Joshua R. (Joshua Reed) Giddings

author

Joshua R. (Joshua Reed) Giddings

1795–1864

A fierce antislavery voice in Congress, he spent two decades challenging the spread of slavery and helped push the nation toward a new political era. Before that, he taught school, studied law, and built a career on the Ohio frontier.

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 partly in New York before settling in Ohio, Joshua Reed Giddings came of age on the early American frontier. He served in the War of 1812, taught school, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1821, later establishing himself as a lawyer in Jefferson, Ohio.

Giddings became one of the best-known antislavery members of the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served from 1838 to 1859. He was known for blunt, fearless arguments against slavery and its expansion, and in 1842 he resigned after being censured by the House, only to be quickly reelected by his constituents.

Over time he moved from the Whig Party to the Free Soil and then Republican coalitions, reflecting the political realignment of the years before the Civil War. He later served as U.S. consul general in Montreal, where he died in 1864, remembered as a determined reformer who refused to soften his convictions.