Thoughts on the Antislavery Debate

While today’s conversation was rooted in the roots and causes of the antislavery movement I found it to have a lot of broader implications to history more generally.  We spent a lot of time arguing not about which arguments we found to be the most salient, but instead what exactly it was each of the writers was saying, and what differentiated their arguments from one another.  One of my biggest frustrations with the texts we read for class was the different authors’ insistence on emphasizing distinctions between their arguments.  Every time they made a concession to one of their colleagues, the historians insisted on also making a claim about how a term was being misused, or an unfounded assumption was being made, or how the logic of a hypothetical was faulty—ultimately concluding that the author had missed the point altogether.  I think people’s frustration in the nitpicky attacks of the authors was apparent in our conversation and I think our talk brings up questions about how we should think about historiographical dialogues.

             It felt to me as though The Anti-Slavery Debate could go on forever.  Would that be productive?  If we agree that history should not engage in a futile struggle for a non-existent objective reality, should we thus expect our historians to bicker endlessly, competitively broadening the scope of historical understanding with endless possibilities?  Or instead should historians seek to work more cooperatively, not impulsively rejecting every argument that a colleague makes and attempting to collectively come to a better understanding of history?  I do not think that the various arguments were as mutually exclusive as the three historians would have us believe. Could we not blend Davis and Haskall and say that people with class interests behaved in a way that was also informed by a new perception of personal connection to slavery and a widened sense of their ability to do something about it?  I don’t have an answer.  I think that there are problems with the type of competitive writing we just read, but I also think that such competition compels history forward and weeds out poorly constructed interpretations.  The answer perhaps lies somewhere in between.  I think it would be worth talking about the way the job of the individual historian relates to field of history in general, and the work of other practitioners within it. 

            At the end of the discussion Walter Johnson was brought up and I think that these works relate very much to his observation that in our attempts to understand the history of a collection of “rational” individual actors we assume a self-interested liberal subject.  One of the biggest objections that Davis and Ashworth had with Haskall’s argument was that it only explained what made abolition conceivable and actionable, not what actually compelled individuals.  Davis asked us to look at the interests of the abolitionists.  In order to explain why this particular group of people came to find this deeply entrenched institution reprehensible at this particular time we have to look to their individual interests—which means we have to think about how supporting something like abolition could indirectly serve to reinforce and maintain power, status, and material wealth of the supporters.  I think this tendency provides compelling evidence for just what Johnson was talking about.  While I don’t agree with a lot of what Haskall has to say, I did appreciate the fact that his argument did not assume the motivating force of every historical actor.  He argues that the market made it possible for people to think of slavery as something worth protesting and that some individuals thus did.  While I don’t think it is wrong to interrogate groups of people’s interests, I think we should be aware of the fact that “interests” usually implies the self-interested motives of a liberal subject, which can be a very restricted lens to view the world.

Mike's Afterward, or self-indulgent musings

Upon reading the collection of essays in The Antislavery Debate I was reminded that professional, peer-reviewed and mature scholars can be just as proud and pig-headed as any pedantic poster on an web forum or comment page. The passages in which one historian would explain what the other was actually saying, often in direct contradiction of explicit statements made by the historian whose argument was being characterized struck me as just about the most hubristic behavior one could engage in. I realize it is hard to admit when one is wrong, and I believe that I engage in behavior that is not too far away from this sort of glorified pissing contest in class on a fairly regular basis, but I doubt the interests of historical understanding, thoughtful scholarship, or professional respectability and collegiality are served by it.

Nevertheless, a hotly contested argument, even when not approached with the humility and open minds that might have helped the tone and direction of the works in The Antislavery Debate, still forces us to check our assumptions and reinvigorate some things we have begun to take for granted. The debate between Haskell, Davis and Ashworth certainly did this in at least a limited sense and I believe that our discussion in class benefited quite a bit from the spaces for thought their argument opened up.

