April 16: "Abolitionism, Antiabolitionism, and Proslavery"
Who were abolitionists? What did they believe? Who were their opponents? Where did women fit into the abolitionist movement? How did southern pro-slavery theorists attack abolitionism?
The abolitionist movement at first favored the gradual emancipation, followed by the colonization of freed slaves; this movement was obviously going nowhere. As a second wave of abolitionist thought came, so to did change. These abolitionists demanded the immediate emancipation of slaves from their masters and equal rights and protection under the law. They claimed that the constitution was a hypocrisy if the institution of slavery were to persist, ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, it was their (white man’s) handwriting, not that of the slave. This group consisted of men and women mostly in the northern part of the country. Contrary to popular belief it was women who fueled this movement. They are the ones who organized the groups and they are the ones who spoke out against the horrors of slavery. Angelina Grimke, an abolitionist, uses the biblical example of Miriam, the sister of Moses, who told Moses to go free the slaves in Egypt. Therefore it was a woman who indeed freed the Jews in Egypt. Women also set up antislavery societies such as the women of Bangor, Maine who founded the Bangor Female Antislavery Society. This group, along with others carried out fairs and protests demonstrating the horrors of slavery, and also for the first time demonstrating to themselves that they too could avoid persecution and step out of their private sphere and into the public light. For the first time these women’s voices were being heard and had a profound impact on the men enacting the abolitionist goals, ect.. The Bangor women held a fair to spread the antislavery message and through donations raised $500, which they rationed out to schools for runaways, the state society, and kept some for their own cause to continue spreading the antislavery message. It was quite obvious to the men of the 19th century that these women were a force to be reckoned with in the public sphere. Those against the movement were Southern Planters and whites in general in the South. They had developed a pro-slavery ideology, which stated that the institution of slavery was necessary to keep King Cotton alive and well. Also implemented in this ideology was the concept of white supremacy. With slavery in tact the social distinctions were very black and white, no pun intended. Even if you were among the poorest of the whites there was no possible way to slip down to the level of a black man, free or slave. Pro Slavery supporters also began using the Bible to support their cause. They claimed that ancient civilizations in the Bible had slavery and that slavery had always been in existence, but that was not racial slavery, slavery in the Bible existed regardless of one’s race, something the blind southern gentry overlooked. They also claimed that southern slavery was more humane than the British wage-slavery, where millions of Irishman lived in their one-room mud hovels without windows. Two wrongs don’t make a right, did they not learn this in their mud hovel-like schools in the South.
The abolitionists were a diverse group of people. They ranged from black and white, men and women, north and south. Many of the African American abolitionists were free blacks from predominately in the North, however strong arguments can be made that even an enslaved black in the South had the potential to be an abolitionist. If he sabotaged any efforts for his master to profit from his slave labor, even if ever so slightly, he was taking a stand against slavery. There were many white abolitionists as well, most of whom tended to be artisans from the North. Men like William Lloyd Garrison published abolitionist periodicals such as “The Liberator.” Women were present in the abolitionist movement, although consistent with the time, they’re efforts were more subtle and less high profile. Many times women made appeals to the Christian religion to argue for abolitionist. Abolitionists believed, quite simply, in the abolition of slavery. But of course, the issue is more complicated than simple abolition of slavery. Some of the earlier abolitionists believed in the colonizing “back to Africa” idea where freed blacks would be sent to Africa in the stead of living in the United States. The theory was that freed blacks would not be able to live freely in the United States post slavery, and that only in the continent of their ancestral heritage could they live properly. The nation of Liberia with the capitol of Monrovia was established to facilitate these aims. Other abolitionists, typically the moderates, believed in a gradual emancipation. The idea was that slavery is evil and wrong but immediate emancipation would reap too much havoc upon society. The more radical abolitionists believed in immediate abolitionism. Slavery is wrong and it must be stopped as soon as possible. The opponents to abolitionism were most of American society, from moderate liberals all the way to staunch slave owning conservatives. Even if that moderate liberal in the North disliked slavery, he mostly likely did not want to rock the boat with radical abolitionist talk. Most of vocal opponents in the South were slave owners. The intellectual arguments for the preservation of slavery were fairly straight forward. It was posited that blacks, as a clearly inferior race, were being done a favor by being held in bondage because the master took care of the slave who could not otherwise take care for himself. This idea is called paternalism. Additionally, the Bible was used to defend paternalism and slavery. Also, it was believed that slavery was crucial for the freedom of the white race. Firstly, it allowed whites to cultivate the finer things in life since they did not have to do the manual labor of the slaves, and also it gave poor whites a basement that they could not fall below. Regardless of how poor or low they were on the social status ladder, they were still above a slave. Finally, the arguments against the abolitionists were founded in economics. The argument was that the Southern economy, the American economy and the economy of the world in general was completely dependent upon southern American slavery, and its abolition would completely disrupt a fully functioning and profitable status quo.
