William Goodell and the Science of Human Rights

A “flaming abolitionist” of lesser fame, William Goodell was praised by Frederick Douglass for being among the most important opponents of slavery in his time. He articulated a radical moral vision: a political theology of hope grounded in justice and reason.

In the early 1830s, Asenath Nicholson’s boardinghouse in lower Manhattan was a favorite gathering spot for reformers of all stripes. One visitor described it as a “club des Jacobins” and identified William Goodell as one of the most outspoken of its “flaming abolitionists.” A leading antislavery journalist and activist from the 1820s through the end of the Civil War, Goodell is not nearly as well known as William Lloyd Garrison or Frederick Douglass. However, in 1863, Douglass himself called Goodell the person “to whom the cause of l