presidency 50 years before. In 1863, Lincoln declared the final Thursday in November to be a day of Thanksgiving. Some time after Lincoln's presidency, the date was changed to the fourth Thursday in November.

Administration, cabinet and Supreme Court appointments 1861–1865

Lincoln appointed the following justices to the Supreme Court of the United States: {| class="sortable wikitable" |- style="background:#ececec;" |Judge||Nominated || Confirmed |- | Noah Haynes Swayne || 18620127January 21, 1862 || 18810124January 24, 1862 |- | Samuel Freeman Miller || 18620721July 16, 1862 || 18901013July 16, 1862 |- | David Davis || 18621210December 1, 1862 || 18770304December 8, 1862 |- | Stephen Johnson Field || 18630520March 6, 1863 || 18971201March 10, 1863 |- | Salmon P. Chase || 18641215December 6, 1864 || 18730507December 6, 1864 |}

States admitted to the Union

West Virginia – June 20, 1863

Nevada – October 31, 1864

Assassination

[[File:The Assassination of President Lincoln - Currier and Ives 2.png|thumb|alt=A drawing of Lincoln being shot by Booth while sitting in a theater booth.|Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. ---- From left to right: Henry Rathbone, Clara Harris, Mary Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln, and John Wilkes Booth]] In 1864, John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor and a Confederate spy from Maryland, formulated a plan to kidnap Lincoln in exchange for the release of Confederate prisoners. After attending an April 11 speech in which Lincoln promoted voting rights for blacks, an incensed Booth changed his plans and became determined to assassinate the president. Learning that the President and First Lady would be attending Ford's Theatre, Booth formulated a plan with co-conspirators to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward. Without his main bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon, Lincoln left to attend the play Our American Cousin on April 14, 1865. [[File:Abraham Lincoln 1866 Issue-15c.jpg|thumb|upright|left|The first Lincoln postage stamp ---- U.S. Postage 1866 Issue. On the first anniversary of Lincoln's assassination, the U.S. Post Office issued a memorial stamp honoring the fallen President. ]]

Lincoln's bodyguard, John Parker, left Ford's Theater during intermission to join Lincoln's coachman for drinks in the Star Saloon next door. The now unguarded President sat in his state box in the balcony. Seizing the opportunity, Booth crept up from behind and at about 10:13 p.m., aimed at the back of Lincoln's head and fired at point-blank range, mortally wounding the President. Major Henry Rathbone momentarily grappled with Booth but Booth stabbed him and escaped.

After being on the run for ten days, Booth was tracked down and found at Garrett's farm in Virginia, some 30 miles south of Washington D.C. After a brief fight, Booth was killed by Union soldiers on April 26.

An Army surgeon, Doctor Charles Leale, initially assessed Lincoln's wound as mortal. The dying man was taken across the street to Petersen House. After being in a coma for nine hours, Lincoln died at 7:22 a.m. on April 15. Presbyterian minister Phineas Densmore Gurley, then present, was asked to offer a prayer, after which Secretary of War Stanton saluted and said, "Now he belongs to the ages."

Lincoln's flag-enfolded body was then escorted in the rain to the White House by bare headed Union officers, while the city's church bells rang. Vice President Johnson was sworn in as President at 10:00 a.m. the day after the assassination. Lincoln lay in state at the Capitol, in the East Room and then in the Rotunda, before the funeral train bore him to his final resting place in Springfield.

Religious and philosophical beliefs

in 1869]]

In recent decades, some scholars have emphasized Lincoln's ongoing religious skepticism while others have argued his beliefs evolved during the 1850s and gravitated toward an acceptance of mainstream evangelical Protestantism during the Civil War. Though he never joined a church, Lincoln was familiar with the Bible and quoted it often. He had a strong belief in a Providence whose purposes were not discernible. His integration of religion and politics, according to historian Mark Noll, gives Lincoln enduring relevance as the nation's greatest public theologian. Historians have debated whether Lincoln's frequent use of religious imagery and language reflected his own personal beliefs or was a device to appeal to his audiences, who were mostly evangelical Protestants.

In the 1850s, Lincoln acknowledged "providence" in a general way, and rarely used the language or imagery of the evangelicals; instead, he regarded the republicanism of the Founding Fathers with an almost religious reverence. However, during the course of the Civil War (and the deaths of his children), Lincoln more frequently acknowledged his own need to depend on God and to seek to fulfill what he perceived to be God's purposes in the war, including the emancipation of slaves. In particular, historians have viewed Lincoln's second inaugural address in terms of the tradition of the Puritan sermon. Lincoln drew on biblical concepts and rhetoric to expose the nation's errors, notably the national sin of slavery, for which the prolonged punishment of the Civil War was God's judgment and punishment. Continuing in the jeremiad tradition, he prayed for an end to the war, called for forgiveness, and expressed hope for divine grace.

Lincoln's theology, according to biographer James G. Randall, resembled Unitarianism. He felt that all human kind would go to heaven and no one would go to hell. He did not believe in the supernatural account of the birth of Christ. He often talked of God, but rarely mentioned Jesus as the Savior—seldom mentioning Jesus at all. Many of his ancestors were Quakers, and he deeply sympathized with their religion. Like many Quakers, he experienced a sense of mysticism, the sense of direct communication with the unseen. He was involved in several séances at the White House, sponsored by his wife, but did not himself become a spiritualist. Lincoln had numerous superstitious beliefs, and sensed that his dreams were omens of the future; throughout his life, he had a strongly fatalistic attitude. He saw himself as an instrument in the hands of God; becoming, in Randall's view, "a man of more intense religiosity than any other President of the United States."

As a child, Lincoln largely rejected organized religion, but the Calvinistic "doctrine of necessity" would remain a factor throughout his life. In 1846, Lincoln described the effect of this doctrine as "that the human mind is impelled to action, or held in rest by some power, over which the mind itself has no control." There were few people who strongly or directly influenced Lincoln's moral and intellectual development and perspectives. There was no teacher, mentor, church leader, community leader, or peer referenced by Lincoln as a singular influence on his intellectual development. Lincoln's personal philosophy was shaped, not by a formal education, but by "an amazingly retentive memory and a passion for reading and learning." It was Lincoln's reading, rather than his relationships, that were most influential in shaping his personal beliefs.

For a time, Lincoln's religious skepticism was fueled by his readings in Enlightenment and economic liberalism. In March 1860, in a speech in New Haven, Connecticut, Lincoln said, regarding slavery, "Whenever this question shall be settled, it must be settled on some philosophical basis. No policy that does not rest upon some philosophical public opinion can be permanently maintained." The philosophical basis for Lincoln's beliefs regarding slavery and other issues of the day require that Lincoln be examined "seriously as a man of ideas."

In a speech given on February 22, 1861 at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Lincoln said, "I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. ...It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the motherland; but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time.

He found in the Declaration justification for Whig economic policy and opposition to the expansion of slavery and the nativist platform of the Know Nothings. In claiming that all men were created free, Lincoln and the Whigs argued that this freedom required economic advancement, expanded education, territory to grow, and the ability of the nation to absorb the growing immigrant population. He saw the Declaration as more than a political document. To him, as well as to many abolitionists and other antislavery leaders, it established valuable principles which shaped the nation.

As Lincoln matured, especially during his time as president, the idea of a divine will somehow interacting with human affairs increasingly influenced his beliefs and public expressions. On a personal level, the death of his son Willie in February 1862 caused Lincoln to look towards religion for answers and solace. More than any political leader of the day, he fashioned public policy into a mold of religious, perhaps Calvinistic language, that avoided the evangelical, revivalist fervor of the Second Great Awakening.

In April 1864, in justifying his actions regarding Emancipation, Lincoln wrote, "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years struggle the nation's condition is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it." In the summer of 1864, when the Union Army was suffering severe casualties, Lincoln drew solace from the Bible. To his friend Joshua Speed, he said, "Take all of this book [the Bible] upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier and better man." He is also quoted as saying, "this Great Book...is the best gift God has given to man." For generations, Lincoln's name was linked with the Republican party, and synonymous with "freedom and union" during national elections. Many, though not all, in the South considered Lincoln as a man of outstanding ability.

Lincoln is regarded by the public and historians in numerous polls as one of the greatest presidents in U.S. history, usually in the top three, along with George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt. A study published in 2004 found that scholars in the fields of history and politics ranked Lincoln number one, while legal scholars placed him second after Washington. The ballistic missile submarine Abraham Lincoln (SSBN–602) and the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln (CVN–72) were named in his honor. During the Spanish Civil War, the Communist-controlled American faction of the International Brigades named themselves the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Lincoln has been memorialized in many town, city, and county names, including the capital of Nebraska. Lincoln, Illinois is the only city named for Abraham Lincoln before he became President.

