The Life and Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the life of Ralph Waldo Emerson, born in Boston, Mass., on May 25, 1803, a philosopher, essayist, and poet. It looks at how Ralph Waldo Emerson was one of the Transcendentalists, a group of thinkers that also included Henry David Thoreau, who were interested in a spirituality that had little to do with formalized religion. It also explores how he was an abolitionist and how he held true to his beliefs, taking action individually to advance his ideas regarding the remaking of his world into one more in accord with what he saw as the natural state of man. That natural state, for Emerson, included culture, freedom of religion, and considerate treatment of others. It looks at how it was only natural that he would extend its reach beyond the Native American to the American slave and how he reconciled those activities with his belief in individuality by viewing the abolitionist movement as a group of individuals acting on their own at the same time to accomplish a greatly desired change in their world.

From the Paper:

"Perhaps the least known of Emerson's actions taken to change his world concerned abolitionism. As early as 1844, Emerson was commenting in public on the "Emancipation of the Negroes in the British West Indies", which historians say was a departure from his previous thoughts on abolition. But that summer, he refined his thoughts on the divisive issue, and in keeping with his belief that action must follow thought, he became an active abolitionist, setting forth his beliefs in the Emancipation address in Concord, Mass., on August 1, 1844. Biographer Len Gougeon, in his book Virtue's Hero: Emerson, Antislavery and Reform, concluded that with that speech, Emerson "made the transition from antislavery to abolition". (Quoted by Earhart, 1999)"

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