Joshua R. (Joshua Reed) Giddings

author

Joshua R. (Joshua Reed) Giddings

1795–1864

A fierce antislavery voice in Congress, he spent more than two decades pushing the national debate toward freedom and equal rights. His career traces the path from early Whig politics to the birth of the Republican Party in the years before the Civil War.

1 Audiobook

The Exiles of Florida or, The crimes committed by our government against the Maroons, who fled from South Carolina and other slave states, seeking protection under Spanish laws.

The Exiles of Florida or, The crimes committed by our government against the Maroons, who fled from South Carolina and other slave states, seeking protection under Spanish laws.

by Joshua R. (Joshua Reed) Giddings

About the author

Born in Pennsylvania in 1795 and raised in Ohio’s Western Reserve, he became a lawyer, served in the War of 1812, and then entered public life in Ohio. He went on to represent northeastern Ohio in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1838 to 1859, where he became known as one of the era’s most outspoken opponents of slavery.

He was especially noted for challenging laws and policies that protected slavery, even when that stance brought political trouble. After being censured by the House in 1842 over antislavery resolutions, he resigned, ran again, and was quickly returned to Congress by his voters. Over time he moved from the Whig Party into the antislavery political movements that helped lead to the Republican Party.

Late in life, Abraham Lincoln appointed him U.S. consul general in Montreal. He died there in 1864, remembered as a determined reformer whose long public career kept the slavery question in front of the nation.