Lincoln's name and image appear in numerous places, including the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Lincoln $5 bill and the Lincoln cent, and Lincoln's sculpture on Mount Rushmore. Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park in Hodgenville, Kentucky, Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial in Lincoln City, Indiana, and Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, Illinois, commemorate the president. In addition, New Salem, Illinois, a reconstruction of Lincoln's early adult hometown, Ford's Theatre, and Petersen House (where he died) are all preserved as museums. The Lincoln Tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois, contains his remains and those of his wife and three of his four sons. There are 220 statues of Lincoln displayed outdoors. .]] Abraham Lincoln's birthday, February 12, was never a national holiday, but it was observed by 30 states. As of 2005, Lincoln's Birthday is a legal holiday in 10 states. The oldest active commemorative body is the Abraham Lincoln Association, formed in 1908 to commemorate the centennial of Lincoln's birth.

In 2000, Congress established the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission (ALBC) to commemorate his 200th birthday in February 2009. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is located in Springfield and is run by the State of Illinois. The United States Postal Service honored Lincoln with a Liberty Issue 4¢ postage stamp on November 19, 1954, and a Prominent Americans series (1965–1978) 4¢ postage stamp.

See also

Electoral history of Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln family tree

Lincoln-Kennedy coincidences urban legend

Lincoln Memorial University

List of Presidents of the United States

Poetry of Abraham Lincoln

US Presidents on US postage stamps

References

;Footnotes

;Bibliography ;Primary References

Neely, Mark E. The last best hope of earth: Abraham Lincoln and the promise of America (Harvard UP, 1995) online edition

;General References

Angle, Paul McClelland; Earl Schenck Miers, ed (1992) The Living Lincoln: the Man, his Mind, his Times, and the War He Fought, Reconstructed from his Own Writings, Barnes & Noble Publishing, ISBN 9781566190435

Burkhimer, Michael. (2003) One Hundred Essential Lincoln Books, Turner Publishing Co., ISBN 158182369X

Emerson, James ( 2007) The Madness of Mary Lincoln, Southern Illinois University Press, ISBN 9780809327713

Fehrenbacher, Don E. (1989) Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1859–1865, Library of America, ISBN 0940450631

Holzer, Harold; Medford, Edna Greene; Williams, Frank J. (2006) The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views (Social, Political, Iconographic), Louisiana State University Press, ISBN 9780807131442

McPherson, James M. (1992) Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780195076066

McPherson, James M. (2007) Drawn With the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War, Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780195117967

McPherson, James M. (2008) Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief, Penguin Press, ISBN 9781594201912

Zarefsky, David S. (1993) Lincoln, Douglas, and Slavery: In the Crucible of Public Debate, University of Chicago Press, ISBN 9780226978765

External links

 – Speeches and writings

Abraham Lincoln | Quotes, Facts, Biography, Picture & Much More

The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln

Photographs of Abraham Lincoln

Mr. Lincoln's Virtual Library

Poetry written by Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln quotes collected by Roger Norton

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum Springfield, Illinois

President Lincoln's Cottage

—Manner of Buoying Vessels—A. Lincoln—1849

National Park Service Abraham Lincoln birthplace (includes good early history)

National Endowment for the Humanities Spotlight – Abraham Lincoln

The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission

Lincoln/Net: Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project, Northern Illinois University Libraries

Abraham Lincoln: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress

Essay on Abraham Lincoln and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs

The Entire Writings of Lincoln including an introduction by Theodore Roosevelt

Abraham Lincoln--View Videos

Category:1809 births Category:1865 deaths Category:19th-century presidents of the United States Category:American people of English descent Category:Assassinated United States Presidents Category:Deaths by firearm in Washington, D.C. Category:Illinois lawyers Category:Illinois Republicans Category:Illinois Whigs Category:Lincoln family Category:Members of the Illinois House of Representatives Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from Illinois Category:People from Coles County, Illinois Category:People from LaRue County, Kentucky Category:People from Macon County, Illinois Category:People from Spencer County, Indiana Category:People from Springfield, Illinois Category:People murdered in Washington, D.C. Category:People of Illinois in the American Civil War Category:People of the Black Hawk War Category:Postmasters Category:Religious skeptics Category:Republican Party (United States) presidential nominees Category:Union political leaders Category:United States presidential candidates, 1860 Category:United States presidential candidates, 1864 Category:Republican Party Presidents of the United States

Caption	Pat Robertson during an Operation Blessing International appearance at Victory Fellowship Church in Metairie, Louisiana providing relief to Hurricane Katrina victims on February 12, 2006.
Name	Pat Robertson
Birth name	Marion Gordon Robertson
Birth date	March 22, 1930
Birth place	Lexington, Virginia, United States
Occupation	Televangelist
Spouse	Adelia Elmer
Children	Timothy Bryan Robertson Elizabeth Faith Robertson Gordon Perry Robertson Anne Carter Robertson
Parents	Absalom Willis Robertson Gladys Churchill

Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson (born March 22, 1930) is a media mogul, television evangelist, ex-Baptist minister and businessman who is politically aligned with the American Christian Right.

He is the founder of numerous organizations and corporations, including the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), the Christian Coalition, Flying Hospital, International Family Entertainment Inc., Operation Blessing International Relief and Development Corporation, and Regent University. He is the host of The 700 Club, a Christian TV program airing on channels throughout the United States and on CBN affiliates worldwide. As a result of his seeking political office, he no longer serves in an official role for any church. His media and financial resources make him a recognized, influential, and controversial public voice for conservative Christianity in the United States.

Life and career

Family

Robertson was born in Lexington, Virginia, into a prominent political family. His parents were Absalom Willis Robertson, a conservative Democratic United States Senator, and his wife Gladys Churchill (née Willis). He married Adelia "Dede" Elmer on August 26, 1954. His family includes four children, among them Gordon P. Robertson and Tim Robertson and, as of mid-2005, 14 grandchildren.

At a young age, Robertson was nicknamed Pat by his six-year-old brother, Willis Robertson, Jr., who enjoyed patting him on the cheeks when he was a baby while saying "pat, pat, pat". As he got older, Robertson thought about which first name he would like people to use. He considered "Marion" to be effeminate, and "M. Gordon" to be affected, so he opted for his childhood nickname "Pat". He also joined Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. Robertson has said, "Although I worked hard at my studies, my real major centered around lovely young ladies who attended the nearby girls schools."

In 1948, the draft was reinstated and Robertson was given the option of joining the Marine Corps or being drafted into the army; he opted for the first.

In his words, "We did long, grueling marches to toughen the men, plus refresher training in firearms and bayonet combat." In the same year, he transferred to Korea, "I ended up at the headquarters command of the First Marine Division," says Robertson. "The Division was in combat in the hot and dusty, then bitterly cold portion of North Korea just above the 38th Parallel later identified as the 'Punchbowl' and 'Heartbreak Ridge.' For that service in the Korean War, the Marine Corps awarded me three battle stars for 'action against the enemy.'"

However, former Republican Congressman Paul "Pete" McCloskey, Jr., who served with Robertson in Korea, wrote a public letter which said that Robertson was actually spared combat duty when his powerful father, a U.S. Senator, intervened on his behalf, and that Robertson spent most of his time in an office in Japan. According to McCloskey, his time in the service was not in combat but as the "liquor officer" responsible for keeping the officers' clubs supplied with liquor. Robertson filed a $35 million libel suit against McCloskey in 1986. He dropped the case in 1988, before it came to trial and paid McCloskey's court costs.

Robertson was promoted to First Lieutenant in 1952 upon his return to the United States. He then went on to receive a Bachelor of Laws degree from Yale University Law School in 1955. However, he failed to pass the bar exam, shortly thereafter underwent his religious conversion, and decided against pursuing a career in law. Instead, Robertson attended the New York Theological Seminary, and was awarded a Master of Divinity degree in 1959.

Religious career

In 1956 Robertson found his faith through Dutch missionary Cornelius Vanderbreggen, who impressed Robertson both by his lifestyle and his message. Vanderbreggen quoted Proverbs (3:5, 6), "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths", which Robertson considers to be the "guiding principle" of his life. He was ordained as a minister of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1961.

In 1960, Robertson established the Christian Broadcasting Network in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He started it by buying a small UHF station in nearby Portsmouth. Later in 1977 he purchased a local access cable channel in the Hampton Roads area and called it CBN. Originally he went door-to-door in Virginia Beach, Hampton Roads, and other surrounding areas asking Christians to buy cable boxes so that they could receive his new channel. He also canvassed local churches in the Virginia Beach area to do the same, and solicited donations through public speaking engagements at local churches and on CBN. One of his friends, John Giminez, the pastor of Rock Church Virginia Beach, was influential in helping Robertson establish CBN with donations, as well as offering the services of volunteers from his church.

