War, religion and anti-slavery ideology: Isaac Nelson's radical abolitionist examination of the American civil war

Abstract

Isaac Nelson's response to the civil war represented the fruit of twenty years’ reflection on the issues of slavery and emancipation. Perhaps surprisingly, he did not support the Federal government's efforts to restore the Union, even after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. Nelson's analysis of the struggle helpfully illuminates the complexity of radical abolitionist responses to the civil war, while it also serves to correct hasty generalizations concerning British and Irish evangelical support for the Federal government. Thus, by means of a biographical case study of Ulster Presbyterianism's most zealous abolitionist, a wide number of thematic issues can be freshly examined.