Proslavery: A History of the Defense of Slavery in America, 1701-1840, By Larry E Tise, (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1987)

            Larry Tise’ book Proslavery is a revolutionary piece of scholarship that changes the historiographical landscape of slavery’s supporters.  Tise finds that, rather than a Southern intellectual response to Northern abolitionists, proslavery rhetoric existed across the English-speaking world of slaveholders.  In the case of the United States specifically, the vast majority of intellectuals that initially rationalized and intellectually supported slavery were Northern clergy members.  These clergy members were largely Federalists in the opening years of the nineteenth century.  They felt the abolitionist movement could serve as a breeding ground for anarchical sentiment and did what they could to counter the rhetoric of abolition.  Southern slaveholders later picked up the rhetoric of the Federalists preachers and continued to espouse it long after the North transitioned to a more free-soil mindset.

            Tise divides the book into two main parts.  The first is a history of the myths of proslavery from the colonial period to the revolution.  This section goes through the existing historiography of the proslavery movement and provides evidence that brings most of the major assumptions to task.  The second section then uses the intellectual platform Tise has cleared off to build his history of the proslavery movement.  He argues such an extreme destruction of the historiography is necessary because “historians from the time of the Civil War to the present had fallen into the unfortunate trap of treating proslavery morally rather then historically.” (xii)   Further, “in making moral rather than historical judgments about proslavery, it is clear … we have thereby almost totally misunderstood the rich flow of American experience and social impulses between the American Revolution and the Civil War.” (xii-xiv)

            Proslavery’s thesis revolves around what Tise calls the “conservative counterrevolution” that followed the American Revolution.  He argues that, following independence, American conservatives in both the North and the South wanted to maintain the status quo in the basic power structure and social hierarchy in the newly formed government.  Abolitionists extolling the virtues of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and arguing for the freedom of slaves caused Americans to question the basic social foundations of the United States.  Accordingly, abolitionist opponents subverted their activities in both the North and the South, though over time only the South continued to work against them.

            That issue brings to bear the works most glaring weakness, as Tise never really explains why proslavery rhetoric in the North eventually died out.  What he does argue though is that the North was largely in favor or union and maintaining the status quo.  For Tise this makes most of the North proslavery, just less rhetorical over the issue.  He concludes his piece by arguing then, that the Civil War was not over slavery, but some issue that Tise does not speak to. 

            The book tears at most of the conventional historiography with copious research and statistical analysis; so much so in fact, that portions can be hard to follow and other extremity repetitive.  The sheer weight of information Tise unloads against the existing historiography makes one wonder if there might not be something to his argument, and certainly his detractors will fire back in time.  The result should be a provocative and fruitful exchange that will substantially contribute to our understanding of the issues involved. 

Joe Stoltz

 

Proslavery:  A History of the Defense of Slavery in America, 1701-1840.  By Larry E. Tise.  (Athens, GA:  The University of Georgia Press, 1987.  Pp. xix, 501.) 

In his 1987 publication, Proslavery, Larry E. Tise, an independent historian with a  Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, studies proslavery literature and thought in America.  Tise aspires to explain the causes of overt expressions of racism and proslavery ideas contained in defenses of slavery during the antebellum period and the motivations of those who arrived at “the ridiculous proposition that slavery could be good and beneficial both to the Negro and to American society (xiii).”  To accomplish this task, Tise examines the literature and lives of several different groups between 1701 and 1840.  Tise’s analysis of this period differs greatly with much of the existing historiography, which makes moral judgments and inaccurate hypotheses when describing American proslavery.  Proslavery attempts to reevaluate and demythologize the popular perceptions of proslavery ideas perpetuated by historians.  Ultimately, he hopes to yield a new understanding of proslavery in the antebellum United States as part of a united American culture, not merely Southern ideas.  