CBN is now seen in 180 countries and broadcast in 71 languages. He founded the CBN Cable Network, which was renamed the CBN Family Channel in 1988 and later simply the Family Channel. When the Family Channel became too profitable for Robertson to keep it under the CBN umbrella without endangering CBN's nonprofit status, he formed International Family Entertainment Inc. in 1990 with the Family Channel as its main subsidiary. Robertson sold the Family Channel to the News Corporation in 1997, which renamed it Fox Family. A condition of the sale was that the station would continue airing Robertson's television program, The 700 Club, twice a day in perpetuity, regardless of any changes of ownership. The channel is now owned by Disney and run as "ABC Family". On December 3, 2007, Robertson resigned as chief executive of CBN; he was succeeded by his son, Gordon.

Robertson founded CBN University in 1977 on CBN's Virginia Beach campus. It was renamed Regent University in 1989. Robertson serves as its chancellor. He is also founder and president of the American Center for Law and Justice, a public interest law firm that defends Christians whose First Amendment rights have allegedly been violated. The law firm, headquartered in the same building that houses Regent's law school, focuses on "pro-family, pro-liberty and pro-life" cases nationwide.

Robertson is also an advocate of Christian dominionism — the idea that Christians have a right to rule.

In 1994, he was a signer of the document Evangelicals and Catholics Together.

Pat Robertson was a fundraiser for the Nicaraguan Contras. In March 1986, he told Israeli Foreign Affairs that South Africa was a major contributor to the Reagan administration's efforts to help the anti-Sandinista forces.

1988 presidential bid

In September 1986, Robertson announced his intention to seek the Republican nomination for President of the United States. Robertson said he would pursue the nomination only if three million people signed up to volunteer for his campaign by September 1987. Three million responded, and by the time Robertson announced he would be running in September 1987, he also had raised millions of dollars for his campaign fund. He surrendered his ministerial credentials and turned leadership of CBN over to his son, Tim. His campaign, however, against incumbent Vice President George H. W. Bush, was seen as a long shot.

Robertson ran on a standard conservative platform. Among his policies, he wanted to ban pornography, reform the education system, and eliminate departments such as the Department of Education and the Department of Energy. He also supported a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget.

Robertson's campaign got off to a strong second-place finish in the Iowa caucus, ahead of Bush. He did poorly in the subsequent New Hampshire primary, however, and was unable to be competitive once the multiple-state primaries began. Robertson ended his campaign before the primaries were finished. His best finish was in Washington, winning the majority of caucus delegates. He later spoke at the 1988 Republican National Convention in New Orleans and told his remaining supporters to cast their votes for Bush, who ended up winning the nomination and the election. He then returned to CBN and has remained there as a religious broadcaster.

Books

Episcopalian professor of theology Ephraim Radner accuses Robertson of espousing anti-semitic beliefs in the book:

Business interests

Robertson is the founder and chairman of The Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) Inc., and founder of International Family Entertainment Inc., Regent University, Operation Blessing International Relief and Development Corporation, American Center for Law and Justice, The Flying Hospital, Inc. and several other organizations and broadcast entities. Robertson was the founder and co-chairman of International Family Entertainment Inc. (IFE).

Formed in 1990, IFE produced and distributed family entertainment and information programming worldwide. IFE's principal business was The Family Channel, a satellite delivered cable-television network with 63 million U.S. subscribers. IFE, a publicly held company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, was sold in 1997 to Fox Kids Worldwide, Inc. for $1.9 billion, whereupon it was renamed Fox Family Channel. Disney acquired FFC in 2001 and its name was changed again, to ABC Family.

Robertson is a global businessman with media holdings in Asia, the United Kingdom, and Africa. He struck a deal with Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based General Nutrition Center to produce and market a weight-loss shake he created and promoted on The 700 Club.

In 1999, Robertson entered into a joint venture with the Bank of Scotland to provide financial services in the United States. However, the move was met with criticism in the UK due to Robertson's views on homosexuality. Robertson commented that “In Europe, the big word is tolerance. You tolerate everything. Homosexuals are riding high in the media ... And in Scotland, you can't believe how strong the homosexuals are." Shortly afterward, the Bank of Scotland canceled the venture.

Robertson's extensive business interests have earned him a net worth estimated between $200 million and $1 billion.

A fan of Thoroughbred horse racing, Robertson paid $520,000 for a colt he named Mr. Pat. Trained by John Kimmel, Mr. Pat was not a successful runner. He was nominated for, but did not run in, the 2000 Kentucky Derby.

According to a June 2, 1999, article in The Virginian-Pilot, Robertson had extensive business dealings with Liberian president Charles Taylor. According to the article, Taylor gave Robertson the rights to mine for diamonds in Liberia's mineral-rich countryside. According to two Operation Blessing pilots who reported this incident to the state of Virginia for investigation in 1994, Robertson used his Operation Blessing planes to haul diamond-mining equipment to Robertson's mines in Liberia, despite the fact that Robertson was telling his 700 Club viewers that the planes were sending relief supplies to the victims of the genocide in Rwanda. In response to Taylor's alleged crimes against humanity, the United States Congress passed a bill In November 2003 that offered two million dollars for his capture. Robertson accused President George W. Bush of "undermining a Christian, Baptist president to bring in Muslim rebels to take over the country." At the time Taylor was harboring Al Qaeda operatives who were funding their operations through the illegal diamond trade. On February 4, 2010, at his war crimes trial in the Hague, Taylor testified that Robertson was his main political ally in the U.S., and that he had volunteered to make Liberia's case before U.S. administration officials in exchange for concessions to Robertson's Freedom Gold, Ltd., to which Taylor gave a contract to mine gold in southeast Liberia. In 2010, a spokesman for Robertson said that the company's arrangements — in which the Liberian government got a 10 percent equity interest in the company and Liberians could purchase at least 15 percent of the shares after the exploration period — was similar to many American companies doing business in Africa at the time.

Political activism

After his unsuccessful presidential campaign, Robertson started the Christian Coalition, a 1.7 million member Christian right organization that campaigned mostly for conservative candidates.

In 1994, the Coalition was fined for "improperly [aiding] then Representative Newt Gingrich (R-GA) and Oliver North, who was then the Republican Senate nominee in Virginia." Robertson left the Coalition in 2001.

Robertson has been a governing member of the Council for National Policy (CNP): Board of Governors 1982, President Executive Committee 1985–86, member, 1984, 1988, 1998.

On November 7, 2007, Robertson announced that he was endorsing Rudy Giuliani to be the Republican nominee in the 2008 Presidential election.

While usually associated with the political right, Pat Robertson has recently begun endorsing environmental causes. He appears in a commercial with Al Sharpton, joking about this, and urging people to join the We can Solve it Campaign against global warming.

In January 2009, on a broadcast of The 700 Club, Robertson stated that he is "adamantly opposed" to the division of Jerusalem between Israel and the Palestinians. He also stated that Armageddon is "not going to be fought at Megiddo" but will be the "battle of Jerusalem," when "the forces of all nations come together and try to take Jerusalem away from the Jews. Jews are not going to give up Jerusalem — they shouldn't — and the rest of the world is going to insist they give it up." Robertson added that Jerusalem is a "spiritual symbol that must not be given away" because "Jesus Christ the Messiah will come down to the part of Jerusalem that the Arabs want," and that's "not good."

Controversies and criticisms

Controversies surrounding Robertson include his earlier work as a faith healer, his claim that some Protestant denominations harbor the spirit of the Antichrist, and his claims of having the power to deflect hurricanes through prayer; he has also denounced Hinduism as "demonic" and Islam as "Satanic." Robertson has issued multiple condemnations of feminism, homosexuality, abortion and liberal college professors. Robertson also had financial ties to former presidents Charles Taylor of Liberia and Mobutu Sese Seko

The week of September 11, 2001, Robertson discussed the terror attacks with Jerry Falwell, who said that "the ACLU has to take a lot of blame for this" in addition to "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays, and the lesbians [who have] helped [the terror attacks of September 11th] happen." Robertson replied, "I totally concur." Both evangelists came under attack from President George W. Bush for their statements, for which they later issued apologies.

Less than two weeks after Hurricane Katrina killed 1,836 people, Robertson implied on the September 12th broadcast of The 700 Club that the storm was God's punishment in response to America's abortion policy. He suggested that September 11 and the disaster in New Orleans "could... be connected in some way".

On November 9, 2009, Robertson said that Islam is "a violent political system bent on the overthrow of the governments of the world and world domination." He went on to elaborate that "you're dealing with not a religion, you're dealing with a political system, and I think we should treat it as such, and treat its adherents as such as we would members of the communist party, members of some fascist group."

Robertson's response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake also drew controversy and condemnation. Robertson claimed that Haiti's founders had sworn a "pact to the Devil" in order to liberate themselves from the French slave owners and indirectly attributed the earthquake to the consequences of the Haitian people being "cursed" for doing so. CBN later issued a statement saying that Robertson's comments "were based on the widely-discussed 1791 slave rebellion led by Dutty Boukman at Bois Caiman, where the slaves allegedly made a famous pact with the devil in exchange for victory over the French." Various prominent voices of mainline and evangelical Christianity promptly denounced Robertson's remarks as false, untimely, insensitive, and not representative of Christian thought on the issue.

