The review essay on “Longfellow’s Poems” that Poe published in the April 1845 issue of the Aristidean includes a discussion of this slim volume of abolitionist poems. Poe’s comments suggest that he objected not only to Longfellow’s use of poetry to argue but also to some of the ideas that Longfellow and other Bostonian progressives advanced in their poems and fiction. Specifically, Poe accuses Longfellow of having written “incendiary doggrel” that exaggerated the cruelty of the slave system. Poe’s comments here can serve as evidence that he supported slavery or, at least, that he saw it as no worse than other forms of economic and social life:

“The Quadroon Girl,” is the old abolitionist story— worn threadbare — of a slaveholder selling his own child — a thing which may be as common in the South as in the East, is the infinitely worse crime of making matrimonial merchandise — or even less legitimate merchandise — of one’s daughter.

Boston Public Library, Rare Books & Manuscripts