The Abolitionist Movement

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The Abolitionist Movement
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Background

• 1829-1850 was when the Abolitionist Movement in
  the United States achieved its greatest
  influence. Abolitionists sought to end slavery
  through non-violent means by utilizing persuasion
  of the public and by electing anti-slavery
  candidates to public office.
• Although the abolitionists did not succeed in
  carrying out their program, they forced slavery
  into the forefront of American political debate.
• Without the abolitionists, it is unlikely the
  Republican Party, which opposed slavery in the
  territories, would have elected Abraham Lincoln
  president in 1860.

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The Missouri Compromise

• In 1818 the Missouri territory applied for
  statehood as a slave state. At the time there
  were eleven slave states and eleven free states,
  so the United States Senate was equally divided
  between slave and free states.
• One congressman asked, How long will the desire
  for wealth render us blind to the sin of holding
  both the bodies and souls of our fellow men in
  chains? However, the debate centered on the
  political advantage of either sides winning a
  majority in the Senate.
• Kentucky Congressman Henry Clay arranged the
  Missouri Compromise in 1820, which allowed
  Missouri to become a slave state and Maine to
  become a free state. This preserved the balance
  of slave and free state representatives in the
  Senate.
• The Missouri Compromise also extended a line west
  from Missouris southern border that divided any
  future territories into slave or free areas,
  depending on whether they fell north or south of
  that line.

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David Walkers Appeal

• In 1829, David Walker, an escaped slave working
  in Boston, published An Appeal in Four Articles,
  attacking slavery as a moral evil and calling on
  Africans to fight back.
• Walker advocated violence in resisting slavery
  They want us for their slaves, and think nothing
  of murdering us. . . therefore, if there is an
  attempt made by us, kill or be killed. . . and
  believe this, that it is no more harm for you to
  kill a man who is trying to kill you, than it is
  for you to take a drink of water when thirsty."
• Walker argued Africans deserved to be seen as
  both human beings and Americans America is more
  our country than it is the whites we have
  enriched it with our blood and tears.
• The Appeal frightened Northern opponents of
  slavery as well as slave owners because it
  embraced violence.
• A few months after the Appeals publication,
  Walker was found dead in his shop. It was
  suspected he had been murdered. His writing,
  nonetheless, paved the way for the Abolitionist
  Movement.

David Walkers Appeal
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The Liberator

• Partly spurred by David Walker, William Lloyd
  Garrison of Massachusetts began publishing an
  anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator, in 1831.
  This is generally seen as the formal beginning of
  the Abolitionist Movement.
• A devout Christian, Garrison considered slavery a
  mortal sin with no economic or political
  justification.
• In 1833 he brought together Quakers, evangelical
  Christians opposed to slavery, and fellow
  abolitionists from New England to form the
  American Anti-Slavery Society.
• They pressed for an immediate end to slavery and
  the establishment of equal rights for free
  blacks. They differed from Walker, however, in
  refusing to advocate violence to end slavery.

William Lloyd Garrison
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American Anti-Slavery Society

• Arthur and Lewis Tappan, Lucretia Coffin Mott,
  Theodore Weld, Lydia Maria Child, James Forten,
  and Robert Purvis all became leaders of the
  American Anti-Slavery Society. Membership in this
  organization spread quickly throughout the
  Northern states.
• By 1838, the Society had 1,350 affiliates and
  250,000 members. Society members gave speeches,
  sent abolitionist petitions to the United States
  Congress, and mailed abolitionist propaganda into
  the South.
• Two of the most prominent African-American
  speakers associated with the early Abolitionist
  Movement were Frederick Douglass and Henry
  Highland Garnet.

A program from the 29th anniversaryof the AASS
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Frederick Douglass

• An escaped slave, Frederick Douglass used his
  talents as a writer and orator to bring attention
  to the issue of slavery.
• Although he accepted the abolitionist injunction
  against violence, his speeches to white audiences
  tended to be blunt.
• In Rochester, New York, on July 4, 1852, he
  asked, Why am I called upon to speak here
  to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do
  with your national independence? Are the great
  principles of political freedom and of natural
  justice, embodied in that Declaration of
  Independence, extended to us?
• Douglass published his own anti-slavery
  newspaper, North Star.
• During the Civil War he served as a special
  adviser to President Lincoln and fought for the
  adoption of Constitutional amendments that
  guaranteed voting rights and other civil
  liberties to African Americans. He also assisted
  in recruiting African Americans for the United
  States Army.