Abolitionists’ thinkers varied throughout the nation and included freethinkers, antievangelicals, northerners, southerners, women and African Americans. The mainstream of abolitionists believed in gradual emancipation, others believed in the colonization movement, and others like William Lloyd Garrison, believed in the “immediate enfranchisement of our slave population.” It was clear that there was not a clear consensus among abolitionist about how to end the institution of slavery and these conflicting ideas eventually lead to the downfall of the abolitionist movement. The opponents of abolition were mainly southerners although some northerners did exist and some of the most ardent defenders of slavery came from southern clergymen. As the clergyman in document 9 states, “The work assigned is very light—scarcely one half of that performed by a white labor with you,” referring to the white laborers in the North. The majority of southerners were the opponents of abolition because it threatened their way of life economically and socially. Women played an important in the abolition movement. Women like the Grimke’s were strong abolitionists but their ideas help to divide abolitionists further over the question of women’s rights. Angelina Grimke, in document 5 even appeals to southern women to come over to the abolitionist cause appealing to their “womanly” qualities. Historian, Julie Roy Jeffrey argues that women provided the “backbone” for the abolition movement, but also used the abolition movement to get more involved in the public sphere of life. Jeffrey argues that women more and more were expected to join societies with, “full duty” and that women thought, “that the real sins were passivity and indifference.” In other words women were expected to actively participate in the abolitionist movement, and articulate their views and not just acquiesce to the single-minded nature of their abolitionist husbands. Women were integral in the abolitionist movement but their thirst for more rights eventually divided the movement. Southern pro-slavery theorists used a variety of techniques to attack the abolitionist movement. They used religion, mob violence, and public scorn and criticism to attack and intimidate abolitionists. They used the idea of paternalism and depicted slave as a positive good and argued that the abolitionist were nothing more than reactionary republicans. Historian Eugene Genovese, shows how pro-slavery ideologues used religion and economic theory to defend the “peculiar institution.” Genovese believes that “by the 1840’s a southern school of moral philosophy emerged to defend slavery on essentially religious grounds.” Genovese also asserts that slavery’s defenders tried to prove that, “the world economy depended upon slave produced staples,” asserting that in essence, “Cotton was King.” Genovese also discusses the fact that many southern preachers used their pulpits to deride against the abolition movement. The preachers asserted, “that frightful isms that were threaten church and state had their origin in the free-labor system and the social atomization to which it led.” Southern preachers used their influences over their pulpits to deride the message that was being articulated by the abolitionists. The Abolition movement reached its peak in the 1840’s but internal divisions led to the downfall of the movement.
Abolitionists were people who supported the abolition of slavery and openly showed how they felt or helped with the abolitionist movement. They believed that slavery was a moral evil and that it should not exist in America. They support of the abolitionists ranged from immediate emancipation of all slaves to gradual emancipation. These abolitionists included David Walker, William Lloyd Garrison, William Jay, and even quite a few women. They were opposed by the majority of southern society who were strongly against abolitionism. The slaveholders of course were probably the people that opposed abolition the most but they were not alone. They also had help from the clergy and a lot of southern preachers. In the 30 years before the Civil War, abolitionist’s movements began to grow in the north. One of the biggest influences in my opinion was the women who supported the Abolition movement. At first when women began to show an interest in the movement and getting involved the men did not really have a huge issue with them being involved. Eventually their involvement would how ever cause the split in the movement that sends the abolitionists to near destruction till the eve of the civil war. The essay by Julie Jeffery describes the rolls the women played in the abolitionist movement. They believed that by abolishing slavery their society would become morally perfect. They also believed as Jeffery points out that it was not only a moral issue but a public issue. Instead of staying home and taking care of the kids and cleaning the house all day, with this movement, women began to assert themselves in the public sphere of influence. They began to get involved with the movement through planning meetings, fundraisers, and thinking of new ways to convert people to abolitionism. They were able to raise quite a stir in the north with their creative thinking and tireless efforts in the abolition movement. Eventually however, it came to a point where some of the men thought they were to prominent in the sphere of influence and decided they did not want them to be there anymore. That caused a casim in the movement that they were never able to fully recover from. Southern pro-slavery theorists attack abolitionism as something that was economically inevitable but continued to protest against the abolitionism movement as hard as they could. They realized that with technology on the rise in a few years slavery would not be needed as much because machines would take over. They were right there fighting progress they new would happen along with the slaveholders and clergyman of the south. Their main argument was that slavery was religiously ethical and it was supposed to take place. They used Christianity as their clutch to fight the “evil abolitionists” of the north. The abolition movement definitely caused a stir in the mid 1800’s even though they did not have the majority of the support. Until the age of Lincoln they had to chug on slowly and fight for what they believed was right without seeing much success. But finally at the eve of the civil war were their hard efforts finally beginning to show.
Explaining exactly who the abolitionists were is not as easy as it would seem at first. To begin with, abolitionists were free blacks across the nation. These were people that had either luckily been born free, escaped freedom, been emancipated, or somehow bought their own freedom. Free African Americans in this time period were probably all in favor of complete abolition of slavery, and many [if not most] wanted fully equal rights. At the same time, abolitionists were also women across the country. With the rise of the cult of domesticity in the early nineteenth century, women seemed to move toward a direction of perfecting the world--immenentizing the eschaton. Due to this, women were often the most ardent participants in reform advocacy in the nineteenth century. Aside from these two groups, white men of all shapes and sizes [although less common in the South] favored abolition of slavery. And even at that, all of these people believed different things about slavery, the extent of its evils, and the implications on society. Many had religious convictions against the 'peculiar institution,' and this brought even more opponents of slavery into the abolitionist movement. Many believed that all slaves should be immediately emancipated and given full rights. Others believed this, but felt the freemen should be shipped 'back' to Africa. Still, others felt that gradual emancipation was much more practical and helpful in sustaining a stable economy in the South. Obviously they were greatly opposed by most Southerners, because [aside from the blatant racism] this directly affected their economy well-being. Many religious universities throughout the South were raising opinions against abolition and supporting the paternalistic society they had made in the young nation. Others felt that blacks were innately inferior to whites just because of their skin pigmentation. The two most common defenses of slavery [or perhaps, attacks of abolition] were the religious paternalism route, and the states' rights route. As previously stated, many religious institutions throughout the South were building opinions supporting slavery in the South. Many professors and theologians claimed that slavery was throughout the Bible and it is not wrong because of that. At the same time, they also cited parts of the Bible that command Christians to submit to their authority, since God is in control anyways. The other argument, perhaps the most widely used, defended the institution of slavery by claiming the tenth amendment to the Constitution gave them the right to operate their own property within their state as long as it is legal in the state they reside in. Unfortunately, these same people must have had difficulties reading, as this is obviously disproved in the FIRST amendment [see also: the other eight amendments preceding the tenth].
