The Abolition Lobby

Stanley Harrold's “The Abolition Lobby, its Development, Successes, and Disintegration, 1836-1845,” brings to light the so-called abolition lobby—abolitionist activists, clergymen, and journalists determined to mobilize the caucus of northern Whig congressmen to propose antislavery legislation during the decade before the Mexican American War. These politicians generally sought to excise slavery in the nation's capital, opposed the annexation of the slaveholding Republic of Texas and the admission of Florida Territory as a slave state, and insisted on the right to present antislavery petitions and to speak before Congress on antislavery topics.