Introduction: Quakers, slavery, and the "peaceable kingdom" -- Quaker gradualists and the challenge of abolitionism -- Slavery, religious liberty, and the "political" abolitionism of the Indiana Anti-Slavery Friends -- Friends and the "children of Africa" : Quaker abolitionists confront the Negro pew -- "Progressive" Friends and the government of God -- Quaker pacifism and civil disobedience in the antebellum period -- Conclusion: "Fighting Quakers," abolitionists, and the Civil War
Summary
In the years before the Civil War, the Society of Friends opposed the abolitionist campaign for an immediate end to slavery and considered abolitionists within the church as heterodox radicals seeking to destroy civil and religious liberty. This work reminds us of the difficulties facing reformers who tried peacefully to end slavery