The abolition movement was carried out in waves until eventual emancipation proclamation which was the long term goal for abolitionist. The first wave that took place was of course gradual emancipation then moved on to colonization which proved to be inefficient. The abolitionist was made up of mostly free blacks as to hope for freedom of their fellow family members, friends, an entire race of a suppressed people. Also joining hands in the abolition movement was white men both from the north and south and more importantly women. Of course there was much resistance to be met with this abolition movement. However the abolitionist movement was growing like wild fire mostly in the north rather than the cotton kingdom south and western lands but spread none the less. Enslaved blacks in the south and western lands were also able to join the abolition movement. Slaves would destruct tools used for farming and would also run away from the plantation to enter in the north and become free. The abolition movement really started to make a difference when William Lloyd Garrison established what was known as the liberator which was hell bent on ending slavery immediately and not go through any gradual emancipation for colonization. Colonization, which was favored by people like Andrew Jackson (Of course, remember those people called Indians?) had no way of catching on. It made no sense to send an entire race back to a country they had no knowledge of, other than there great, great, great grandfathers had lived there. The beginnings of the abolition movement had little effect but with people like Williams Lloyd Garrison and Elijah B. Lovejoy to exemplify the importance of Abolitionism there might not have been a strong push to abolish this “peculiar institution” as soon as it did. In the first document, David Walker, an active member in the Mass. Colored Association, is basically calling out all Americans. He accuses them of not being able to comply to their own words they have written in the Declaration of Independence and ends this document by saying the American people cannot hide themselves from God and they will pay for their transgressions, “neither can they hide themselves, where he will not find and bring them out.” Angelina Grimke who was a southern born white woman who saw the destruction slavery cause on blacks appealed to the “Christian” white women of the south in document 5. She understands that women can not do anything legally about the institution of slavery. It is a man’s world and they are the only one who has power in the legislature. So, having women involved was completely underestimated in the abolition movement and Julie Roy Jeffrey argues that the women were the roots to the abolitions movement and that not only were that able to voice their opinions about slavery, but it also thrust some independence for them that would eventually lead to women’s rights. Southern anti-abolitionist used many different justifications for slavery but none more evil than arguably religion. Document 9 even references Abraham and his slave holding children to provide names for their justification. Document 7 is a perfect illustration of what anti-abolitionist wanted the public to see, miscegenation. The Abolition movement set the ground work for the eventual emancipation though these people had to deal with problems with each other and most significantly slave holders, there hard would eventually pay off for millions of people.
The abolitionists were seemingly from every group of Americans outside Southern slaveholders, clergy and lay people. Free blacks appear to be passionate supporters of immediate emancipation, as did a significant number of white women particularly in New England. There was also of course the male and largely market-oriented New England males as well, the most prominent of which was William Garrison and his publication The Liberator. They were, in sum, diverse, but they all believed that slavery was an appalling crime, an affront to Christian ideals and offensive to God, the supposed creator (thus owner) of slave and free souls. They fully expected that divine retribution would be meted out not only upon those who held slaves but also on those who stood idly by. Women’s roles in the movement seem quite prominent, as there were seemingly dozens of women’s anti-slavery societies and they clearly had no qualms applying political pressure to office holders in pursuit of their goals and in expanding the “domestic” role of women to rather generous boundaries incorporating fundraising, petitioning and the like. Their opponents appear to be almost as varied. Broadly, they fit into two categories: stakeholders and “unionists”. The stakeholders are as varied as the abolitionists themselves, encompassing slaveholders, the clergy and whites in the South who benefited either socially or economically from the institution (traders, yeoman, etc). Slaveholders obviously didn’t wish to relinquish their prime real estate, and the clergy didn’t want to lose their prime followers, so together they concocted a rather insidious ideology, highly reactionary, to combat the increasingly theological protestations emanating from the North. Slavery was the best method of arranging labor because it avoided the immiseration and destitution of the laboring class by assuring they were provided for by their masters, while this moral argument rested on the scriptural support for slavery liberally applied by the clergy to trumpet slavery as a moral imperative or good. No longer was slavery an economic issue (emancipation leading to wide-spread poverty and thus more common insurrection, like supposedly in the North with the Irish), it took on a moral imperative that we today would find sickening and that was indeed highly reactionary. The unionists are more aptly labeled pragmatists. Not moral crusaders or economic theorists, they simply saw the continuation of slavery as the lesser of two evils when compared with the dissolution of the Union or worse. Seemingly unphased by either moral outcry from the North or South, these people saw the obstacles and costs to attaining emancipation as too high for the nation to bear. The task was unsuccessful at the founding, and it certainly failed thereafter, and the task did not grow any easier or less rife with risk, so why upset the delicate balance? These people likely made up a significant majority of the nation as a whole and particularly the New England areas in which immediate abolition had not fully blossomed.
Abolitionists were a varied group of Americans that wanted to achieve freedom for the slaved populace. The group consisted of free blacks of both gender along with whites of both genders. The abolitionist movement consisted of different segments. The first movements wanted a colonization movement that would send slaves and free blacks “back to Africa”. These abolitionists were not of the same mind as the next segment of abolitionists. The colonization movement was a racist discriminatory movement that wanted to send blacks to a country that they didn’t even know nor have anything to do with. These “abolitionists” saw the colonization of blacks into Africa as helping them since in America due to “inferiority” they would not achieve the same status. The movement was extremely racist. The slaves and freed blacks were just as much Americans as there white counterparts. America was their country. Now the next movement consisted of reformers who wanted to emaciate the slaves. Some wanted gradual emancipation while others called for the immediate emancipation of slaves. The reformers of this movement where more religiously motivated. A lot of the doctrine of the abolitionist consisted of scripture along with religious zeal. They sought to destroy slavery due to its evil and sinful nature. The 2nd abolition movement had a lot of people involved from the north but also some from the south. The southern section consisted mostly of the free blacks in the communities. These abolitionists also used the declaration of independence to support their beliefs and views. David Walker famously used quotes from the declaration in his “appeal to the colored citizens of the world”. The same rhetoric and syntax that the founders used applies to the plight of the slaves. The main verse that was displayed in abolitionist though was that “all men are created equal...” Walker in his appeal capitalized the words All and Equal to place emphasis on that rhetoric. Along with free blacks and white men, women played a crucial role in the abolitionist movement. Women were some of the main members of the societies. Due to the more pious nature of women as compared to their male counterparts, women sought to reform the world around them into a more perfect one. The female abolitionists viewed slavery as the most awful evil and sin in the world. Female abolitionist came out of the “designated space” of the home and held rallies and petitions to try and achieve their goals. They took a active part in the movement Their opponents came from many in the southern part of the US that wanted to keep the status quo as well as retain there wealth acquired through slavery. Wealthy slave-owners of course opposed the abolitionist thought however the arguments against the anti slavery movement came from the southern intellectuals. These intellectuals seem to be most of the leading educators in the region who generally had a background with the church in some way. This view is provided by Genovese in his article on The Proslavery Argument. The opponents of the abolitionist movement also used religion in their doctrine. However the proslavery proponents used the literal wording of the bible to support their claims. Since in the Old Testament, slavery was permitted for the Hebrews, the pro slavers saw it as an ok quality and not a sin to have slavery. They also used history to say that slavery had been performed by all the great civilizations. And that slavery was better for the slaves then the conditions of wage labors.