In the first part of Proslavery, Tise broadly characterizes proslavery thinkers as people who urged the perpetuation of slavery for any reason or justification.  He then analyzes some of the most popular myths about proslavery history and writers.  Tise first denounces the idea that only Southern slaveholders defended slavery (260).  This myth, promoted by writers such as William S. Jenkins and Eugene Genovese, does not endure Tise’s analysis of proslavery literature, which suggests that no geographical distinction existed in America for slave defenses.  Instead, Tise focuses on proslavery as a national occurrence that began in the North.  In early 1700s, many Americans employed proslavery thought to defend slavery and uphold property rights.  During the American Revolution, a few loyalists used proslavery ideas to refute the theory of natural rights, but very few published literature that defended slavery because few Americans opposed the practice.  In the first three decades of the 1800s, the Northern states defended slavery most commonly.  In 1810, Charles J. Ingersoll, a proslavery Northerner, defended all areas of American society, including slavery, against foreign criticisms.  Others Americans across the nation, especially Northern clergymen, reiterated slavery as an acceptable social reality and attacked abolitionists, like William Lloyd Garrison, as wild revolutionaries bent on destroying the nation. 

Tise also refutes the myth that slavery in the Old South developed uniquely to all other slave societies.  Far from an anomaly, Tise finds that the British in the West Indies, who relied heavily on slave labor decades before the Old South existed, argued the same proslavery ideas.  Both beliefs of slavery as a necessary evil and as a positive good, which civilized and Christianized the slaves while ensuring economic profits for slaveowners, became prominent in British proslavery writings.  Similar to the American South, most proslavery publications from the West Indies commonly appeared after various attacks on the institution and increasingly strengthened during the last phase of slavery. 

After stripping away these myths, Tise devotes the second half of Proslavery to outlining and interpreting America’s proslavery history free of such tradition.  He finds that the basic arguments of proslavery remain consistent over time and place.  Until the 1840s, most proslavery writers originated in the North, commonly had Federalist fathers, and had received conservative training as clergymen.  While Northern clergymen developed a conservative ideology, most Southerners remained quiet on proslavery issues, developing proslavery thought only when abolitionists directly threatened their institution.  As the abolitionists’ clamor increased during the 1830s with such developments as Garrison’s Liberator and the nullification crisis, proslavery rhetoric across the nation strengthened and transformed into a weapon for fending off all forms of abolitionism, which many Americans saw as unacceptable social radicalism. 

Quite opposite of the common historiography, Tise states that America experienced minimal growth of freedom and equality from the American Revolution to the Civil War.  Instead, many Americans living on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line, including many clergymen, committed themselves to proslavery ideas.  Tise blends narrative, quantitative, and biographic research methods into Proslavery.  He selected ninety-one published defenses of slavery from across the nation and researched the lives of 275 proslavery clergymen, who wrote several slavery defenses during this period, to gain an accurate idea of the proslavery movement.  As most clergymen during this period received extensive educations, they cannot accurately represent the commoners’ thoughts on proslavery.  Tise provides detailed biographical profiles of these and other proslavery Americans.  He consults manuscripts, proslavery literature, sermons, and biographies in his attempt to uncover why, how, and which Americans proposed proslavery ideas.  His research shows that many Northerners and Southerners proposed proslavery ideas, but his use of only ninety-one proslavery tracts seems diminutive when compared to the lengthy period he attempts to analyze.  Overall, Proslavery works best as a reference source, as it aptly defines the ideas of proslavery and contains fantastic illustrations that capture proslavery thought in antebellum America. 

Heather L. Yeargan

Texas Christian University  

 

 Proslavery: A History of the Defense of Slavery in America, 1701-1840.  By Larry E. Tise. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1987.  pp. xviii, 501. ISBN  0820309273.  TCU call number E 337.5 T57 1987.
 
Proslavery: A History of the Defense of Slavery in America, 1701-1840, the revised dissertation of Larry E. Tise (Ph.D. University of North Carolina), argued that historians had treated proslavery morally rather than historically.  That failure of focus led to the erroneous assumptions that proslavery was an aberration and that the period between the Revolution and the Civil War was one of progression in the growth of freedom.  Tise countered that proslavery was one of the clearest reflections of American society and its values and that the United States came so close to losing its liberty that it was well that slavery shattered the near national acquiescence with human bondage.
 