I feel that much like last week our discussion was again deeply concerned with what the most responsible and appropriate way to engage in the work of the historian is. Haskell, Davis and Ashworth presented us with different styles of historical writing and I think with an example of a rather knotty issue faced by writers of history. Susan's comments about Haskell's failure to engage deeply or in a sustained manner with a historical source base and how she felt that made his theoretical/ideological stance both less convincing and to some degree inadmissible to the realm of serious historical scholarship were thought-provoking. I am an ardent believer that all historians are engaging in theoretical/ideological projects, and that the very process of analysis is always already an exercise in the application of theory/ideology. In my current knee-jerk hostility toward claims of objectively and the idea of non-ideology history I think I was beginning to forget that theory in history, just like in everything else, must stand the test of practice. If the act of crafting a historical narrative is always an act of theoretical/ideological projection, this was reminder that good history is, to me, a self-aware and honest product of a sort of praxis; sources read through a thoughtfully selected theoretical lens, and a theoretical lens constantly responding too and being altered by this encounter with the debris of the past.

Afterwards for Bender's The Antislavery Debate

Interpretations of the Concurrent Rise of Capitalism and the Abolitionist Movement

Thomas Bender’s The Antislavery Debate: Capitalism, and Abolitionism as a Problem in Historical Interpretation, offers a collection of reprinted essays from Thomas Haskell, John Ashworth, and David Brion Davis which all revolve around the correlation between the antislavery movement and capitalism. It is made clear from Bender’s introduction that these men have all accepted there was undoubtedly a link between abolition and the capitalistic market, so the debate therefore is not whether or not there is a connection, but rather the different theories each historian believes the connection pertains to. On page 2 of Bender‘s introduction he states that, “It is clearly a case study on how one might approach questions of the relation of society to consciousness, of interests to ideology, of social practice to cultural formation.”. To begin his book, Bender reprints pertinent parts of Davis’s The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770 - 1823, which provides the basic argument for the debate throughout the rest of the text. Davis argued that the connecting factor between abolitionist movements and capitalism undoubtedly rested with class interests. Haskell, however believed that it was the very culture of the capitalistic market and defined capitalism as “a market economy, not as a system of class relations” (6). Although Ashworth agrees with Haskell’s statement that the modern interpretation which points to class interest as the major cause is open for profound denigration, he ultimately sides with Davis’s basic argument that class interest, although limited due to its cynical assumptions, provides a more efficient explanation for the connection than Haskell’s account(183). Ashworth elaborated much more than Davis did on the ethical aspects of the antislavery movement and states that if one had asked an abolitionist why he or she was an abolitionist “they would have talked a good deal about God and righteousness, a good deal about the evil effects of slavery, and very little about the spreading of the market”(184). With multiple responses by all three historians, this collections of debates does not culminate with a firm answer to the question. As the editor, Bender offers very little of his own insight into the argument and merely provides an explanation that the definition of capitalism and historians sort of slapdash use of certain words in scholarship such as self-interest, class, and market capitalism are critical factors for provoking this debate. Why would Bender offer so little of his own opinion especially when at the end there is no definitive perspective that was proven truer than another?

One bit that I found intriguing was the proposition by Davis and Ashworth to Haskell’s response. Haskell stated that the he was searching solely for a mechanism that could be used to rationalize the change taking place, but to this point Davis and Ashworth propose a new question. Why was wage labor not attacked as well if it was merely the nature and expansion of the market that sparked moral responsibility in society?

How would these three historians react to the Gienapp article? Gienapp proposes that capitalistic attitudes were deeply entrenched in American society long before industrialization, and as a result drastic societal changes occurred. Also there was very little mention of Evangelicalism which we discussed in Southern Cross, which Gienapp(Sellers) believed played a vital role in the strengthening of capitalistic principles (245).