Predictions

Several times near New Year, Robertson has announced that God told him several truths or events that would happen in the following year. "I have a relatively good track record," he said. "Sometimes I miss."

1982: Doomsday

In late 1976, Robertson predicted that the end of the world was coming in October or November 1982. In a May 1980 broadcast of The 700 Club he stated, "I guarantee you by the end of 1982 there is going to be a judgment on the world."

2006: Pacific Northwestern tsunami

In May 2006, Robertson declared that storms and possibly a tsunami would hit America's coastline sometime in 2006. Robertson supposedly received this revelation from God during an annual personal prayer retreat in January. The claim was repeated four times on The 700 Club.

On May 8, 2006, Robertson said, "If I heard the Lord right about 2006, the coasts of America will be lashed by storms." On May 17, 2006, he elaborated, "There well may be something as bad as a tsunami in the Pacific Northwest." While this claim didn't garner the same level of controversy as some of his other statements, it was generally received with mild amusement by the Pacific Northwest media. The History Channel's initial airing of its new series, Mega Disasters, debut episode "West Coast Tsunami", was broadcast the first week of May.

2007: Terror attack

On the January 2, 2007, broadcast of The 700 Club, Robertson said that God spoke to him and told him that "mass killings" were to come during 2007, due to a terrorist attack on the United States. He added, "The Lord didn't say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that." When a terrorist attack failed to happen in 2007, Robertson said, in January 2008, "All I can think is that somehow the people of God prayed and God in his mercy spared us." However, there was a decrease in overall deaths for the period, and the American economy had already entered a recession in 2007, with increased household debt and the collapse of financial institutions.

2008: Mideast meltdown

In October 2008 Robertson posted a press release on the Georgian Conflict speculating that the conflict is a Russian ploy to enter the Middle East, and that instability caused by a predicted pre-emptive strike by Israel on Iran would result in Syria's and Iran's launching nuclear strikes on other targets. He also said that if the United States were to oppose Russia's expansion, nuclear strikes on American soil are also pending. "We will suffer grave economic damage, but will not engage in military action to stop the conflict. However, we may not be spared nuclear strikes against coastal cities. In conclusion, it is my opinion that we have between 75 and 120 days before the Middle East starts spinning out of control."

2009: Economic chaos and recovery

On the January 1, 2009, broadcast of The 700 Club, Robertson said, "If I'm hearing [God] right, gold will go to about $1900 dollars an ounce and oil to $300 a barrel." He also suggested that Americans would broadly accept socialism. Despite these predictions, he also said that economically, "things are getting ready to turn around."

Works

Shout it from the Housetops an autobiography with Jamie Buckingham (1972, repr 1995)

The Secret Kingdom (1982)

Answers to 200 of Life's Most Probing Questions (c1984)

Beyond Reason: How Miracles can Change your Life (1985)

America's Dates with Destiny (1986)

The Plan (1989)

The New Millennium (1990)

The New World Order (1991)

Turning Tide: The Fall of Liberalism and the Rise of Common Sense (c1993)

The End of the Age (1995, fiction)

Bring It On (2003)

The Ten Offenses (2004)

Courting Disaster (2004)

See also

The 700 Club

Christian Broadcasting Network

Christian right

Christian fundamentalism

Christian Coalition of America

Christian Zionism

Moral majority

Operation Blessing

References

Further reading

Rob Boston. The Most Dangerous Man in America? Pat Robertson and the Rise of the Christian Coalition

Harrell Jr., David Edwin Pat Robertson: A Life and Legacy (2010) 442 pages. Scholarly biography draws on documents and interviews in seven countries

David John Marley. Pat Robertson: An American Life -

External links

Official Pat Robertson Website

Brian Ross. Some Question Robertson's Katrina Charity, ABC News, September 9, 2005.

"Preacher: God told him about storms, tsunami"

Robertson Denounces Hinduism as 'Demonic'"

2000 lbs. leg press

Robertson talks about his prostate cancer surgery with Laparoscopic Radical Prostatectomy

NPR Audio Report: Televangelist Robertson Urges U.S. Hit on Chavez

Archive of American Television interview with Pat Robertson

Category:1930 births Category:Living people Category:American anti-communists Category:American businesspeople Category:American people of Scottish descent Category:American racehorse owners and breeders Category:American religious leaders Category:American television evangelists Category:Anti-Masonry Category:Apocalypticists Category:Christian fundamentalism Category:Christian religious leaders Category:Christian ministers Category:Christian writers Category:Christian Zionists Category:Christianity conspiracy theorists Category:Conservatism in the United States Category:Criticism of feminism Category:Criticism of Islam Category:People from Lexington, Virginia Category:People from Staten Island Category:People from Virginia Beach, Virginia Category:Regent University people Category:Religious scandals Category:Southern Baptists Category:United States Marine Corps officers Category:United States presidential candidates, 1988 Category:University and college founders Category:Washington and Lee University alumni Category:Yale Law School alumni

Name	Lysander Spooner
Birthdate
Birthplace	Athol, Massachusetts
Deathdate
Nationality	American
Genre	Nonfiction
Subject	Political philosophy
Notableworks	No Treason, The Unconstitutionality of Slavery
Influenced	Murray Rothbard, Randy Barnett, Frederick Douglass

Lysander Spooner (January 19, 1808 May 14, 1887) was an American individualist anarchist, libertarian, political philosopher, Deist, abolitionist, supporter of the labor movement, legal theorist, and entrepreneur of the nineteenth century. He is also known for competing with the U.S. Post Office with his American Letter Mail Company, which was forced out of business by the United States government.

Life overview

Spooner was born on a farm in Athol, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1808, and died "at one o'clock in the afternoon of Saturday, May 14, 1887, in his little room at 109 Myrtle Street, Boston, MA, surrounded by trunks and chests bursting with the books, manuscripts, and pamphlets which he had gathered in his active pamphleteer's warfare over half a century long."

Spooner advocated what he called Natural Law or the "Science of Justice" wherein acts of initiatory coercion against individuals and their property were considered "illegal" but the so-called criminal acts that violated only man-made legislation were not.

Early years

Legal career

His activism began with his career as a lawyer, which itself violated Massachusetts law.{} Spooner had studied law under the prominent lawyers and politicians John Davis and Charles Allen, but he had never attended college. According to the laws of the state, college graduates were required to study with an attorney for three years, while non-graduates were required to do so for five years.

With the encouragement of his legal mentors, Spooner set up his practice in Worcester after only three years, openly defying the courts. He saw the three-year privilege for college graduates as a state-sponsored discrimination against the poor and also providing a monopoly income to those who met the requirements. He argued that such discrimination was "so monstrous a principle as that the rich ought to be protected by law from the competition of the poor." In 1836, the legislature abolished the restriction. He opposed all licensing requirements for lawyers, doctors or anyone else that was prevented from being employed by such requirements. To prevent a person from doing business with a person without a professional license he saw as a violation of the natural right to contract.

After a disappointing legal career - his radical writing seems to have kept away potential clients - and a failed career in real estate speculation in Ohio, Spooner returned to his father's farm in 1840.

American Letter Mail Company

Being an advocate of self-employment and opponent of government regulation of business, Spooner started his own business called American Letter Mail Company which competed with the U.S. Post Office. Postal rates were notoriously high in the 1840s, and in 1844, Spooner founded the American Letter Mail Company, which had offices in various cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. Stamps could be purchased and then attached to letters which could be sent to any of its offices. From here agents were dispatched who traveled on railroads and steamboats, and carried the letters in hand bags. Letters were transferred to messengers in the cities along the routes who then delivered the letters to the addressees. This was a challenge to the United States Post Office's monopoly. As he had done when challenging the rules of the Massachusetts bar, he published a pamphlet titled "The Unconstitutionality of the Laws of Congress Prohibiting Private Mails." Although Spooner had finally found commercial success with his mail company, legal challenges by the government eventually exhausted his financial resources. He closed up shop without ever having had the opportunity to fully litigate his constitutional claims. The lasting legacy of Spooner's challenge to the postal service was the 3-cent stamp, adopted in response to the competition his company provided.

Abolitionism

Spooner attained his greatest fame as a figure in the abolitionist movement. His most famous work, a book titled The Unconstitutionality of Slavery, was published in 1845 to great acclaim among many abolitionists but criticism from others. Spooner's book contributed to a controversy within the abolitionist movement over whether the United States Constitution supported the institution of slavery. The "disunionist" faction, led by William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, argued the Constitution legally recognized and enforced the oppression of slaves (as, for example, in the provisions for the capture of fugitive slaves in Article IV, Section 2). They also cited the frequent appeals to Constitutional compromise by Southern politicians, who insisted that protection of the "peculiar institution" was part of the sectional compromise on which the Constitution was based. The disunionists thus argued that keeping the free states in a political union with the slave states made the citizens of the free states complicit in the slave system, and denounced the Constitution as "a covenant with death and an agreement with hell." More generally, Wendell Phillips disputed Spooner's notion that any unjust law should be held legally void by judges.

