Moral Suasion and Political Action

AbstractMoral suasion played an important role in the abolition and temperance movements, yet scholarship provides no guidance on how to systematically evaluate its place in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century reform efforts. Here this is addressed by studying moral suasion’s use in justifying social and political actions. By using the perspectives of prominent groups and leaders in the two movements to illuminate the nonpolitical and political motivations behind moral suasion, this article displays how its application varied from an end in itself, with no political goal, to a political tool, used in various ways to justify political reforms. Overall, this article places moral suasion squarely amid these two movements, revealing its variegated use by activists and how these different uses of it reflect liberal and republican thinking in the American polity.