In The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race, John Stauffer examines how an interracial quartet of abolitionists seeks to motivate a nation to a paradigm shift on the issues of racial prejudice and slavery. The book takes the reader through the personal journeys of John Brown, Frederick Douglass, James McCune Smith, and Gerrit Smith as they set forth to destroy the notion of white supremacy. Stauffer deviates from his contemporaries’ secular scholarship on this social movement and examines these men’s Bible politics and their notion of racial inequality being counter to the plan for God’s Kingdom. He chronicles both their faith and politics. Stauffer shows that four men from diverse backgrounds were able to work together because of their shared “beliefs in freedom, equality, democracy, and the very idea that slavery was a sin.” (5)
Despite the inclusion of copious notes, The Black Hearts of Men is written with a literary flair that makes it appealing outside of academia. The text opens with a radical call to arms examining the first, and likely only time, Brown, Douglass, McCune Smith, and Smith, were all together at one time: the inaugural convention of Radical Abolitionists in Syracuse in June 1855. Here Stauffer sets the cosmic stage for the quartet’s attempts to change the minds of a nation. From the outset, Stauffer establishes that these men were not opposed to violence.
Stauffer delves into each man’s use of portraiture, correspondence, and editorial, to create his public, racial identity. By portraying themselves as devoid of racial identity, prescribed by complexion, the four strive to dispel the accepted theory of white supremacy. Stauffer’s exploration of portraiture is particularly interesting as each of these men used the art form to create his public image. Counter to photographic portrait techniques of the time, both Brown and Douglass stared into the camera creating an intense and intimidating image. “The aggressive postures of Brown and Douglass convey something of their greater propensity for violence and reliance on God’s Will, relative to Gerrit Smith and James McCune Smith.” (58) In his portrait, Brown’s complexion appears very dark. In fact, his skin tone, in the portrait included on the spine of The Black Hearts of Men, appears darker than that of either Douglass or McCune Smith who were black men. Each of these men created portrait images in which they appear younger than their actual age. The irony in the artistic creation of public image in these portraits is that Douglass favored photography for its ability to accurately portray the characteristics of people of African descent.
In addition to the art of portraiture, Brown, Douglass, McCune Smith, and Smith also took on a literary persona of other races. Brown, with the support of his African American comrades, wrote "Sambo’s Mistakes” which was published in the Ram’s Horn as if written by a black man. “Douglass and [Willis] Hodges endorsed Brown’s (and Gerrit Smith’s) black personas because they knew them to be ‘authentic’ masks rather than parodies or caricatures such as blackface minstrelsy.” (173) Not only did the two radical white abolitionists assume an identity of African descent, but, all four utilized elements of a Native American identity. Both literally and figuratively, these Radical Abolitionists took on the racial identity of the Native American. Symbolically they drew on the Romantic ideology of the noble savage. (183) Douglass and McCune Smith both claim to be of Indian heritage and Brown tells of his rugged youth alongside his native brothers. While the extent of literalism in these examples is debatable, Stauffer asserts that both Douglass and Smith “struggled to come to grips with his racial identity.” (161)
Perhaps Gerrit Smith best voiced the interracial quartet’s racial views in his public letter to Washington Hunt, Governor of New York. He wrote that the white population was, “guilty of hating our fellow man, not for what he believes, nor for what he does...we hate him for his peculiarities, which are purely natural, and for which therefore…our quarrel is really with God.” (195) These Radical Abolitionists were apocalyptic theorists who strived for a millennial kingdom on earth free of racial prejudice. They felt called by God to fight for the rights of their African brothers. They believed violence and blood shed were acceptable measures to attain the perfect kingdom. They utilize the Christian rhetoric of blood washing away sin to justify the means. Douglass’s enthusiasm shows in his proclamation that the scar on his face, which resulted from a fight with his Master Covey, was the mark of God in the shape of a cross. (59) McCune Smith declared that Smith “must have been inspired by God” to provide land to free blacks. “To God be the glory, Who, through this human instrument [Gerrit Smith] has been pleased to open to us a ‘land of promise’ in the midst of the land of oppression.”(144) Brown, Douglass, McCune Smith, and Smith clearly saw divine intervention in their abolitionary acts.
While Brown, with varying degrees of support from Douglass, McCune Smith, and Smith, undeniably set in motion the panic and violence that led to the Civil War, the interracial quartet failed to shift the racial paradigm of the nation. Stauffer, conversely, was successful in drawing together the social climate, political players, and events that brought this interracial quartet together in an effort to change racial views and the forces that tore them apart. In the end only Brown and McCune Smith held true to their Biblical politics.
Stauffer was not as successful with his effort to link the quartet’s views on feminism with their abolitionary efforts. While Abolition, Women’s Rights and Women’s Suffrage had many of the same key players, briefly interjecting feminism into The Black Hearts of Men detracted from the topic of Radical Abolitionism as the men’s views were not as cohesive on this subject.
Throughout the book Stauffer weaves together vignettes of each of the Radical Abolitionist’s biography with concurrent events. He aptly ties together the whereabouts and philosophy of each man while bringing in other powerful abolitionists. This technique works to build a chronology and an understanding of Brown, Douglass, McCune Smith, and Smith in their own time. With the exclusion of the chapter on feminism, the book provides an evocative look at the transformation of four men’s views, and their attempts to shape the views of others regarding slavery and racial prejudice. ( )