Spooner challenged the claim that the text of the Constitution supported slavery. Although he recognized that the Founders had probably not intended to outlaw slavery when writing the Constitution, he argued that only the meaning of the text, not the private intentions of its writers, was enforceable. Spooner used a complex system of legal and natural law arguments in order to show that the clauses usually interpreted as supporting slavery did not, in fact, support it, and that several clauses of the Constitution prohibited the states from establishing slavery under the law. Spooner's arguments were cited by other pro-Constitution abolitionists, such as Gerrit Smith and the Liberty Party, which adopted it as an official text in its 1848 platform. Frederick Douglass, originally a Garrisonian disunionist, later came to accept the pro-Constitution position, and cited Spooner's arguments to explain his change of mind.

From the publication of this book until 1861, Spooner actively campaigned against slavery. He published subsequent pamphlets on Jury Nullification and other legal defenses for escaped slaves and offered his legal services, often free of charge, to fugitives. In the late 1850s, copies of his book were distributed to members of Congress sparking some debate over their contents. Even Senator Albert Gallatin Brown of Mississippi, a slavery proponent, praised the argument's intellectual rigor and conceded it was the most formidable legal challenge he had seen from the abolitionists to date. In 1858, Spooner circulated a "Plan for the Abolition of Slavery," calling for the use of guerrilla warfare against slaveholders by black slaves and non-slaveholding free Southerners, with aid from Northern abolitionists. Spooner also participated in an aborted plot to free John Brown after his capture following the failed raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia (Harper's Ferry is now part of the state of West Virginia).

In 1860, Spooner was actively courted by William Seward to support the fledgling Republican Party. An admitted sympathizer with the Jeffersonian political philosophy, Spooner adamantly refused the request and soon became an outspoken abolitionist critic of the party. To Spooner, the Republicans were hypocrites for purporting to oppose slavery's expansion but refusing to take a strong, consistent moral stance against slavery itself. Although Spooner had advocated the use of violence to abolish slavery, he denounced the Republicans' use of violence to prevent the Southern states from seceding during the American Civil War. He published several letters and pamphlets about the war, arguing that the Republican objective was not to eradicate slavery, but rather to preserve the Union by force. He blamed the bloodshed on Republican political leaders, such as Secretary of State William H. Seward and Senator Charles Sumner, who often spoke out against slavery but would not attack it on a constitutional basis, and who pursued military policies seen as vengeful and abusive.

Although he denounced the institution of slavery, Spooner recognized the right of the Confederate States of America to secede as the manifestation of government by consent, a constitutional and legal principle fundamental to Spooner's philosophy; the Northern states, in contrast, were trying to deny the Southerners that right through military force. He believed they were attempting to restore the Southern states to the Union, against the wishes of Southerners. He argued that the right of the states to secede derives from the natural right of slaves to be free.

As a means to end slavery without bloodshed, Spooner offered compensated emancipation, a method tested and proven in those nations that had orchestrated the peaceful abolition of slavery.

Monetary theory and wage labor

Spooner believed that government restrictions on issuance of private money made it inordinately difficult for individuals to obtain the capital on credit to start their own businesses, thereby putting them in a situation where "a very large portion of them, to save themselves from starvation, have no alternative but to sell their labor to others" and those who do employ others are only able afford to pay "far below what the laborers could produce, [than] if they themselves had the necessary capital to work with." Spooner said that there was "a prohibitory tax --- a tax of ten per cent. --- on all notes issued for circulation as money, other than the notes of the United States and the national banks" which he argued caused an artificial shortage of credit, and that eliminating this tax would result in making plenty of money available for lending

Economist Murray Rothbard, in 1974, argued against Spooner's theory. Though agreeing that government should not have any regulations on money, he argued that "an increase in the supply of money does not confer any benefit whatever on society" but simply dilutes the purchasing power. Moreover, Rothbard said that in an anarchist society, the quantity of money would actually not increase as Spooner theorizes, but that supply would be even more limited than when governments and central banks manage the money supply, and fortunately so.

Reconstruction

Spooner harshly condemned the American Civil War and the Reconstruction period that followed. Though he approved of the abolition of black slavery, he criticized the North for failing to make this the purpose of their cause. Instead of fighting to abolish slavery, they fought to "preserve the union" and, according to Spooner, to bolster business interests behind that union. Spooner believed a war of this type was hypocritical and dishonest, especially on the part of Radical Republicans like Sumner who were by then claiming to be abolitionist heroes for ending slavery. Spooner also argued that the war came at a great cost to liberty and proved that the rights expressed in the Declaration of Independence no longer held true - the people could not "dissolve the political bands" that tie them to a government that "becomes destructive" of the consent of the governed because if they did so, as Spooner believed the South had attempted to do, they would be met by the bayonet to enforce their obedience to the former government.

The Union government's actions during the war caused Spooner to radicalize his views to an anarchistic view. In response, Spooner published one of his most famous political tracts, No Treason. In this lengthy essay, Spooner argued that the Constitution was a contract of government (see social contract theory) which had been irreparably violated during the war and was thus void. Furthermore, since the government now existing under the Constitution pursued coercive policies that were contrary to the Natural Law and to the consent of the governed, it had been demonstrated that that document could not adequately stop many abuses against liberty or prevent tyranny from taking hold. Spooner bolstered his argument by noting that the Federal government, as established by a legal contract, could not legally bind all persons living in the nation since none had ever signed their names or given their consent to it - that consent had always been assumed, which fails the most basic burdens of proof for a valid contract in the courtroom.

Spooner widely circulated the No Treason pamphlets, which also contained a legal defense against the crime of treason itself intended for former Confederate soldiers (hence the name of the pamphlet, arguing that "no treason" had been committed in the war by the South). These excerpts were published in DeBow's Review and in some other well-known southern periodicals of the time.

George Woodcock describes Spooner's essays as an "eloquent elaboration" of Josiah Warren and the early American development of Proudhon's ideas, and the associates his works with that of Stephen Pearl Andrews.

Later life

Spooner became a member of the socialist First International. Spooner continued to write and publish extensively in the decades following Reconstruction, producing works such as "Natural Law or The Science of Justice" and "Trial By Jury." In "Trial By Jury" he defended the doctrine of "Jury Nullification", which holds that in a free society a trial jury not only has the authority to rule on the facts of the case, but also on the legitimacy of the law under which the case is tried, and which would allow juries to refuse to convict if they regard the law they are asked to convict under as illegitimate. He became closely associated with Benjamin Tucker's anarchist journal Liberty, which published all of his later works in serial format, and for which he wrote several editorial columns on current events. He argued that ". . . almost all fortunes are made out of the capital and labour of other men than those who realise them. Indeed, except by his sponging capital and labour from others."

Spooner died on May 14, 1887 at the age of 79 in his residence, 109 Myrtle Street, Boston. Benjamin Tucker arranged his funeral service and wrote an obituary, entitled "Our Nestor Taken From Us," which appeared in Liberty on May 28.

Influence

Spooner's influence extends to the wide range of topics he addressed during his lifetime. He is remembered today primarily for his abolitionist activities and for his challenge to the post office monopoly, which had a lasting influence of significantly reducing postal rates. Spooner's writings contributed to the development of libertarian political theory in the United States, and were often reprinted in early libertarian journals such as the Rampart Journal. His writings were also a major influence on Austrian School economist Murray Rothbard and libertarian law professor and legal theorist Randy Barnett.

In January 2004, Laissez Faire Books established the Lysander Spooner Award for advancing the literature of liberty. The honor is awarded monthly to the most important contributions to the literature of liberty, followed by an annual award to the author of the top book on liberty for the year. The annual "Spooner" earns $1,500 cash for the winning author. Conversely, proponents of market socialism cite Spooner for his opposition to wage labor.

Spooner's "The Unconstitutionality of Slavery" was cited in the 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller case which struck down the federal district's ban on handguns. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, quotes Spooner as saying the right to bear arms was necessary for those who wanted to take a stand against slavery. It was also cited by Justice Clarence Thomas in his concurring opinion in the following 2010 "McDonald v. Chicago" case.

