Slavery, philosophy, and American literature, 1830-1860

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Absolute Poe

2. "Lord, it's so hard to be good": affect and agency in Stowe

3. Taking care of the philosophy: Douglass's commonsense

4. Melville and the state of war

5. Toward a transcendental politics: Emerson's second thought

Epilogue: An unfinished and not unhappy ending

Index.