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Transcendental Ideas: Political and Social Reform

Ralph Waldo Emerson as Abolitionist

Emerson is probably the most well known Transcendentalist, although his role as an abolitionist is less understood.  He was impassioned and eager about defining the role of transcendentalists. His fervor compelled others like Thoreau to adopt the transcendentalist perspective in young America. Said Thoreau of Emerson in his personal journal:

Emerson is a critic, poet, philosopher, with talent not so conspicuous, not so adequate to his task; but his field is still higher, his task more arduous. Lives a far more intense life; seeks to realize a divine life; his affections and intellect equally developed. Has advanced farther, and a new heaven opens to him. Love and Friendship, Religion, Poetry, the Holy are familiar to him. The life of an Artist; more variegated, more observing, finer perception; not so robust, elastic; practical enough in his field; faithful, a judge of men. There is no such general critic of men and things, no such trustworthy and faithful man. More of the divine realized in him than in any.

Emerson's reputation was one of a well-respected family man of stringent moral values and also as a phenomenal and dedicated writer. His role as an abolitionist came late in his life, probably because as a Unitarian Minister he was reluctant to attach himself to such a volatile issue, and also because he was wary of labels. "After long resisting attempts by reformers to gain his support for various social issues, Emerson became a fervent advocate in the 1850's for abolitionism, though his efforts were too late and too local to make him a national leader. "(Baym, et al, 320). However, Emerson had strong feelings regarding the rights of personal freedom in every man, and ultimately close abolitionist friends like Orestes Brownson, Theodore Parker, and William Channing who encouraged him to voice his opinion.

He spoke out about the Fugitive Slave Law, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the execution of John Brown. “Bronson Alcott reports that upon first hearing the news of Brown's revolt Emerson said little, and adds “it seemed to be a painful subject to him.” His first written comments on the event are contained in a letter to his son dated October 23, 1859: "We are all very well, in spite of the sad Harper's Ferry business, which interests us all who had Brown for our guest twice…He is a true hero, but lost his head there.” Goodwin, 157). As Emerson wrote: "I think we must get rid of slavery or we must get rid of freedom.... If you put a chain around the neck of a slave, the other end fastens itself around your own."

Shannon Riley, VCU

Baym, Nina, Ronald Gottesman, Laurence Holland, Francis Murphy, Hershel Parker, William Pritchard, Norton Anthology of American Literature, Second Edition. W. W. Norton and Company, New York: 1986.

Excerpt from Emerson by Lawrence Buell, pp. 269-70:

"The exact degree to which, finally, the liberationist thrust of Emerson's antislavery thought was compromised by Anglocentrism, sometimes amounting even to racism, is not likely to be resolved anytime soon. Some things seem clear, however. First, his antislavery commitment, though belated, was more significant than has been realized until quite recently. Second, after 1844 he was increasingly thought progressive on abolition issues even for a New England, although not ranked as a movement leader like Garrison, Phillips, or Douglass. Third, his thinking about democratic liberaty was always connected in some sense to his assumptions about America's Englishness, both for better and for worse. And fourth, what is most original about Emerson's antislavery writings, considered both as literature and as a body of thought, is not their views of slavery or abolition as such but how they sift through--as argument and as performance--the question of the proper relation of the work of the 'scholar' / to the work of the activist or 'reformer.'"


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