Thesis:  Prior to 1830 American proslavery was the heritage of western civilization, indistinguishable from that of the rest of the world in that most Americans saw slavery as an evil that would eventually disappear.  Tise suggested that proslavery thought remained virtually unchanged from the American Revolution to the rise of abolition but that that stability changed dramatically with the coming of abolition, a movement most Americans saw as a threat to societal values. In 1835 attitudes shifted to the contravening notion that slavery constituted an essential ingredient for democracy, creating a distinctively American version of proslavery ideology constructed around the legacy of Federalist conservative counterrevolution that stressed maintaining societal ranks and order.
 
The first section analyzed popular myths about proslavery, arguing that proslavery ideology was more American than Southern, more important as a social than a political process, and more significant as an expression of national than sectional or class values.  Tise drew a strict distinction between anti-slaveryites before the arrival of Garrisonian Abolitionism in 1831—emancipators—and those afterwards--abolitionists.  A short historiographical discussion suggested several myths:  that, since the 1930s and 1940s, historians had accepted the positive good theory as the dominant model of proslavery thought; that proslavery arose in the nineteenth century; that no one defended slavery early in the nineteenth century; that Old South proslavery arguments were different than those of other societies; and that proslavery was associated with southern slaveholders.  Tise examined 300 published proslavery defenses (many predating the nineteenth century), finding no geographical distinctions.  He also did a comparative analysis, concluding that American proslavery was “virtually a direct appropriation by Americans from British and West Indian proslavery literature and thought.” (95)
 
The years between the completion of the Revolution and the rise of abolitionism constituted an interlude when many Americans began to doubt the wisdom of emancipation.  The most misleading notion of that period was that proslavery thought progressed from mild approval to a new form featuring unrestrained support in response to abolition, a development largely due to Pro-slavery Thought in the Old South (1935) by Sumner Jenkins.  Tise’s conclusion, based on his examination of 91 proslavery tracts published between 1701 and 1865, held that proslavery arguments remained relatively constant over time and place.  In addition, his statistical study of 275 proslavery clergymen (the key definers of values) using numerous defining factors (birthplace, denominations, colleges attended, other occupations, etc) suggested that the formative influences for proslavery came from outside the South
 
In the second part Tise established the outlines of a historical interpretation devoid of myths, leading to a new understanding by asking at what point and by what processes did Americans reject the theory of natural rights and the contagion of liberty inherited form their revolutionary experience.  He asserted that the proslavery movement began in New England with the sons of Federalists alarmed over the crises of 1790, the French Revolution and illuminism.  Those new conservatives of 1795 to 1816, motivated by fears of radicalism, prepared the way for a distinctively American proslavery in the 1830s featuring much greater intensity.  The key to intensification lay in the appearance of a new breed of emancipator bent on immediatism—abolitionists.  Ironically, because the South did not have an antilibertarian tradition, its proslavery forces became aligned with Northern anti-abolitionists, a melding that led the South to respond to abolition in ways more characteristic of anti-abolitionists and nullifiers in the North.
 
As late as 1835 the South lacked a proslavery ideology but that began to change with the postal campaign of 1835.  From that shock the South became ideologized from 1835 to 1840 as nullifiers and sectionalists were won over by the tenets of conservative counterrevolution.  The Northern influence was so great that only the nullifiers of South Carolina developed a sectionalized body of thought.  While the South’s proslavery ideology evolved from external influences it took the crisis of abolitionism to complete its formation, creating a radical proslavery defense.  However, because Southern proslavery was conservative and nationalistic in nature it was not the cause of the Civil War.

Harold Rich

Proslavery:  A History of the Defense of Slavery in America, 1701-1840. By Larry E. Tise. (Athens, Ga.: The University of Georgia Press, c. 1987. Pp. xiii, 501. ISBN 0-8203-0927-3)

 Larry Tise’s Proslavery: A History of the Defense of Slavery in America, 1701-1840 offers a different interpretation on the origins and development of the proslavery argument in America. The author divides his work into two parts. In the first part he debunks many of the myths of the defense of slavery by the antebellum South. In the second part of the book, the author offers a revised version of proslavery ideology. Tise’s work came from a revision of his 1974 Ph D. dissertation at the University of North Carolina. As is appropriate for a dissertation the author utilizes many primary sources and has an abundance of endnotes.