In reading Etan’s afterwards essay for last week’s conversation, I thought his point on the relationship of the past and the present is particularly relevant in this week’s readings as a direct result of the lack of concrete evidence for Davis and Ashworth and the more conceptual and abstract approach to uncovering the past. Although this week’s readings were different whereas each piece of scholarship was critiqued and answered with a rebuttal by the historians themselves, I feel as if it is another step in becoming more empathetic when looking at history and attempting to reveal the past. With last week’s readings on agency and capitalism, as well as past discussions on the use of language especially in Morgan’s American Slavery- American Freedom, we can attempt to synthesize these works relevant to the multiple viewpoints within this weeks reading and that should undoubtedly make for a concerted debate of our own.

The Problem of Class and the Problem of Antislavery

The essays in this book offer a series of opinions and explanations for the simultaneous rise of antislavery and the development of capitalism. Beginning with David Brion Davis’s apparently expansive volume, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, John Ashworth and Thomas Haskell have written articles that critique Davis and offer new interpretations of this phenomenon, using evidence from both Britain and the United States. Over the course of the historians’ progression of articles in this book, arguments are refined and clarified. As Bender suggests in his introduction, this process suggests more common ground among its authors than their initial work might have suggested. I am unsure whether this phenomenon represents a process toward consensus, or rather a process of moving from rather grand theses toward more conservative—and less controvertible—arguments. Each author (particularly Davis and Haskell, who have the most dialogue with one another) would have us believe that he is merely refining and clarifying his point, while his colleague has entirely backed down.

 

There is certainly plenty of room for discussion about the relative merits of each author and each article published here. Bender, Ashworth, Davis, and Haskell have started the conversation for us, and done so with clear and well-researched arguments. This sets the stage for a conversation in class that brings in, as Lester suggested, our earlier readings and conversations.

 

Beyond simply using these articles as tools for our own understanding of class and antislavery, this book is useful in its explicit debate about the reality and nuance of class as a historical lens of analysis. Readings for this class until this book have examined class in varying degrees, but The Antislavery Debate provides an insight into the way class is weighed, considered, and debated as a tool of analysis. These authors also illustrate for us some of the problems of class, notably its many potential definitions. Haskell, who seemed at first to use the term “market” off-handedly and without definition, tries to defend this use in his third article, “Convention and Hegemonic Interest in the Debate over Antislavery.” By stating that “the market [has] multiple and contradictory effects that deny any sort of reconciliation,” (236), Haskell risks rendering the concept of the market too large to be meaningful. On the other hand, Ashworth’s focus on wage labor suggests an inexplicably narrow aspect of class and capitalism.

 

This book offers an important chance to observe the way historians choose to employ class, cognitive changes, and other factors in their analysis. In addition to its insight on the specific questions of class and its merit, I hope that this book will be a springboard for us in discussing the process of historical research, which could be a helpful context as we continue to develop our own research projects. Like these authors, we are responsible for choosing theoretical frameworks and evidence to employ, along with choosing more theoretical or data-based approaches. There is a transparency about this process for historians in The Antislavery Debate that I think can be a valuable tool in our own research and conversations. 

Capitalism, Abolitionism, Class Problems and Reflection

Thomas Bender’s The Antislavery Debate brings to the reader a complex, insightful historical debate by three scholars theorizing about not only the possible connections between abolitionism and capitalism but also the factors that propelled there to be a connection with abolitionism and capitalism. These three scholars, David Brion Davis, Thomas L. Haskell, and John Ashworth each argued there idea of a connection around one theme. In turn this theme ventured off into several layers of thought. For example, Davis saw the connection between capitalism and slavery as a form of class interest. Bender quotes, “[Davis] announced early in his book that the movement reflected the ideological needs of various groups and classes” (4). This segued into ideas such as “opposition to slavery cannot be divorced from the vast economic changes that were intensifying social conflicts and heightening class consciousness; in Britain, it was part of a larger ideology that ensured stability while acclimating society to political and social change” (171). In addition Davies also argued that “abolitionism bred a new sensitivity to social opposition, that it provided a model for the systematic indictment of social crime, and that it ultimately taught many Englishmen to recognize forms of systematic oppression that was closer to home” (172). One of his examples to justify his reasoning stressed reform causes. According to Davies, reform causes often serve opposing or contradictory functions as innovative doctrine is co-opted by different social groups. For example, when Wilberforce and his friends in Lord Liverpool’s cabinet feared that England was on the verge of revolution, another radical alien pointed to the connections between the oppression of West Indian slaves and the oppression of England’s poor. Iain McCalman has recently discovered that Robert Wedderburn, a Jamaican mulatto whose slave mother was born in Africa, edited a London periodical, Axe Laid to the Root, that called for a simultaneous revolution of West Indian chattel salves and English wage slaves. Working with Thomas Spence, Thomas Evans, and other London radicals, Wedderburn popularized a plebian antislavery rhetoric in the taverns and hayloft chapels of London’s underworld”(172).

