Federalists, Abolitionists, and the Problem of Influence

Abstract

Recent scholarship on the emergence of antebellum American abolitionism tends to trace this movement’s intellectual genealogy to one predominant ancestor. But close analysis of the impact of New England’s Federalists on its abolitionists highlights the complexities that too often elude this scholarship. The evidence for this influence is more often suggestive than conclusive. New England Federalists’ style and many of their concerns echoed in abolitionism. But this conclusion requires a much shorter inferential leap than to declare that Federalism made abolitionism. This article serves as a case study not only of the complex roots of abolitionism, but also of the many obstacles scholars typically face when attempting to solve the problem of influence.