Kenneth S. Sacks explores how America’s first public intellectual, determined to live self-reliantly, wrestled with his personal philosophy and eventually supported collective action to abolish slavery. Ralph Waldo Emerson was successful in creating a national audience for his philosophy and enjoyed the material and social rewards of that success. Contrary to most other Emerson scholars, however, Sacks argues that Emerson resisted active abolition for much longer and did not become a supporter until events forced his hand. Committing to the antislavery movement was risky and ran against his essential belief in social gradualism. Events in the mid-1850s, though, hastened Emerson’s conversion and he eventually became a leader in the movement. A study of an intellectual under the pressure to engage in political action, Emerson’s Civil Wars enriches our understanding of Emerson’s antislavery activities, life, and career.

Kenneth S. Sacks explores how America’s first public intellectual, determined to live self-reliantly, wrestled with his personal philosophy and eventually supported collective action to abolish slavery. Ralph Waldo Emerson was successful in creating a national audience for his philosophy and enjoyed the material and social rewards of that success. Contrary to most other Emerson scholars, however, Sacks argues that Emerson resisted active abolition for much longer and did not become a supporter until events forced his hand. Committing to the antislavery movement was risky and ran against his essential belief in social gradualism. Events in the mid-1850s, though, hastened Emerson’s conversion and he eventually became a leader in the movement. A study of an intellectual under the pressure to engage in political action, Emerson’s Civil Wars enriches our understanding of Emerson’s antislavery activities, life, and career.

The historical context of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s antislavery speeches between 1844 and 1855 indicates that he gave them reluctantly after yielding to entreaties and that they are confused, contradictory, and without direction. Stunningly, between 1851 and 1854, years of monumental events in the time of abolitionism, there is no evidence that Emerson ever uttered a single word about slavery publicly. Although hating slavery with a passion, he disliked abolitionists almost as much and shied away from taking a public stand until 1856.

What Emerson was doing instead: he was busy building his career as a public intellectual and growing increasingly comfortable in Boston society (“his set,” as he called it). This chapter looks at how deftly he monetized his lyceum career and how he avoided controversial subjects in the lyceum for fear of alienating his audience. Also examined is his participation in various social clubs, the trend being increasingly toward high status over interesting, even abolitionist, membership. One of the nineteenth century’s greatest letter writers, he avoided discussing slavery within his epistolary habit. All his attention was on social connections and popular success.

This is the great turning point in Emerson’s life. The chapter starts with a comparison to William Ellery Channing’s heroic arc of antislavery activism. Despite dying before the annexation of territories from Mexico that galvanized abolitionism, Channing, starting as a moderate like Emerson, progressed dramatically in his commitment. Where was Emerson in all this? (See Chapter 2.) Suddenly, in 1856 Emerson pivots and from then on rises spectacularly in the abolitionist world. Not because of violence done to Black bodies, but because of violence done to his White friend Charles Sumner and to White settlers in Kansas. The chapter analyzes why Emerson had contempt for most abolitionists and how he became one himself without the characteristics of those whom he disdained. William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience is an important text here. He used him as an example of someone undergoing a “soft” conversion.

It is hard to see the early Emerson as anything other than a racist. There are just far too many ugly comments in his journals; even in his earlier antislavery speeches he seems, at best, tone-deaf. But gradually Emerson began to have a broader view of race that resulted in his actually being a leader in speaking for racial equality and integration. How did this happen? The chapter evaluates how Emerson embraced and then renounced scientific racism. It also analyzes his compositional strategies within his journals. Often, Emerson posed unthinkable ideas there to provoke himself to move beyond a position. That is demonstrably the case with certain racist statements. It is not a straight line from racist to defender of a common humanity, but it is a discernible one. Emerson’s growth here parallels both his move toward abolitionism and his recalibration of self-reliance.

The historical context of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s antislavery speeches between 1844 and 1855 indicates that he gave them reluctantly after yielding to entreaties and that they are confused, contradictory, and without direction. Stunningly, between 1851 and 1854, years of monumental events in the time of abolitionism, there is no evidence that Emerson ever uttered a single word about slavery publicly. Although hating slavery with a passion, he disliked abolitionists almost as much and shied away from taking a public stand until 1856.

Abolitionists adopted higher law to oppose the settled law which explicitly recognized chattel slavery in America. Emerson sometimes spoke on higher law but it was not his most comfortable position. Emerson was a Neoplatonist, and it is the gradualism of Neoplatonism that he embraced against the immediatism implied in higher law. But even before Emerson’s 1856 conversion to abolition, starting in 1854 Emerson began moving his self-reliance into Northern-reliance. He was working his way philosophically toward a political activism that he would, finally, enthusiastically embrace. Emerson borrowed from the Neoplatonist Plotinus the word and idea of living “amphibiously,” and that is what he learned to do.