Abolitionists were people that wanted to end slavery in the United States of America. There were many different groups of people that took part in the abolitionist movement. Within the abolitionists movement there were both white and black men, women, and children. Slaves were also a part of the abolitionist movement. Some abolitionists believed that one the slaves were free they should be sent back to Africa or their “homeland.” But the problem with calling Africa the slaves’ “homeland” is that most of them were born in America and multiple generations of their forefathers had lived in America. Most slaves opposed the colonization method because they called America home and had never stepped foot in Africa. Another group of abolitionists wanted general emancipation while another group wanted immediate emancipation. The group of abolitionists that wanted general emancipation thought that if the slaves were set free all at once chaos would consume the nation. Some people thought that if the slaves were set free immediately and all at once they would turn against their former masters and kill them and their families. The abolitionists believed that slavery went against the teachings of Jesus and against the foundations of Christianity. They also believed that blacks could integrate into American society and could in fact rise to the moral and educational level of whites if they were simply given the same ability to pursue those abilities as white people. The abolitionists’ opponents were slave holding whites in the South, some non-slave holding whites in the South, and a very few white people in the North. It is common sense why the slave holding whites would be against abolition. But why some of the non-slave holding whites in the South went against abolition is a messy matter. Some may have been “brain washed” into believing that blacks were black and suited for slavery because God had made them that way. In the South slaves provided a “mudsill” that made a floor for whites within the social structure that would not allow them to reach the bottom of the social structure. No matter how bad off a white person was they still were not as low as a slave. Also the agrarian economy of the South made it impossible to gain excess wealth without holding slaves and anyone that wanted wealth had to want to own slaves. So non-slave owning whites in the South went against abolition because they were surrounded by a pro-slavery society. Slavery was intertwined within religion, social classes, and the economy. Women fit into the abolitionist movement because they were the wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters of slaves, the men who owned slaves, and the men who held the power within the government to end slavery. Some women would pray for abolition. Some women would plead with their husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers to favor abolition and free the slaves. And some women even broke out into the public sphere to keep abolition at the forefront of peoples’ minds and to gain support for abolition. Pro-slavery people argued against abolition by saying that a lot of slaves liked their conditions because they were given a roof over their head, clothes on their back, and food in their belly. Some pro-slavery people argued that scriptures within the Bible proved that God did not frown upon slavery and that some people were made to be slaves. And some pro-slavery people thought that the North’s economy was worse than slavery because people worked for next to nothing and their overseers did not care about their well being like a master cared about his slave.
Abolitionism had existed since the peculiar institution had started in America. However, a new type of abolition evolved during the early republic that started a wave that would sweep many abolitionist politicians into office over the decades preceding 1860. One of the most famous abolitionists was William Lloyd Garrison. In the 1810s and 1820s he, like many others against slavery, believed that gradual emancipation would be the best way out of the system. In document two, Garrison has changed his mind to state that immediate emancipation is the only way. These heavy statements by Garrison such as “I shall strenuously content for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population,” ruffled a number of feathers North and South of the Mason-Dixon Line. Abolitionists and their foil, the anti-abolitionists had existed in both sections of the country. It wasn’t until around the 1830s that sectionalism began defining people’s definitions of slavery. Before you could have found just as many pro-slavery public figures in the North as in some areas in the South (numbers wise anyway since the North’s population was much more dense than the South), now due to men like Garrison and other popular publications like “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and the widespread use of pamphlets Northerners saw the institution in a new way. Abolitionists cited the Declaration of Independence to back up their beliefs, the controversial David Walker in his aggressive leaflet in 1829 (document 1) preached for immediate emancipation citing Jefferson’s work and saying “hear your language.” The same document is used for the abolition argument many more times. What is significant about this to me is how just thirty years before (in the 1780s and 1790s) there were serious debates about ending slavery in most every state, South included, their mindset was that slavery was a necessary evil required for their fragile economies that were still recovering for war and excessive debt. So, the argument for slavery then was that it was economically necessary and would eventually go away. Well, it never did go away like they had envisioned. The argument for slavery now was Biblically justified. Slavery was now a positive good as the ancients had used nonconsenting labor to build their empires, so now must America use have of its labor for the benefit of the whole (the language men like William Jay use almost seems anti-capitalistic, but that’s another argument). William Jay evidences this in one of the opening paragraphs of document four by saying that “it is not a modern institution. Indeed he traces it to very high antiquity,” and goes on just like Hammond and Richard Fuller (document 9) do using the Bible and Christianity to say that using slave labor was what Abraham’s descendants had done. A rhetorical question proposed by a PRO-slavery writer (this is that document 9) says the following, “is it necessarily a crime in the sight of God to control or curtail the natural personal liberty of a human being?” Guess what he believes that answer to be? I think it very odd that a large portion of our population, just a generation removed from the Revolution, could propose a question such as that and believe that taking personal liberty from other humans is not a crime.
