The Impact Of Walker's AppealOn Northern And Southern Conceptions Of Free SpeechIn The Nineteenth Century

Abstract

The antislavery pamphlet Walker's Appeal helped shape the debates about limits on free speech more than three decades before the Civil War and the subsequent ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. The pamphlet, by David Walker, influenced discussions about incendiary writing and expression and more general discussions about the value of free speech in the nineteenth century. This article explores the tension between political speech and perceived threats of violence against both citizens and the state in the context of Walker's Appeal. The experiences of abolitionist writers like Walker show that in the late 1820s and early 1830s the power to suppress speech still clearly remained with the states. But this article suggests that at the time public opinion was ahead of the law. A broad support of the value of free speech in the North helped protect abolitionists from Northern state suppression of their speech.