Virtue's Hero
Emerson, Antislavery, and Reform

Scholars have long debated the question of Ralph Waldo Emerson's relationship to the abolition movement and the degree of his commitment to the antislavery cause. Drawing on an array of primary documents, this title offers a comprehensive account of Emerson's antislavery position.

Time and again, he demonstrated the depth of his commitment to the power of personal virtue and to the principle articulated in his 1837 address 'The American Scholar': 'Action', he declared, 'is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it he is not yet man'.