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The distinctive American tradition of civil disobedience stretches back to pre-Revolutionary War days and has served the purposes of determined protesters ever since. This stimulating book examines the causes that have inspired civil disobedience, the justifications used to defend it, disagreements among its practitioners, and the controversies it has aroused at every turn. Tracing the origins of the notion of civil disobedience to eighteenth-century evangelicalism and republicanism, Lewis Perry discusses how the tradition took shape in the actions of black and white abolitionists and antiwar protesters in the decades leading to the Civil War, then found new expression in post-Civil War campaigns for women's equality, temperance, and labor reform. -- Publisher website

In a well-known 1964 essay on the "recovery" of American religious history, Henry F. May observed that some scholars had "revived" religious interpretations of the nation's greatest political crises, including the Civil War. But there was more work to be done. "A religious, or partly religious explanation of the Civil War," May suggested, would "rest on two assertions: that serious and intractable moral conflicts were important in causing the war and that in nineteenth-century America such conflicts were particularly difficult to avoid or compromise because of the dominance of evangelical Protestantism in both sections." In fact, both the importance of the moral conflict over slavery and the role of evangelicalism in intensifying hostilities were already attracting attention as historians reexamined previous emphases on economic factors and political bungling as explanations of a tragically unnecessary war.

American history is filled with moments of grave moral doubt and institutional crisis, with conflicts over fundamental values, with ethical dilemmas and paradoxes. This volume surveys the moral landscape of the American past from slavery to the Vietnam War. Bringing together fourteen of the most original historians practicing today, the book illuminates a critical dimension of American history, even as it shows how historical study contributes to present-day debates about values and the moral life.These essays examine a wide range of questions that have engaged past generations of Americans and persist into the present-questions about the composition of a moral community and the case for civil disobedience, about the appropriate responses to injustices and inequalities, and about the ethical implications of artistic expression, school curricula, sexual behaviors, and popular media. Focusing on the impact of moral problems on everyday experience, the authors consider these questions in light of reform movements and religious practices; changing social institutions such as marriage, public schools, labor unions, and penitentiaries; and enduring moral forces from the Bible to the U.S. Constitution. Together their essays give historical context to a wide variety of American practices and beliefs and, in doing so, provide a new framework for understanding cultural life

Front Cover -- Title Page -- Half Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Foreword - Lewis Perry -- Introduction:The Roots of Individual Feminism in 19th-Century America Wendy McElroy -- I. Women and Government -- 1. Human Rights Not Founded on Sex - Angelina Grimké -- 2. Anarchism and American Traditions - Voltairine de Cleyre -- 3. Give Me Liberty - Rose Wilder Lane -- 4. Antigone's Daughters - Jean Bethke Elshtain -- 5. Government Is Women's Enemy - Sharon Presley and Lynn Kinsky -- II. Women and Sex -- 6. Irrelevancies - Bertha Marvin -- 7. Prostitution - "Danielle" -- III. Women and Family -- 8. Marriage Contract - Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell -- 9. Legal Disabilities of Women - Sarah Grimké -- 10. The Speech of Polly Baker -- 11. Some Problems of Social Freedom - Lillian Harman -- IV. Women and Birth Control -- 12. Body Housekeeping - Angela Heywood -- 13. The Persecution of Moses Harman - Stanley Day -- 14. Abortion - Wendy McElroy -- V. Women and Work -- 15. Are Feminist Businesses Capitalistic? - Rosalie Nichols -- 16. The Economic Position of Women - Suzanne La Follette -- 17. Protective Labor Legislation - Joan Kennedy Taylor -- 18. Women and the Rise of the American Medical Profession - Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English -- VI. Women and Church -- 19. Cardinal Gibbons's Ignorance - Ellen Battelle Dietrick -- VII. Woman's Suffrage -- 20. A Right to Make Laws? - Lysander Spooner -- 21. Perpetual Vassalage - Ezra H. Heywood -- VIII. Women and War -- 22. Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty - Emma Goldman -- Sources -- Index -- About the Editor