One of the bigger farces of the propaganda push is the depiction of the abolitionists as Christian philanthropists. They were nearly without exception anti-Christian utopians, trancendentalists, socialists and blind ideologues who rejected Christian teachings and who used the pulpits of the Unitarian "churches" to express their hatred for others rather than espousing any positive cause of their own.
That high school kids are required to read the dilletantish musings of Henry David Thoreau, who was nothing but an idle sycophant of Emerson, is an abuse of the teaching process. Anyone who will read from a variety of sources about the lives, speeches, and writings of the abolitionists would turn from them in disgust.