Discourse, action, and social change: The politics of race, slavery and abolitionism in pre-Civil War America

In this dissertation I examine the pre-Civil War social movements that tried to resolve racial conflict and end slavery in the United States. I explain how the abolition movement shaped the debate about slavery and helped mobilize the North to act against the institution. I uncover the ways in which the war of words over slavery and abolitionism transformed antebellum political institutions and legislation, social movement fields, and the meaning of slavery, race, and national identity. More fundamentally my project addresses the longstanding social science problem of how and why culture influences social action and change. I specify the conditions and/or mechanisms by which particular cultural objects (i.e., discourses) constrain or enable action. In order to accomplish this I analyze the discursive struggle over slavery and abolitionism that occurred in the North from 1830 to 1845. I demonstrate how this struggle engendered a number of events (e.g. anti-abolition riots, Congressional legislation campaigns), and map the changes in meaning and structure that followed from the dialectic of cultural creation and event.; The dissertation is organized implicitly by a substantive narrative and a theoretical one. The historical story traces the processes and events through which the abolition movement was transformed from a moral reform movement into a political movement and how it "abolitionized" antebellum politics. I focus on explaining how the abolition movement's discursive work influenced its effectiveness at changing the terms of the debate and hence at mobilizing supporters and resources and implementing its program. The theoretical narrative sets-out a model to explain the relationship between cultural creation, social action, and historical change. I examine how the logics of action that emerge from discursive struggles shape the meaning and possibilities for collective behavior and political action. At the same time, I show how particular episodes of action compel actors to rework lines of argumentation, redefine their goals and strategies of action, or switch organizational and ideological loyalties. In short, I demonstrate that language matters not only by directly inciting specific forms of action, but also by indirectly setting the terms through which new events are understood.