. Anyway, one last point I would like to ramble on about is the importance of the women’s rights movement and its relationship with abolitionism. I had thought that the two were interrelated a good bit earlier on, but now it is more obvious through Jeffrey’s essay on exactly that subject. Women’s sewing circles and other social groups were strong advocates of fighting for not only legal and political freedom for themselves but for the Southern population still in bondage. I found this essay one of the most compelling so far in the “Major Problems” reader. I had no idea that these women’s societies did for the advancement of abolition. Putting on fairs with knittings of oppressed slaves and donating funds to slave schools in Canada were two good examples of how Northern women encouraged emancipation. I firmly believe that one of the biggest reasons for the rise in the immediate emancipation movement in the 1830s onward had to do with the rise of organized women’s rights and other social organizations.
The face of the abolitionist movement was extremely diverse, and perhaps it was its diversity that helped give the momentum it needed in the early and mid nineteenth century to catch the attention of slave holding states and the federal government. Members of the abolitionist movement included free black men, former and current slaves, white men, and women, nearly all of whom felt obligated by their Christian upbringings and morals to oppose an institution which they believed violated the ethics of human rights and God’s wishes for humanity. In 1829, for instance, David Walker, a free black from North Carolina, made a speech in which he used Christianity and God fearing rhetoric to rouse a black crowd of supporters, stating that, “For I declare to you, whether you believe it or not, that there are some on the continent of America, who will never be able to repent. God will surely destroy them, to show you his disapprobation of the murders they and you have inflicted on us,” (Wilentz 389).Other abolitionists and abolitionist groups such as William Lloyd Garrison and The New England Anti-Slavery Society, also backed Walker’s cause, arguing that permitting slavery to exist in the United States was a sin against God, and that only full and immediate abolition would be an acceptable solution to the South’s “peculiar institution,” which was gradually beginning to tear the country apart. Women’s participation in the abolitionist movement has been recorded by writers like Julie Roy Jeffrey, who argues that women found ways to use the abolitionist movement not only to raise public concerns about the institution of slaver, but also as a way for women to assert themselves in the public sphere by organizing public meetings and rallies: “Whether responding to criticism or reflecting on the meaning of their commitment, abolitionist women proved adept at exploiting, subverting, and contesting conservative definitions of appropriate female behavior,” (Wilentz 414). With women and black and white men in support of the abolitionist movement, the effort gained momentum and persisted to challenge the established economic and social system of slave holding states.
Pro-slavery theorists and advocates, however, did not stand idly by and allow their beliefs to crumble at the hand of abolitionists. Though the abolitionist movement was strongly rooted in the doctrine of Christianity, one Christian did support the pro-slavery effort by claiming that slaveholders “place[d] him [a slave] under the deepest corresponding obligations to promote the interest, temporal and eternal, of his slaves,” and that the conditions of American slaves were far superior to “most operatives in Europe,” (Wilentz 407). Eugene Genovese looks at how pro-slavery sentiments were passed on to Christians like the one mentioned above. He asserts that, “In endorsing slavery as the natural and proper condition of labor, the country preachers were led by such learned theologians as James Henley Thornwell, George Armstrong, and Robert L. Dabney, and in their pulpits and schoolhouses, they passed that teaching on to their flock,” (Wilentz 419). In these cases, slavery became a part of theologians’ weekly sermons to their congregations. Physically and geographically removed from much of the abolitionist rhetoric of the North, the messages of preachers in the South were able to resonate rather freely and were easily accepted because their messages reinforced a way of life that South had always known.
The abolitionist movement of the 19th century was one of, if not the most important reformist movements in American history and it brought about great changes, as we all know. It wasn’t easy by any means to make abolition a reality. The abolitionists were mainly freed blacks, northern whites, women, and even slaves and on the rare occasion, southern whites. The abolitionist movement can be broken up into two waves. The first wave called for all free blacks to be deported to Africa for colonization in Liberia. Several thousand free blacks were sent there by the American Colonization Society, and they believed that if blacks stayed in the U.S. they would never be equal due to the racist undertones in American society during this time. It is important to note that many of the blacks were against colonization. The second movement which started around the 1830s called for immediate emancipation of all slaves and grant them equal rights. This movement drew on the religious conviction that slavery was a sin. Many abolitionists called for the blacks to mobilize and take their freedom by force, if necessary. This second wave expanded rapidly throughout the north thanks to the printing press and increased literacy rates. They used the constitution and the argument that the slaves core rights were not being granted. Women became more and more involved in the abolitionist movements too. Women were seen as the moral guides to their families and communities and they saw the argument of slavery as a moral argument that placed them into the public sphere. Women argued that slavery was a sin, and that God himself is the highest authority, not wealthy slaveholders trying to save their peculiar institution. Women also created a problem in the abolitionist movement, although it was not their intention to do so. The abolitionist movement split in the 1840s over the issue of a woman’s involvement in the movement. Neither of the two new abolitionist groups were all that influential and the movement weakened. The opponents of abolitionism mainly resided in the south where slavery was vital to the economy and the everyday lives of the citizens. Their arguments were that blacks were inferior to whites and therefore should not be equal, that the Bible itself promotes slavery, mainly just the parts about obeying one’s master. They saw slavery as being essential to human progress, citing that the Greeks and Romans had slaves. They also felt that the institution guaranteed equality among whites since no white would ever be as low as a black. They also claimed to be inspired by the revolutionary generation in which many of the Founding Fathers were slave-owners. Many also argued that the paternal system of slavery in the south was far superior then the wage labor system in the north, both for the wealthy and the poor. The argument over slavery was very heated and began to dominate the political debates of the mid 19th century, ultimately leading to a Civil war over the issue.
