MA, Kent State University, 2016, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

On December 2, 1859, the date of John Brown's execution for treason, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison delivered a eulogy in Boston for the antislavery vigilante. To his audience that night, Garrison lauded Brown for embodying the revolutionary spirit of the founding generation. While not likening Brown to Christ as some abolitionists had, Garrison did portray Brown as a martyr whom God would reward with “the victor's crown.” That Garrison would praise Brown is unsurprising from our vantage-point today. We expect that one radical abolitionist would have endorsed another, but this assumption is unwarranted. In fact, Garrison's eulogy for Brown marks a departure from his position of twenty years: the pacifism of “Christian nonresistance,” which absolutely forbade violence. The Garrisonian abolitionists were initially as pacifistic as their leader, but during the 1850s, they redefined Christian nonresistance to be compatible with condoning antislavery violence. In a decade of intense sectionalism and increasing violence around the issue of slavery, the Garrisonians embraced resistance. While the causes of this change in Garrisonian attitudes toward violence are admittedly complex, this thesis argues that the change was facilitated by an earlier change in their religious beliefs, specifically their substitution of a secular natural law ethic for a traditional religious source of authority. Focusing on the Garrisonians during the late 1840s and throughout the 1850s, the argument falls into three parts, each corresponding to a chapter. Chapter one, “Turning the Other Cheek,” shows that the Garrisonian commitment to nonresistance was inextricably religious in origin, taking for granted the moral authority of the Bible and of Jesus of Nazareth. Chapter two, “Taking Uncle Tom's Bible,” relates how the Garrisonians came to reject the religious assumptions underpinning their belief in Christian nonresistance. Finally, chapter three, “Racing towards Harper's Ferry,” demons (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Elizabeth Smith-Pryor PhD (Advisor); Kevin Adams PhD (Committee Member); Leonne Hudson PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Religious History