Genteel abolitionist opposition coexisted with slavery-dependent fortunes

Evidence

Lawrence’s plans appear to have changed when Agassiz entered the picture, a shift that was likely propelled as much by self-interest as philanthropic vision. … Most of the textiles Lawrence’s business sold, a business that had made him extraordinarily wealthy, were made from cotton that was planted, picked, ginned, baled, and shipped by enslaved men, women, and children. In other words, his livelihood depended on slavery’s preservation—or, at a minimum, on access to cheap, black labor. … The Lawrence family professed to be anti-slavery. But business came first. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once observed, “Cotton thread holds the Union together; unites John C. Calhoun and Abbott Lawrence.” — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 1051

Categorization

• SEED: The Emerson line about cotton thread uniting Calhoun with a ‘philanthropist’ naming a school is an essay hook on how infrastructure ties moral opponents together.
• CANDY: Emerson’s quip that cotton thread unites the abolitionist Lawrence with the pro-slavery Calhoun is a compact, shareable line.
• XREF: connects to: White-slavery outrage coexisted with rising Black slavery — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 215