It is clear that the fight over slavery had escalated dramatically in the 1820s from the writing of David Walker presented in source one. Walker pushed forward the idea of open slave hostility to the slave owner and overseer and he was also able to shift the language surrounding the slavery debate to include the hypocrisy of the nation’s founders, such as Thomas Jefferson. David Walker further believed in divine retribution for the slaveholders for their cruelty and unwillingness to free the people they kept in bondage. Although Walker died soon after his work’s publication, his preaching’s of “immediate abolition” had sufficiently caught on with large portions of the Abolitionist Movement as seen in source two. William Lloyd Garrison felt the need to recant and apologize to his readers for favoring gradual abolition previously. Source three follows in Garrison and Walker’s footsteps. The piece is from a New England abolitionist society which questions what possible grievances one might have to immediate abolition. William Jay, the son of John Jay, uses blatant mockery to buffoon proslavery arguments coming out of the south, specifically those of Thomas R. Dew. Jay does an excellent job of threshing out the hypocrisy in the examples of failed abolitions around the world. Source five zeros in on women’s abilities to affect the slavery movement, while highlighting southern women’s complicit role in the institution of slavery. Angelina Grimke was well founded to discuss the role of southern women in slavery, having grown up in South Carolina. Her appeal to the women of the south comes through the form of Christian religious ideology. Sources six, seven, eight, and nine all present the opposing forces to the Abolitionist Movement. In source six, T. R. Sullivan seems to partially agree with the principle that slavery must end, however goes on to write that “it is now too late for gradual abolition” and that the Immediate Abolitionists have brought the country to the brink of hostilities. The cartoon in source seven was meant to lampoon the abolitionist movement and to harden southern white’s resistance to the antislavery movement my presenting mixed racial courtship. Going forward, J. H. Hammond (the incestuous pedophile) delivers a speech to the House of Representatives promoting the paternalistic views of the Pro-Slavery Argument. That is to say, that slaves: were happy not having any freedom, being beaten, and living in constant fear of their families disintegrating around them. In source nine, the connection between Christian Ministers and the proslavery movement in the south is made abundantly clear. As Eugene Genovese makes clear in his essay, the strongest argument of the pro-slavery movement was the biblical sanctioning position. Lastly, source ten was written by another free-black, much like David Walker. Henry Highland Garnet argues that it must be the slaves themselves that rise up and throw off their yokes through violent rebellion. His words must have struck fear into every slaveholder throughout the south. In the first essay, Julie Roy Jeffery looks at the commercial aspects of the women’s abolitionist societies prevalent in the north. Jeffery’s essay illustrates that these women’s groups had to find funding to support different elements of the abolition movement, such as ex-slave schools in Canada and their own get-togethers. Finally, the prominent scholar Eugene Genovese studies the mind of pro-slavery thinkers such as the aforementioned Dew, Jacob Cardozo, and George Tucker. There were fiscal arguments that were often made, but the strongest was founded on religious justification.
Northern intellectuals, free blacks, women, members involved with the evangelical movement and the Second Great Awakening, slaves, and even a few southerners all eventually got involved with abolitionism and the emancipation of slaves. When the abolition movement first hit the Early Republic before the 1830s the founders of the movement believed in gradual emancipation for all slaves and once these slaves became emancipated, they would be colonized “back” to their native lands of Africa. Organizations like the American Colonization Society (ACS) believed that bringing freed slaves back to Africa was essential in the abolition process. But as the 1830s came, a new wave of abolition formed that opposed gradual emancipation and colonization “back” to Africa. Walker’s Appeal of 1829 called on all blacks to mobolize and actively pursue their American rights given to them found both in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Walker, a slave, marked the beginning of slave involvement in the abolition movement on a national scene and as more slaves got involved with the movement, northern activists involved with the plethora of reform movements that occurred during the 1820s onward jumped onto the abolition movement. William Lloyd Garrison published “The Liberator” an abolitionist newspaper, and the use of the printing press and mass publication of abolitionist interests and theories spread rapidly through the north and the south through a number of pamphlets, newspapers, and Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which sold over one million copies in America in its first two years on the market. The abolitionists believed that slavery destroyed the Christian values of family life both for the slaveholders and the slaves, and the strong resurgence of the evangelical movement made religion and Christianity an important aspect in American society. Southern slave owners were clearly the major group of people who were extremely opposed to the abolition movement. They needed their slaves to work their plantations, cotton fields, and perform chores around the house and the slaves essential were the driving labor force behind the south’s cotton kingdom that exported cotton throughout the globe. Their main arguments against the abolition movement were that great republics of the past and classical periods had slavery and prospered under the institution of slavery. Also anti-abolitionists argued that the bible had slavery in it and slaves and if that the great book permitted slavery than why can’t the great republic of America? Another major argument southern slaveholders developed was that the relationship between slave and master was patriarchal and that the slaves needed a master to help them live and the master would treat the slave well because he needed their labor and health in order to prosper in the cotton market. Women got involved in the abolition movement through the church. The evangelical movement brought women out of their homes and their accepted spheres of influence and through the massive change in reform movements such as temperance, education, and asylum reforms women got involved and thus also wanted to get involved in the abolition movement. The evangelical movement brought a rebirth of Christian ideals and morals for women in America and beating, starving, harassing and abusing human beings who essential were supposed to be a part of the family (according to the patriarchal argument of slaveholders) did not seem very Christian to the women involved in the evangelical church and the other reform movements of American society.
The abolitionists first favored a system of "gradual emancipation, just as the earliest teetotalers advocated a mere decrease in the consumption of alcohol before they pushed for full-blown temperance. Even the great abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison once favored gradual emancipation. However, he later termed it a "pernicious doctrine" characterized by "timidity, injustice, and absurdity." Many "anti-slavery societies," rose up in New England, and many of their adherents were fairly well-to-do, such as John Jay's son William. However, women played a strong role in the abolitionist movement, including Angelina and Sarah Grimke, who were originally from the South but moved to New England and became very active in the movement. Specifically, they targeted southern women as an untapped resource of potential abolitionist power in the South, condemning their inaction to be "criminal idleness." More importantly, their rhetoric was extraordinarily significant for the burgeoning women's rights movement, as the Grimke sisters sought to empower women to move out of their domestic "sphere" and into public and political life. By using phrases such as "overthrow" and "moral suasion," the Grimke's were able to combine two of the most important reform movements: the abolition and women's rights movements. Interestingly, both abolitionists and advocates of slavery used religious and economic justifications for their causes. Sullivan even used the argument that blacks by nature were "good-natured, obliging...forgetful of injuries...and ready in deference to the superiority in character and station" and to deprive him of his "right" to slavery would be unnatural. Sullivan and others argued that the abolition movement was nothing more than a stirring of ignorant and mindlessly passionate masses, an argument which always seems to be used to describe one's political opponents. They even attacked women's roles in the abolitionist movement, claiming that when women left their place in the home, the world would be shaken both literally and figuratively. In Jeffrey's article, she states that abolitionist women were able to "exploit, subvert, and contest" traditional gender roles through the movement. By creating their own societies and organizing their own functions, women were not only able to recruit others to their cause but they were also able to strengthen social ties and establish themselves as a force in the community. However, the religious question still persisted: was a woman's role as an abolitionist a dual abomination against the Scriptures? In fact, many southern Christians justified their ownership of slaves, as servitude was considered a biblical principle. After all, the greats of the Old Testament such as Abraham and David held slaves (although interestingly, pro-slavery southerners ignored the story of Moses in their biblical justification of slavery). Additionally, one pro-slavery Christian argued that because government was inherently an "ordinance of God," its ability to strip the rights of the minority away in favor of the rights of the majority was also a God-given duty. In this case, the whites maintained their "God-given" right to own slaves at the expense of the slaves themselves. In addition to the religious argument, pro-slavery advocates used an economic one as well. Genovese in his article writes that many pro-slavery advocates believed that emancipation would result in an overwhelming surplus of labor, causing the working classes to "rise up in insurrection." In short, the abolition of slavery would result in social revolution and an overthrow of "life as they knew it."