Publications

The Deist's Immortality, and An Essay On Man's Accountability For His Belief (1834)

The Deist's Reply to the Alleged Supernatural Evidences of Christianity (1836)

Constitutional Law, Relative to Credit, Currency, and Banking (1843)

The Unconstitutionality of the Laws of Congress, Prohibiting Private Mails (1844)

The Unconstitutionality of Slavery (1845)

Poverty: Its Illegal Causes, and Legal Cure (1846)

Illegality of the Trial of John W. Webster (1850)

An Essay on Trial by Jury (1852)

The Law of Intellectual Property (1855)

A Plan For The Abolition Of Slavery (and) To The Non-Slaveholders of the South (1858)

Address of the Free Constitutionalists to the People of the United States (1860)

A New System of Paper Currency (1861)

A Letter to Charles Sumner (1864)

Considerations for Bankers, and Holders of United States Bonds (1864)

No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority (1870)

Forced Consent (1873)

Vices Are Not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty (1875)

Our Financiers: Their Ignorance, Usurpations and Frauds (1877)

Gold and Silver as Standards of Value: The Flagrant Cheat in Regard to Them (1878)

Natural Law, or the Science of Justice (1882)

A Letter to Thomas F. Bayard (1882)

A Letter to Scientists and Inventors, on the Science of Justice (1884)

A Letter to Grover Cleveland, on His False Inaugural Address, The Usurpations and Crimes of Lawmakers and Judges, and the Consequent Poverty, Ignorance, and Servitude of the People (1886)

See also

Individualist anarchism

Voluntaryism

Natural rights

American philosophy

List of American philosophers

Notes

External links

Works online

Essay On The Trial By Jury

"To the Non-Slaveholders of the South: A Plan for the Abolition of Slavery" (1858)

Vices Are Not Crimes: A vindication of Moral Liberty (1875)

No Treason (1867 1870 text)

Natural Law, or the Science of Justice (1882)

"A Letter to Thomas F. Bayard: Challenging His Right - And that of All the Other So-Called Senators and Representative in Congress - To Exercise Any Legislative Power Whatever Over the People of the United States" (1882)

The Unconstitutionality of Slavery (1860)

The Law of Intellectual Property: or an essay on the right of authors and inventors to a perpetual property in their ideas (1855)

Let's Abolish Government (1972); three collected essays

Address of the Free Constitutionalists to the People of the United States (1860).

Audio books

'No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority' read by Marc Stevens

Secondary sources

Lysander Spooner Quotes at Liberty-Tree.ca.

Spooner Memorial Resolutions, offered by Benjamin Tucker at the Lysander Spooner Memorial Services held in Wells Memorial Hall, Boston, on Sunday, May 29, 1887.

Lysander Spooner's Bibliography via The Wayback Machine.

LysanderSpooner.org.

The Ideas of Lysander Spooner — Libertarian or libertarian socialist? by Iain MacSaorsa

Lysander Spooner: Libertarian Pietist by Murray Rothbard.

Category:1808 births Category:1887 deaths Category:American abolitionists Category:American anarchists Category:American anti-war activists Category:American essayists Category:American journalists Category:American lawyers Category:American legal writers Category:American libertarians Category:American political philosophers Category:American political theorists Category:American political writers Category:Anarchism theorists Category:Deist thinkers Category:Individualist anarchists Category:Libertarian theorists Category:Voluntaryists Category:People of Massachusetts in the American Civil War Category:People from Worcester County, Massachusetts Category:American people of English descent Category:Philosophy writers

Name	Lloyd Kirkham Garrison
Birth date	November 19, 1897
Birth place	New York City, New York, U.S.
Death date	October 02, 1991
Death place	Manhattan, New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Attorney; Civil servant
Spouse	Ellen Jay Garrison
Children	Clarinda, Ellen, and Lloyd McKim

Lloyd Kirkham Garrison (November 19, 1897 – October 2, 1991) was an American lawyer. He was Dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School, but also served as chairman of the "first" National Labor Relations Board, chairman of the National War Labor Board, and chair of the New York City Board of Education. He was active in a number of social causes, was a highly successful attorney on Wall Street, and for a short time was a special assistant to the United States Attorney General.

Early life and education

Garrison was born on November 19, 1897, in New York City to Lloyd McKim and Alice (Kirkham) Garrison. His great-grandfather was William Lloyd Garrison, the famous American abolitionist, and his grandfather was Wendell Phillips Garrison, who once was literary editor of The Nation (a left-wing magazine of politics and opinion). His grandfather, who knew many Civil War-era abolitionists (Frederick Douglass was a frequent guest in the Garrison home in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and Wendell Garrison knew him personally), regaled young Lloyd with many stories about the great struggles for civil rights and liberties of the 19th century. He returned to Harvard in 1919, and in 1922 he graduated with a Bachelor's degree from Harvard and a law degree from Harvard Law School. The couple had three children: Clarinda, Ellen, and Lloyd. He joined the National Urban League in 1924, after two African American men asked him to be treasurer of the nascent organization.

Garrison was named Acting Dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1929, and Dean in 1932. As dean, Garrison led efforts to significantly revamp the curriculum, implementing a functionalist approach to the study of law, restructuring the first year to emphasize the origins and development of the American legal system, and creating a number of short courses in current law topics so that students would be prepared for the legal issues they encountered immediately upon graduation. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt abolished the National Labor Board in June 1934 and replaced it with the "first" National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), he appointed Garrison as the Board's first chairman. Although he served on the Board for only four months, Garrison led the Board in deciding Houde Engineering Corp., 1 NLRB 87 (1934), a landmark ruling in American labor law that required employers to bargain exclusively with the representatives elected by a majority of employees. Garrison, however, agreed to serve as the chair only to get the board up and running, and he resigned on October 2, 1934, to resume his position at the University of Wisconsin Law School. He served as president of the Association of American Law Schools for the 1936-1937 term. Roosevelt turned to Garrison again when he established a national mediation board in an (unsuccessful) attempt to quell the Little Steel strike of 1937. Roosevelt later considered Garrison for the Supreme Court of the United States after Associate Justice Willis Van Devanter resigned on June 2, 1937. Garrison received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1938.

Garrison took a leave of absence again from Wisconsin to serve on the National War Labor Board (NWLB) during World War II. The NWLB was established on January 12, 1942, by President Roosevelt to oversee war-related labor relations for the duration of the war and ensure that war-related production was not disrupted by labor disputes. Initially, Garrison was the War Labor Board's executive director and chief counsel. He was promoted to alternative public member in January 1944. A month later, he was elevated yet again to full public member. In the NWLB's final year of existence, he was its chairman.

Later career

Garrison did not return to the University of Wisconsin after the war. Instead, he joined the New York City law firm of Weiss & Wharton (now renamed, after the addition of several partners, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison). In the late 1940s, Garrison served as legal counsel to the Field Foundation (created by his friend Marshall Field III from funds he inherited from his father, who founded the Marshall Field's department store) In 1948, Garrison served as a member of the board of directors of a pilot project established by the Foundation to build non-discriminatory low-income housing in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. That same year, he hired Pauli Murray, one of the first African American lawyers in the country, as an associate at his firm. With John W. Davis, he represented Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer before a panel of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1954. In the 1950s, Garrison was also a supporter of the Highlander Research and Education Center, a liberal leadership training school and cultural center.

Garrison also remained active in areas outside the law after the 1945. From 1947 to 1952 he served as President of the National Urban League. The efforts of Garrison and the other finally broke Tammany Hall's grip on the city for good: Ed Koch defeated De Sapio by 41 votes in 1963 and by 164 votes in a rematch in 1964, and De Sapio's political career ended. Garrison was a long-time member of the American Civil Liberties Union, and served on its board of directors from the late 1930s until at least 1965. Over the years, he was also a member of the board of trustees for Harvard University, Sarah Lawrence College, and Howard University. He was also a long-time member of the Council of Foreign Relations and the New York City Bar Association. On September 18, 1916, New York City Mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr. appointed Garrison to be a member of the new board. The Board of Education elected Garrison its president and chair on July 21, 1965.

The 67-year-old Garrison was president of the Board of Education during a time of significant change for New York City public schools. In 1961, teachers in the city schools had struck and won the right to form a labor union, and subsequently they elected the United Federation of Teachers to be its collective bargaining representative. Major corruption scandals had also rocked the school system, and for the first time the schools revealed that the quality of education in the system had slipped badly at the same time that white flight had taken most high-performing middle-class students out of the system while large numbers of educationally disadvantaged minority and immigrant children entered it.

Due to his age and declining health, Garrison retired from the Board of Education in the summer of 1967. The city's new Mayor, John Lindsay, appointed Garrison to a Mayor's Advisory Panel on the Decentralization of the New York City Schools. The Advisory Panel recommended extensive devolution of control over the city's public schools to locally elected neighborhood school boards. One locally controlled board in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville neighborhood began violating the union's contract in order to bring in a new teaching staff. This led to three strikes which engulfed the entire city school system. The devolution experiment ended after the strikes. The result was not unsurprising. Garrison had chaired a highly structured public hearing on devolution in 1966. After a local African American woman attempted to speak (even though she was not the witness list), Garrison ruled her out of order—causing the hearing to dissolve into a near-riot which required police (and for Garrison and the other Board members to scurry out a back door for their own safety).