On the other hand, Thomas Haskell’s central theme was that capitalism and abolitionism were tied more to the market and less to class interest. He justified his reasoning through the idea that for one to be humanitarian to another has to experience the disadvantages of another at some high degree before that same person can act to the benefit of the suffering. In respect to class interest, for Haskell, interest implies intention and unconscious intention at least to Haskell is erroneous. In addition, because Haskell believes that an agent needs a cause in order to act in the need of others, our interests are aligned in a cause and effect relationship that requires a recipe in order to plan out how to alleviate one’s suffering. In other words, part of Haskell’s justification that the market plays a larger role is the ambiguity when it comes to causation as well as the preconditions required to implement a cause into direction. As for the market, Haskell consolidates the legal theories of Atiyah and moral attitudes of Nietzsche to define the history contracts and how they linked to promises. Once this is set, Haskell established that the market gave two lessons to people who acted in that setting. “The first taught people to keep their promises; the second taught them to attend to the remote consequences of their actions. Those who learned these lessons well and who could take for granted the existence of many others imbued with the same lessons were the first to cross the threshold into a new moral universe, one in which the horizons of causal perception were sufficiently wide, and the techniques routinely employed in everyday tasks sufficiently complex and future oriented, that failing to go to the aid of a suffering stranger might become an unconscionable act”(141).

John Ashworth in contrast to both Davies and Haskell saw the connection between capitalism and abolitionism defined by wage labor instead of overwhelming class interest or marketplace values. While his argument was not as class heavy in terms of interests as Davies, he seemed to bring more of a discussion on class in terms of home than Haskell whose discussion of class was almost nonexistent. Within Ashworth’s theme of wage labor Ashworth compares abolitionism to classical republicanism in which wage labor was looked down in favor of labor which was owned by people. In other words classical republicanism favored people who worked to create their own means of production for themselves such as farmers, artisans and maybe merchants. And when wage labor came into being, at least at how Ashworth is framing it, individual morality and social order were redefined in the home, family, and in the individual conscience”(191). In turn, Ashworth further extends this to the idea that if waged labor became to be seen as part of the common good which advocated that self-interest was devastating to society, slavery then became as a prime example of self-interest and profit seeking for self. Ashworth states, “to allow the sale of labor power was to consent to the most dramatic and far-reaching spread of market-relations in society and create a need both for an area from which the market would be barred and for a morality to support the new society”(192). In essence Bender suggests the combining of their strongest points to help resolve the connections that can be made between capitalism and class.

For our own discussion, a careful revisit to Emma Christopher, Morgan, Heyrman, and Bouton could help to bring more insight into class conceptions of antislavery. For example, Christopher discusses agency and situational changes within the lives of the workers on the slave ship. Morgan dissects Virginia and digs at the relation between slavery and republican freedom which Ashworth discusses at great length. And finally, Heyrman brings in issues of religion with class to a lesser extent that could embellish Davies points about religion in relation to abolitionists, their causality and class interest in general. In other words, I am suggesting that we use our previous readings as case studies to bring a deeper analysis on if class in relation to market and interest can intertwine in a revealing way that brings to light new insights on the origins of causation among abolitionists and how much capitalism effects their ideologies.