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Henry Highland Garnet

• Henry Highland Garnet escaped from slavery in
  Maryland and later graduated from Oneida
  Institute. A minister, Garnet became interested
  in the Abolition Movement and the Temperance
  Movement.
• In 1843, frustrated with the lack of abolitionist
  progress and influenced by Walkers Appeal, he
  broke ranks with the American Anti-Slavery
  Society.
• His Address to the Slaves of the United States
  of America called for War to the Knife to end
  slavery. Garnet said, You had far better all die
  die immediately, than live like slaves.
• Garrison, Douglass, and other abolitionists
  disowned Garnet but he remained a powerful voice
  for active resistance to slavery.
• During the Civil War Garnet helped to recruit
  black troops and in Washington, D.C., he
  established a school for the children of escaped
  slaves.

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The Underground Railroad

• While abolitionists did not advocate violence,
  they did support the Underground Railroad, which
  helped fugitive slaves to escape to the North and
  to Canada.
• Slave owners could not stamp out the Underground
  Railroad because it was not an organization run
  by a single person or a group. It was a loose,
  cooperative network of individuals who worked
  together for a common goal.
• Between 1840-1860 an estimated 20,000 slaves
  escaped via this network.
• Code words helped the slaves to understand the
  process and kept the Underground Railroad secret.
• guides were conductors
• escaped slaves were cargo
• routes were tracks
• safe houses were stations
• One of the most prominent conductors was
  Harriet Tubman, who led hundreds of slaves to
  freedom.

Map of the Underground Railroad routes
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Uncle Toms Cabin

• Harriet Beecher Stowe, sister of abolitionist
  Henry Ward Beecher, published Uncle Toms Cabin
  in 1852.
• An entertaining novel that condemned slavery,
  Uncle Toms Cabin sold more than 300,000 copies
  in the United States and helped to energize
  resistance to slavery.
• Images of the evil slave owner Simon Legree and
  the innocent Eliza as she attempted to escape
  over an ice-filled river made slavery seem real
  to a generation of American readers.
• A legend even developed that Abraham Lincoln
  greeted Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1862 with the
  words, So youre the little woman who wrote the
  book that started this Great War!

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Violence Leading to the Civil War

• By the 1850s abolition lost ground to
  anti-slavery advocates who believed, as did
  Walker and Garnet, that a war would be necessary
  to end slavery.
• John Brown, who led his sons and other followers
  to murder slave-owners in Kansas, believed God
  had given him a mission to end slavery.
• In 1859 Brown organized a raid on the federal
  arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Like Gabriel
  Prosser he intended to steal weapons and to spark
  a massive slave uprising.
• Browns plans, however, were unrealistic and the
  government quickly suppressed this insurrection.
  Arrested and later executed, Brown became a folk
  hero for anti-slavery advocates.

John Brown
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The Civil War

• Many, if not most, Americans in the North saw the
  Civil War as being fought to keep the Union
  together rather than to end slavery. Several
  slave states, including Maryland, Kentucky, and
  Missouri, remained loyal to the Union President
  Lincoln needed their support for the war effort.
• As a result, Lincoln moved slowly on slavery,
  stopping several of his generals who attempted to
  free slaves who fell under their control in
  1861-1862. At the same time, however, he
  encouraged Congress to pass laws declaring the
  slaves of owners in rebellion against the Union
  to be contraband of war and subject to seizure
  by the government.
• Lincoln also felt he needed to wait for a Union
  battlefield victory before moving against slavery
  so he would be seen as acting from strength, not
  desperation.

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Emancipation Proclamation

• Following the Union victory at the Battle of
  Antietam in September 1862, Lincoln wrote the
  Emancipation Proclamation, which was to take
  effect in January 1863 if the war were not ended.
• Lincoln presented the Proclamation as a means to
  undermine the Southern war effort by threatening
  the existence of slavery instead of a statement
  of abolitionist principles.
• In order to maintain Union support in the border
  states, the Emancipation Proclamation only freed
  slaves in those states in active rebellion. Many
  slaves had to wait for freedom until the passage
  of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865.
• Nonetheless, the Emancipation Proclamation had
  major effects on the war. European nations that
  had already abolished slavery became more
  friendly to the United States. The Proclamation
  also made it possible to recruit African-American
  soldiers.
• The Emancipation Proclamation changed the Civil
  War into a war for human freedom. This had always
  been the abolitionists dream.

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