Environmental law case

Also in the mid-1960s, Garrison was also involved in a landmark court case on environmental law. In May 1963, the Consolidated Edison energy company proposed constructing a hydroelectric power generating station on top of Storm King Mountain, a famous Hudson River valley landmark. The Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference formed to opposed the project. In March 1965, the Federal Power Commission, which had licensing authority over all hydroelectric projects in the United States, granted approval for the project to proceed. The Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference asked the agency to reconsider, based on the significant environmental impact and harm to scenic vistas the project would create, but the agency refused.

The Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference hired Garrison as its attorney, and he quickly filed suit in a federal court of appeals to stop the project. The court of appeals blocked the project on December 29, 1965, but the energy company appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case, allowing the injunction against the power plant to stand. The decision in Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission, 354 F.2d 608 (1965), cert. den'd., 384 US 941 (1966), is a landmark case in American environmental law, because it established for the first time that citizens do not need to show economic harm from a project but have standing to sue merely if the project creates environmental and aesthetic harms.

Death

Garrison remained active in his law firm until the end of his life. He died at his home in Manhattan in New York City of a heart failure on October 2, 1991.

Footnotes

Bibliography

Adams, Frank and Horton, Myles. Unearthing Seeds of Fire: The Idea of Highlander. Winston-Salem, N.C.: J.F. Blair, 1975.

Arnold, Martin. "Koch Keeps Leadership of 'Village' by 164 Votes." New York Times. June 3, 1964.

Bennett, Walter. The Lawyer's Myth: Reviving Ideals in the Legal Profession. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 2002.

Bernstein, Jeremy. Oppenheimer: Portrait of an Enigma. Chicago: Dee, 2004.

Buder, Leonard. "Garrison to Quit As Schools Head." New York Times. May 4, 1967.

Butzel, Albert K. "Garrison, Lloyd K." In The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law. Roger K. Newman, ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009.

Cannato, Vincent J. The Ungovernable City: John Lindsay and His Struggle to Save New York. Princeton, N.J.: Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic, 2004.

Coleman, William T. and Bliss, Donald T. Counsel for the Situation: Shaping the Law to Realize America's Promise. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2010.

"Con Ed Will Appear Storm King Rebuff." New York Times. March 23, 1966.

Crowell, Paul. "Mayor Appoints 9 Civic Leaders As School Board." New York Times. September 19, 1961.

Current Biography Yearbook. New York: H.W. Wilson, 1948.

Currivan, Gene. "Garrison to Head the School Board." New York Times. July 9, 1965.

New York Times. October 3, 1991.">Daniels, Lee A. "Lloyd K. Garrison, Lawyer, Dies." New York Times. October 3, 1991.

Devlin, John C. "Power Plan Stirs Battle On Hudson." New York Times. May 22, 1963.

Dorsen, David. "Paul, Weiss, Goldberg—What Kind of Ticket Is That?" New York. April 13, 1970.

New York Times. June 6, 1995.">"Ellen Garrison, 96." New York Times. June 6, 1995.

"F.P.C. Refuses Rehearing On Plant at Storm King." New York Times. May 7, 1965.

"Foes of Storm King Plant Take Battle to U.S Court." New York Times. July 13, 1965.

"Frank Says Garrison Will Return As Dean." New York Times. September 16, 1934.

Frank, John P. Marble Palace: The Supreme Court in American Life. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press 1972.

Gaines, Kevin Kelly. American Africans in Ghana: Black Expatriates and the Civil Rights Era. Chapell Hill, N.C. University of North Carolina Press, 2006.

"Garrison Elected School Board Head." New York Times. July 22, 1965.

"Garrison Is Put on WLB." Associated Press. January 3, 1944.

"Garrison Resigns Labor Board Post." New York Times. October 3, 1934.

Garrison, Lloyd McKim. "Garrison at Two Hundred: The Family, the Legacy, and the Question of Garrison's Relevance in Contemporary America." In William Lloyd Garrison at Two Hundred: History, Legacy, and Memory. James Brewer Stewart, ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2008.

Glassman, Bruce. Arthur Miller. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Silver Burdett Press, 1990.

Glen, John M. Highlander: No Ordinary School. 2d ed. Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 1996.

Graham, Fred P. "Supreme Court Paves Way For New Storm King Test." New York Times. May 17, 1966.

Gross, James A. The Making of the National Labor Relations Board: A Study in Economics, Politics, and the Law, 1933-1937. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1974.

Gross, James A. The Reshaping of the National Labor Relations Board: National Labor Policy in Transition, 1937-1947. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1981.

Houck, Oliver A. Taking Back Eden: Eight Environmental Cases That Changed the World. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2010.

Hove, Arthur and Biebel, Anne. The University of Wisconsin: A Pictorial History. Madison, Wisc.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991.

Hughes, Langston; De Santis, Christopher C. (ed.); Hubbard, Dolan (ed.); and Rampersad, Arnold (ed.) Fight for Freedom and Other Writings on Civil Rights. Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 2001.

Hunt, Richard. "Gains in Primary Claimed For Governor and Mayor." New York Times. September 7, 1963.

Kahlenberg, Richard D. Tough Liberal: Albert Shanker and the Battles Over Schools, Unions, Race, and Democracy. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

Kutulas, Judy. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Making of Modern Liberalism: 1930-1960. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.

"Labor: Majority Tool." Time. September 10, 1934.

Lewis, Anthony. "House Unit Asks Miller Citation." New York Times. July 11, 1956.

Liman, Arthur L. and Israel, Peter. Lawyer: A Life of Counsel and Controversy. New York: PublicAffairs, 1998.

Markmann, Charles Lam. The Noblest Cry: A History of the American Civil Liberties Union. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965.

"Mediation Fails, Steel Board Quits." New York Times. June 30, 1937.

"Miller and Nathan Disavow Contempt." New York Times. March 2, 1957.

"Miller Declines to Identify Reds." United Press International. July 8, 1956.

Morris, Charles. The Blue Eagle at Work: Reclaiming Democratic Rights in the American Workplace. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2004.

Morris, Jeffrey Brandon and Martin, George Whitney. Making Sure We Are True to Our Founders: The Association of the Bar of the City of New York, 1970-95. New York: Fordham University Press, 1997.

Nakaya, Andrea C. The Environment. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2006.

"Names Garrison to WLB." New York Times. February 10, 1944.

"New Guggenheim Awards." New York Times. April 28, 1938.

"New Labor Board Starts Its Work." New York Times. July 10, 1934.

Newfield, Jack and Barrett, Wayne. City for Sale: Ed Koch and the Betrayal of New York. New York: Harper & Row, 1988.

Newman, Roger K. Hugo Black: A Biography. New York: Fordham University Press, 1997.

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Parrish, Michael E. Citizen Rauh: An American Liberal's Life in Law and Politics. Ann Arbor, Wisc.: University of Michigan Press, 2010.

Phillips, McCandlish. "Con Ed's Project on Hudson Fought." New York Times. July 26, 1964.

Polenberg, Richard. In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer: The Security Clearance Hearing. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002.

"Powers of Board Defined in Order." New York Times. June 18, 1937.

"President Names Labor Alternates." New York Times. January 27, 1942.

Rampersad, Arnold. The Life of Langston Hughes: 1941-1967, I Dream a World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Ranzal, Edward. "Storm King Plant Blocked By Court." New York Times. December 30, 1965.

Ravitch, Diane. The Great School Wars: A History of the New York City Public Schools. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.

"Rotating Chairman Proposed on Labor." Associated Press. January 7, 1942.

Rothschild, Carl, C. and Burnap, Robert L. "Con Ed on Hudson Opposed." New York Times. February 15, 1964.

Russell, Dick. Striper Wars: An American Fish Story. Washington, D.C.: Island Press/Shearwater Books, 2005.

Russell Sage Foundation. Lawyers and the Promotion of Justice. Brattleboro, Vt.: E.L. Hildreth & Co., 1938.

Schwartz, Joel. The New York Approach: Robert Moses, Urban Liberals, and Redevelopment of the Inner City. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1993.

Stark, Louis. "Mills Are Assailed." New York Times. June 25, 1937.

"Steel Mediators Trained in Labor Troubles." New York Times. June 18, 1937.

Stern, Philip M.; Green, Harold P.; and Garrison, Lloyd K. The Oppenheimer Case: Security on Trial. New York: Harper & Row, 1969.

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Tomlins, Christopher. The State and the Unions: Labor Relations, Law, and the Organized Labor Movement in America, 1880-1960. Reprint ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Trussell, C.P. "Dashiell Hammett Silent At Inquiry." New York Times. March 27, 1953.

"T.W. Kheel Named Director of WLB." New York Times. January 2, 1944.