 Proslavery attacks the historic stereotype of the elite, planter, rich, and southern defender of slavery. The author includes a broad-based definition of what he considers as “proslavery” (page xv). Included in the obvious arguments favoring slavery, the author includes any argument, which opposed interference with slavery. The author also notes the importance of the religious aspects of the proslavery argument and the role the clergy plays in its intellectual evolution. In the first chapter the author discards the historiography as perpetuating myths which do not hold up to historical scrutiny.

 Chapter one also notes the characteristics of the American proslavery ideology and briefly describes what he will elaborate upon for the next five chapters. He notes that there was a proslavery argument prior to the American War for Independence.  Tise states that this idea survives in the post-Independence years prior to 1830. American proslavery ideas did not differ substantially from other (especially British) proslavery arguments. He also attacks the notion that all southerners believed that slavery was a “positive good” and that all arguments in defense of slavery came from the South.

 In these six chapters the author attacks the myths of the typical proslavery writer. He notes that the argument began in the North and did not differ greatly from proslavery arguments in the British West Indies. The proslavery idea generally stemmed from a regional or a local crisis and involved a more diverse authorship than has been generally perceived. Tise offers a complete chapter of quantitative analysis of published proslavery clerics. While the author theorizes that proslavery writers come from a variety of backgrounds, by the 1830s they had become close to the southern myth. The author explains that away in some part, by stating that even though the slavery defender of the 1830s resembled the traditional model, the idea came from outside the South, and the idea was neither original nor unique to the antebellum South.

 In part two’s eight chapters the author answers the question: If the proslavery idea does not originate from the South, then where does it come from? Tise claims that the idea came from conservative backlash which grew after the War for Independence and culminated with the Federalist Party. This countersubversive movement detested the French Revolution and feared Jeffersonian Democracy. This movement advocated social hierarchy and reacted with a new nationalistic defense of the United States to charges by Britain of backwardness. Initially, the movement opposed abolitionists more than it advocated slavery, but the idea united mostly northern writers under a counterrevolutionary, conservative ideology. The movement included older rhetoric and invented some of its own, which eventually found its way into the hard-core defenders of slavery just prior to the Civil War.

 The author shows the evolution of this ideology as it makes its way into the conscious of the South. Tise states that the South did not adopt these ideas earlier because of its relative isolation and prosperity following the war. The author then revises history by stating that the South did not react well to the initial abolitionist assaults of the early 1830s. The real catalyst for southern adoption of this conservative ideology came with the 1835 abolitionist postal campaign. Even then, the South reacted poorly and incoherently. However, by 1840, the South adopted a longstanding, conservative ideology, which defended the institution of slavery in a more definite manner.

 The author claims that abolitionists cause the South to use the old Federalist, conservative ideology, which in turn causes the sectional discord of the mid-19th century. Tise states that a “Proslavery Republicanism” developed and dominated the southern defense of slavery. Proslavery Republicanism offered a sound and orderly government, orthodox religion, human rights and liberties, and a nationalistic indoctrination. Proslavery Republicanism also offered slavery defenders a ready-made rhetoric and vocabulary, a counter-subversive methodology and a chance at “purifying” society.  The aspects infiltrated southern culture and produced the more radical defenders of the 1840s and 1850s.

 Larry Tise, in Proslavery, offers a compelling argument against the myth of the proslavery writer. Unfortunately, his evidence for these conclusions rests on self-serving definitions and quantitative methods that rely on a specific or small sample. The importance of the clergy as a defender of slavery can not be disputed, but Tise bases nearly all of his conclusions on samples from their ranks. Proslavery certainly proves the clerical aspects of the proslavery ideology, but whether or not the author’s conclusions apply to the totality of proslavery writers is certainly debatable. His revision of history suffers from the same shortcomings. Another problem with this sterilized history of proslavery ideology is that ideas are notoriously difficult things to identify, quantify and examine in history. Even if an author does find and analyze an idea, its direct impact on a society and a culture are even harder to determine. The sterilized nature of the study intentionally eliminates racial and moral questions from the equation. This may aid in methodology, but it detracts from the contextual reality of slavery in the first half of the 19th century.
 
Texas Christian University Scott Cowin