Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism

Abstract

AT the heart of this compelling volume are two questions often quickly passed over in accounts of the rise of abolitionism in Britain: how to account for the precise timing of the movement's emergence (in 1787); and why abolition of the slave trade as opposed to emancipation or, short of that, other ways to ameliorate the conditions of chattel slaves. What emerges is a multifaceted exploration of abolitionism's origins, one which stresses above all the role of contingency. In this context, the author shows an impatience with explanations for the movement's rise which invoke factors such as ‘sentimentalism’ or ‘enlightenment’, and which by so doing in fact side-step these vital questions. Nor does Brown's book provide any succour for those who wish to see economic factors or the operation of capitalism as the key to understanding abolition. In contrast to much recent writing on public political movements in the later Georgian era, this is a history which places leaders at the core of the story; to understand the often sinuous course etched out—extemporised probably captures it more accurately—by opponents of slavery, the routes not taken or which led nowhere, it is essential to focus on the motivations and character of these individuals. For all of his impressive efforts opposing slavery during the American Revolution, Granville Sharp, for example, lacked the personality, the urge to leadership, and the capacity to focus on one objective, to help bring into being an abolitionist movement. In contradistinction, Thomas Clarkson possessed perfectly the requisite disposition to complete absorption in a cause.

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