The impact of abolitionism

I

The nineteenth century, and especially its middle decades, was the great era of western capitalism. Its greatness lay not in its material achievements, which, however impressive to contemporary observers, seem modest indeed by the standards of the twentieth century, but instead in the courage and confidence that inspired some of its spokesmen. In these years the challenges that would later undermine the political, economic and intellectual certainties of the mid-Victorian era were as yet scarcely glimpsed and mankind seemed finally to have found the path to everlasting material and moral improvement. It was above all the nations and the classes which were most obviously benefiting from this material change where the gospel of progress took firmest hold. This meant the bourgeoisies of the more developed economies – in particular Britain and the United States, the two most advanced industrial nations in the world in 1860. In some quarters the confidence of the era shrank into a smug self-congratulation, a myopic complacency about a future whose character was assured. But among other groups the notion of progress was energizing: there was evil and malpractice in the world and the reformer must not hesitate to war against them, whatever the cost in inconvenience or unpopularity, however great the risk of financial or physical hardship.