They also offer fresh perspectives on key individuals, from Benjamin Franklin and Frederick Douglass to Harriet Jacobs and John Brown, and shed new light on the differences between female and male critiques of slavery, the defense of slavery by the South´s intellectual elite, and Catholic attitudes toward slavery and abolition. Above all, ´´The Problem of Evil´´ helps us understand the circumstances that allow social evils to happen, how intelligent and ostensibly moral people can participate in the most horrendous crimes, and how, at certain historical moments, some individuals are able to rise above their circumstances, address evil in fundamental ways, and expand our moral consciousness. In addition to the editors, contributors include Edward Balleisen, Ira Berlin, Iver Bernstein, Robert A. Bonner, Leslie Butler, Catherine Clinton, Ellen Dwyer, David Eltis, Stanley Engerman, Michael Fellman, Paul Finkelman, Richard Wightman Fox, Jonathan Glickstein, Peter Hinks, Jack M. Holl, Paula Kane, Margaret Kellow, William Casey King, Laura Mitchell, Orlando Patterson, Randolph Roth, Sharon Hartman Strom, and David Waldstreicher.