The abolitionist movement that came into prominence in the 1830s grew from the moral, social, and political reform associations of previous decades. First favoring gradual emancipation, probably so because they feared the social and economic fabric of the nation would be torn asunder if immediate freedom was given to those in bondage, abolitionists later supported immediate abolition. Not unsurprisingly, the many abolition societies created during this time coincided with the Second Great Awakening. This revival of religious, spiritual, and moral ideals undoubtedly helped shape the convictions and judgment of later abolitionists. Abolitionists tried to stake out the moral and religious high-ground in their arguments versus slavery. Referring to widely respected documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Holy Bible, abolitionist decried slavery as the “greatest sin”, painting this peculiar institution as against the will of mankind and God. Many would point to the nation’s founding documents in support of ending slavery based on moral and philosophical grounds. “We hold these truths to be self evident – that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (p.390). By pointing out to Americans that their nation, which was founded on certain principles now being denied to men and women in their own nation, it created doubt among slavery advocates and strengthened the resolve of its opponents. Abolitionists found many supporters around the nation, particularly in the North and its female segment, but also some in the South. Many women in the North and South of the country were involved in pushing the issue of anti-slavery forward. Creating associations such as the Bangor Female Anti-Slavery Society, women were able to participate in the “public sphere” more than in any other period prior to this in American history. As the essay by Julie Jeffery states, “Whether responding to criticism of reflecting on the meaning of their commitment, abolitionist women proved adept at exploiting, subverting, and contesting conservative definitions of appropriate female behavior” (p.414). Harkening back to their roles as the protectors of the family’s morals and expressing sound moral judgment, women no doubt felt they were the correct in their demonstrations against slavery and decrying its evils. Abolition was not without its opponents though and many prominent figures tried to paint abolition as a step towards anarchy and national stagnation.
Anti-abolitionists relied on a variety of arguments in support of slavery and opposed to emancipation. Like the many abolition societies and anti-slavery rhetoric, anti-abolitionists too relied on the Holy Scripture as evidence that God ordained slavery and its perpetuation. A passage from the Bible such as this one and similar ones were routinely used to justify slaveholding: “Both thy bondmen, and they bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.” Not only did the Bible allow and actually encourage slavery, pro-slavery advocates would argue, but that God himself created the African race less-robust of constitution than he did of the white man. “God has implanted in the constitution of the black man, a principle of idleness and dissipation, which is inherent and intrinsic” (p.396). Proslavery advocates moved from a defense of their institution on the grounds of economic necessity to one of moral, philosophical, and religious. Led by clergymen, historians, and many other well-educated members of Southern society, proslavery advocates tried to retake the moral high ground from the abolitionists in defense of their way of life. A common rebuttal to the abolitionists’ charges of immoral behavior, southerners would say “slavery is the best possible relation between the employer and the laborer.” Moreover, as Genovese argues, advocates of slavery believed that the free-labor system was a “revolutionary and self-revolutionizing force that promoted radical egalitarianism and thereby assaulted social order.” Advocates of the system of slavery believed wholeheartedly that by endorsing slavery, they were helping to preserve the natural and proper condition of labor (p.419). By emancipating all of those in slavery, many across the nation believed that a massive retaliation would occur, destroying the social, political, and economic fabric of society.
Abolition seems to have the exact same impetus as the other "perfectionisms" in the early republic: Middle class, educated, christian, and heavily influenced by women.
Abolition drew on the writing of freed slaves (David Walker an early example, and Frederick Douglass a successor) but the influence of the movement came from Middle and upper class whites-- specifically those who had access to publishing.
William Lloyd Garrison spearheaded a movement that was aggressive and unapologetic. The arguments against slavery were "self evident" and most of our primary sources in some way cite the Declaration of Independence.
Women and Christianity seem to fill a very similar role in the movement. Both represent the moral conscience of the movement, the less aggressive and more accessable wing of the movement (compared to The Liberator). The women of the New England Anti-Slaver Society and the Bangor Female Anti- Slavery Society appealed to other women and raised money and support through community fund raisers and activities. In the same way, entire churches took a position against the cause. Abolition became a progressive but accessable movement-- the problem came in the divide between North and South.
In the South Antiabolition was vital to preserving wealth, culture, society, and in many Southerner's minds safety. The religious arguments draw on Old Testement slavery as an example of precedence, but these arguments fail to counter the moral arguments of Northern churches.
Pro-slavery arguments failed to draw on reasonable economic arguments. The strength of this policy came from old, conservative, and Southern men holding positions of power in Colleges, Government, Church, and Society. These voices of opposition sound like they know that abolition was inevitable (maybe even just) but they tried every tactic they could to make slavery last into the next generation.
It seems like it would be hard to make a convincing, logical, level headed and well intentioned argument for slavery in the face of the abolitionist movement. Our documents and essays indicate the there really weren't any strong points made... hard headedness and fear drove the anti-abolitionist movement.
