In the 1830s the abolitionist movement in the United States refashioned itself under new leadership which was determined to bring slavery to an immediate end. Too often written off by northern and southern opinion-makers alike as fanatics who threatened the social and economic order in America, they struggled in the face of both secular and religious defenders of the institution of slavery. Into this fray stepped Francis Wayland (1796–1865), a leading educator, noted author of textbooks on moral philosophy and economics, and longtime president of Brown University. Initially a moderate on slavery, Wayland with near equal fervor both denounced slavery as sinful and yet countenanced caution in respecting the laws that protected the institution. Like so many of his generation, the flow of events moved him toward Unionism and forced him to confront the logic of his own moral arguments. If slavery was indeed a violation of natural rights, how then could he not act on behalf of those who could not speak for themselves? This work explores his journey.

This volume's essays reveal that the abolitionists' impact on United States law and the Constitution did not end with the Civil War. The immediate postwar Reconstruction amendments were both rooted in the radically anti-positivistic, natural rights philosophy long espoused by the radical political abolitionists. Implementing protection for black civil rights, however, proved much more difficult.

Examining Islamic court records, this book sheds new light on Zanzibar's history of gender, social and racial identity.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1845.

An examination of how some legal issues are losing cases - but that's okay because advances are still possible.