Talking About Slavery: Abolitionism, Censorship, and Free Speech

The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists Biennial Conference

March 12-14, 2026, Cincinnati, OH

In keeping with the C19 conference’s theme of “Underground” and its location in Cincinnati—a city that in 1836 witnessed the destruction of James G. Birney’s printing press by an anti-abolitionist and anti-Black mob, as well as the Lane Seminary’s prohibition of antislavery discussion and the ensuing “rebellion” of its students in 1834—this proposed panel will examine the legal and extralegal censorship of antebellum abolitionists.  It will consider how the antislavery movement developed a theory and praxis of free speech and free assembly long before the First Amendment offered meaningful legal protection.  Panelists’ disciplinary backgrounds may include literature, history, and law.  We invite papers considering such topics as the following:

• Legal restraints on antislavery speech, including postal bans and the gag rule in Congress;
• Mob violence and other forms of extralegal censorship of abolitionists;
• Antislavery speech and academic freedom in antebellum universities and colleges;
• Censorship of antislavery novels and slave narratives;
• Black testimony and its limitation;
• Fictional depictions of anti-abolitionist mobs;
• Abolitionist arguments for free speech and free assembly;
• Abolitionism’s legacies for First Amendment jurisprudence in the 20th century;
• Present-day censorship, book bans, teaching restrictions, etc. on the 1619 Project, critical race theory, and thehistory of slavery.

Please submit an abstract of up to 250 words and a bio/CV by Friday, August 1 to Geoffrey Kirsch at gk499@cam.ac.uk.