The Sixth Annual Abbeville Scholars' Conference was held April 3-6, 2008 at the University of Virginia. Lectures were held in the beautiful Dome Room of Jefferson's Rotunda. The topic was "Northern Anti-Slavery Agitation." What was the motive (or motives) of Northern Anti-Slavery rhetoric? Was it motivated by a moral determination to emancipate the African population and to work for their integration into American society as social and political equals? Since this captures our own moral inclinations, students are inclined to read those connotations into the "anti-slavery" language they confront in history books.

But that is not at all how James De Wolff, an "anti-slavery" Senator from Rhode Island, who opposed admitting Missouri as a slave State, thought of the matter. De Wolff had been a world class slaver trader before the slave trade was outlawed in 1808. His family company ran over 80 voyages to Africa and sold slaves throughout the western hemisphere. De Wolff never had an "Amazing Grace" conversion. But if his "anti-slavery" position had no moral content what was its meaning? At the other extreme was the "anti-slavery" position of small Quaker communities which did have a genuine moral content.

Through leisurely discussion based on the following lectures we explored the main Northern anti-slavery critiques as they appeared in the Philadelphia Convention, the Louisiana Purchase, New England nullification of the war of 1812, the Abolition Petitions, the entrance of Missouri, Uncle Tom's Cabin, the agitation over allowing slavery in the West, and John Brown.

"Northern Steady Habits vs. Southern Chivalry: Sectional Antagonism Before Slavery," Prof. Clyde Wilson

"'Negro Presidents and Negro Congresses': Abolitionism, Federalism, and the First Congress," Prof. Carey Roberts

"The Aims of Anti-Slavery Rhetoric in the Missouri Compromise," Dr. John Devanny

"Confronting Abolitionism: Bishop John England and a Southern Catholic Response to Slavery," Prof. Adam Tate

"The Abolitionist as Perfectionist," Prof. Samuel Smith

"Calhoun on Slavery as a Positive Good: What He Did Not Say," Prof. Clyde Wilson

"Calhoun on Slavery as a Positive Good: What He Did Say," Prof. Clyde Wilson