Van Alstyne, Jr., W. Scott. "The University of Wisconsin Law School 1868-1968: An Outline History." Wisconsin Law Review. 1968:321 (1968).

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Who's Who in Labor. New York: Dryden Press, 1946.

External links

"Garrison, Lloyd K. (Lloyd Kirkham), Papers 1893-1990." Harvard Law School Library, Harvard University

Category:1897 births Category:1991 deaths Category:New York lawyers Category:Harvard University alumni Category:People from Manhattan Category:Harvard Law School alumni Category:Deaths from heart failure Category:University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Category:Public education in New York City

Name	Iris Robinson
Constituency mp1	Strangford
Term start1	7 June 2001
Term end1	13 January 2010
Majority1	13,049 (35.2%)
Predecessor1	John Taylor
Successor1	Jim Shannon
Constituency am2	Strangford
Assembly2	Northern Ireland
Term start2	25 June 1998
Term end2	12 January 2010
Predecessor2	New assembly
Office3	Democratic Unionist Party Spokesperson for Health
Term start3	2001
Term end3	9 January 2010
Leader3	Ian PaisleyPeter Robinson
Birth date	September 06, 1949
Birth place	Belfast, Northern Ireland
Nationality	British
Spouse	Peter Robinson
Children	2 sons, 1 daughter
Party	Democratic Unionist Party (until 9 January 2010)Independent (from 9 January 2010)
Religion	Elim Pentecostal Church

Iris Robinson (née Collins; born 6 September 1949) is a former Northern Ireland Unionist politician. She is married to Peter Robinson, who is currently the First Minister in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Robinson was first elected councillor for Castlereagh Borough Council in 1989, and served as Mayor in 1992 and 1995. She was a member of the Northern Ireland Forum for Political Dialogue from 1995 to 1997. In 1998 she was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly for the Democratic Unionist Party as member for Strangford, acting as Deputy Whip and health spokesperson. She was elected as DUP Member of Parliament for Strangford at the 2001 general election, replacing the Ulster Unionist Party's John Taylor. She was re-elected at the 2005 general election.

Robinson describes herself as a born again Christian, and has publicly stated that "the government has the responsibility to uphold God's laws". In light of this, she was criticised for her views on homosexuality in 2008.

In December 2009, Robinson announced that she would leave politics and withdraw from public life following prolonged periods of mental illness. In January 2010, it emerged that Robinson had an extramarital affair with a 19-year-old in 2008, and she and her husband were faced with allegations of financial impropriety related to the affair. It was announced on 9 January 2010 that her membership of the DUP had been terminated, and that she would stand down from elected office. On 12 January 2010 she resigned from the Northern Ireland Assembly,

Personal life

Iris Collins was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She grew up in a working-class area in the east of the city. She describes herself as a born again Christian She attended Cregagh Primary School, Knockbreda Intermediate School and Cregagh Technical College before becoming a secretary. Gareth Robinson is a Councillor on Castlereagh Borough Council. They were the first husband and wife ever to represent Northern Ireland constituencies in Parliament at the same time.

Outside of politics Robinson listed her interests as charity fundraising for multiple sclerosis, interior design and horseriding. In her maiden speech she spoke about the "betrayal" felt by the Royal Ulster Constabulary, criticising the Government's policy on policing.

Robinson's voting record shows that she voted strongly against introducing foundation hospitals, very strongly for the Iraq War, moderately for an investigation into said war, voted moderately against LGBT rights, and never voted on transparent Parliament or on replacing Trident.

Robinson was suspended from Stormont for a day on 19 November 2007 after refusing to withdraw "unparliamentary" comments she had made about the health minister, Michael McGimpsey.

In an interview with the Sunday Tribune in April 2008, anticipating becoming "First Lady" of Northern Ireland, Iris spoke out against Hillary Clinton alluding to her husband's affair with Monica Lewinsky: "No woman would put up with what she tolerated from her husband when he was president. She was thinking only of her future political career. It's all about power and not principle." Robinson was quoted as hoping that Hillary would not become US president.

Controversies

Comments about homosexuality

In June 2008, shortly after a homophobic attack (involving physical assault) on a gay man in Northern Ireland, she made comments on the BBC Radio Ulster's Stephen Nolan Show offering to recommend homosexuals to psychiatric counselling. While condemning the attack, she claimed that homosexuality was an "abomination" and it made her feel "sick" and "nauseous", and offered to refer homosexuals to a psychiatrist she knew. In a subsequent interview, Robinson defended her views and denied prejudice against LGBT people, saying that "just as a murderer can be redeemed by the blood of Christ, so can a homosexual.... If anyone takes issue, they're taking issue with the word of God". Her comments were rebuffed by representatives of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Rainbow Project, the Alliance Party, Sinn Féin, and the Social Democratic and Labour Party. The psychiatrist in question, Dr. Paul Miller, later resigned as her "adviser", and stood down from his post of consultant psychiatrist at Belfast's Mater hospital. He is no longer a consultant psychiatrist within the NHS and has been reported to the General Medical Council (GMC). A police investigation followed these comments, over 100 complaints were made, and gay rights activist Robert Toner also made a complaint to the Equality Commission.

Robinson subsequently repeated her views in parliamentary session. Speaking in a 17 June 2008 Northern Ireland Grand Committee session on Risk Assessment and Management of Sex Offenders, she said: "There can be no viler act, apart from homosexuality and sodomy, than sexually abusing innocent children" She reiterated her statement to the Belfast Telegraph on 21 June 2008, but later claimed that she had been "misrepresented" in Hansard. Her claims of misrepresentation were challenged when Alliance Party Executive Director Gerry Lynch confirmed with Hansard staff that Robinson's comments were in fact correctly quoted. Further controversy was caused on 17 July 2008 when on the Stephen Nolan Show Robinson stated "it is the government's responsibility to uphold God's law". In the Northern Ireland Assembly on 30 June 2008, in a discussion about "LGBT Groups: Mental-Health Needs", Robinson said that "Homosexuality, like all sin, is an abomination," and suggested that teenagers needed help deciding whether they were homosexual or heterosexual. During this period, Robinson herself was having an adulterous affair with a 19-year old man.

By late July 2008, the Belfast Telegraph reported that "[A]lmost 11,000 people have signed a petition calling on British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to reprimand DUP MP Iris Robinson over her controversial remarks about homosexuality" and "[Fewer than] 30 people have signed an opposing petition calling on the Prime Minister to allow the comments to go un-reprimanded as a matter of personal opinion and religion". As a result of her comments, Robinson was named "Bigot of the Year" for 2008 by Stonewall.

Expenses row

In April 2009, both Iris and Peter Robinson came under fire after Commons MPs' expenses accounts were leaked to the press. The couple were described as the "swish family Robinson" by the News of the World and Daily Mail after claims that they were receiving £571,939.41 a year in various salaries and expenses, with a further £150,000 in salaries being paid to four of the couple's family members.

Extramarital affair and financial investigation

On 28 December 2009, and immediately prior to the airing of an investigative BBC programme looking at her personal life and financial dealings, Robinson announced her decision to retire from politics after claiming that she had been suffering serious bouts of depression. At the time she said the stress and strain of public life came at a cost, and that her health had suffered.

On 6 January 2010, Robinson issued a statement in which she said that she had attempted suicide on 1 March 2009. BBC's Spotlight programme revealed on 7 January 2010 that Robinson had an affair with Kirk McCambley, who was 19 years old at the time. It is also alleged that she encouraged friends to provide financial backing to assist her lover in a business venture. According to a BBC investigation, the payments she arranged from property developers to McCambley were £50,000 and as these had not been declared to the Northern Ireland Assembly this action broke the law. Robinson subsequently asked McCambley for £5,000 in cash; as well as a cheque made out to her Dundonald's Light 'n Life Church, which she attends. It is alleged that Peter pressed his wife to return this money - however, he failed to inform the proper authorities about the transaction, an apparent breach of his duty as First Minister of Northern Ireland to act in the public interest. Reports have been made of further affairs, with among others, Kirk McCambley's father Billy, who died of cancer in March 2008.

Robinson's intention to retire from elective office was announced on 11 January 2010

The PSNI announced on 21 January 2010 that were to conduct an investigation into Iris Robinson's financial affairs. On 20 February 2010 officers from PSNI searched the offices of Castlereagh Borough Council as part of this investigation. On 25 June 2010, it became public that Robinson had been interviewed as part of a police investigation over money she obtained from two developers.

Robinson received "acute psychiatric treatment" and was under 24-hour suicide watch following the BBC Spotlight documentary. Robinson had been receiving psychiatric treatment in a London clinic since January 2010 but returned to Northern Ireland on 19 September 2010 where she will continue her treatment.

References

External links

Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: Iris Robinson

Guardian - Special Report

Maiden Speech : House of Commons - 25 June 2001

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