Historical Studies (Chinese Edition)

No.2, 2019

 

The Abolitionist Postal Campaign of 1835 and the Rise of the Politics of Slavery in America before the Civil War (Abstract)

 

Du Hua

 

In the summer of 1835, a postal campaign initiated by the American Anti-Slavery Society sent a large number of publications spreading abolitionist ideas to the slave-holding South, in a move that mobilized the Southern anti-abolition movement. The Southerners’ fiery reaction quickly made slavery a national issue. At the same time, the Southern states demanded that the North and the Federal Government enact a law prohibiting abolitionists from continuing to promulgate their “incendiary” views. This ushered in a nationwide political debate on freedom of expression and freedom of the press, which ultimately led to a struggle in Congress over amendments to the Postal Service Act. The postal campaign broke through the apparent silence of the politics of slavery since the Missouri Crisis of 1819 and brought slavery back to the center of public debate, making an anti-slavery discourse conducted in terms of morality and human rights part of mainstream Northern politics and thus politicizing the issue of slavery. In the long term, the postal campaign provoked the South to a fiercer defense of slavery while encouraging the abolitionist movement and the development of anti-South feeling in the North. The issue of slavery inevitably became politicized and took on a national character. Ultimately, the Missouri Compromise collapsed, giving way to the politics of slavery.