The Southern anti-abolitionist seem to have misread history, economics, and religion. They argue that wage labor is the "peculiar" institution because it is not very old. That there is a natural aristocracy and that economic forces will simply create slavery even if Africans were liberated. And the religious argument that God intended for some men to serve others, even a mention of the descendents of Abraham (Moses's people) as slave owners themselves as a justification (the great exodus is obviously a moral and allegorical attack on slavery) seem ridiculous. No educated man/woman could have believed these ideas if they allowed themselves to think objectively.
The white southerners obviously saw the writing on the wall-- they just didn't know how to transition into a free labor marked without losing control.
The term abolitionist has come to mean anyone and everyone who was opposed to slavery. This definition, however, does not embrace the meaning of abolitionist in the 1830’s. The truth is, that very few abolitionists existed in the public sphere of influence before William Lloyd Garrison took up the fight for freedom in 1831. As more and more people started speaking out against the evils of slavery within the United States, these people (true abolitionists) began to form deep divides between themselves with regards to the strategy to end slave bondage. Men and women of many races began to choose sides between the three main tactics involved in ending slavery: gradual emancipation, relocation, and immediatism (immediate emancipation). With regards to the first tactic, gradual emancipation, it is safe to say that this was the most common abolitionist view. The people who greatly supported this view thought of slavery as an awful institution that was immoral and had to go. The only problem with ending the institution immediately however was the fact that much of the nations income relied heavily on slave labor, especially in the highly agricultural south. The best compromise for these abolitionists then was to slowly wane the economy off of slave dependency by implementing a system of gradual emancipation. Another tactic was relocation. This is the least supported out of the three because of its radicalism. Abolitionists who promoted the idea of relocation for blacks back to Africa, believed that “returning home” would be the best thing for the slaves and also solve the “problem of having free blacks roaming around. The third and final tactic was immediatism, or immediate emancipation. This was the favorite of famous authors such as William Lloyd Garrison and David Walker. In their eyes, there was no need to gradually emancipate because slavery was an inherent evil and should be stopped immediately. Thoughts of violent revolt were even spread around as a reminder of what would happen soon if slavery was not ended immediately. While many of these famous abolitionists were men, women also had a say in abolitionism. Angelina and Sarah Grimke played a part in the freedom of the slaves although they were bound by the social constraints on women of the time and could not manage to have a huge voice in the matter as an abolitionist leader. Along with abolitionism also came anti-abolitionism. The leaders of this movement, many of whom were white, southern, slave-owners, often used biblical references to defend slavery as well as a mindset of superiority. Men like J.H. Hammond also used a slanted viewpoint on history to defend his practice, stating, “If it [slavery] be an evil, it is one to us alone, and we are contented with it.”
The abolitionist movement, like the civil rights and women’s movements, was comprised of a diverse set of people with different end aims of reform. Also, abolitionists disapproved of slavery for different reasons; some for the moral ills of slavery and some simply because of its inconsistency with the Constitution of the United States. Prior to 1830, a common theme among abolitionists was colonization. Under this model when a slave was free he or she would be shipped back to their “home” in Africa. The land of Liberia, with the appropriate name given to the capital Monrovia (James Monroe), was designated as the land to ship the slaves. This method was devised because it was believed that separation between the races was such at the core of the United States that no attempt at integrating former slaves into society would be of any use. Opponents of abolition were commonly wealthy southern planters, as well as people in the South who believed in the institution simply as a way of life. These planters fought voraciously to maintain slavery in the South, bending and changing laws when necessary. Slave laws like not teaching slaves to read and write or meet in groups were designed to make sure that blacks were kept to their place and were not allowed any methods of advancing themselves. Rather, anti-abolitionists resorted to attempting to keep everything the way it was, silencing critics by destroying printing presses or by simply killing opponents. Women played key roles in the abolitionist movement. Leaders like the Grimke sisters and Elizabeth Cady Stanton worked alongside men like Fredrick Douglass for the cause of abolition. One of the most interesting issues the Grimke sisters had to deal with was that their background was from a wealthy family in the south. Many often questioned their sincerity, until they heard them speak. The women’s movement grew out of many of these abolition leaders. Women like Stanton grew in public prominence through the stage of abolition and were able to shift their influence to pressing for more women’s rights after slavery was abolished. Anti-abolitionists commonly held to the Bible to silence their critics. Preachers in the South quoted the scripture without fail that “slaves should obey their masters.” Also, the example of Philemon being encouraged to return to his master after running away was told to slaves in order to influence them from fleeing their plantation. These twisted scriptures were fought by abolition opponents from the Bible as well with how one should treat their neighbor and that it was against human decency to own another person. The simple disconnect was that, for the most part, anti-abolitionists did not consider blacks to be full-fledged people. The study of the people in the abolitionist movement has been just as interesting to study as the movement itself because of the changing personalities and philosophies for what would work to free slaves and how society would look after they had been freed.
The abolition movement began as a confused effort to end slavery without having to deal with free black people. Although the American Colonization Society and similar organizations found a decent amount of support in the West, where the populace despised slavery and black people equally, in the North, where any program of abolition that did not risk further sectional divisions was applauded, and even, to a limited degree, in the South, where freed slaves were seen as a grave danger to the peculiar system and were immediately forced out of the state where they worked as a slave. However, the ACS was anathema to black freedmen, since practically all of them were born in America and resented being told to go back to a continent that their family had been torn from hundreds of years ago. Men like David Walker put forward a compelling new theory against both slavery and the back-to-Africa movement. Both the Declaration of Independence, as created by the Founders, and the Bible, as created by God, supported not just an end to slavery, but the acceptance of black people as American citizens with equal rights. This re-interpretation of American history shifted the struggle completely. Instead of a sectional argument between white men about whether an inferior race should be subjugated at home or exiled abroad, the fight over abolition became a fight over freedom, a fight over civil rights, and a fight for control over the most powerful events and ideas in the American memory. Women had a place in the abolition movement for as long as the movement was away from the male-dominated field of politics. Women could distribute pamphlets, talk to their relatives about the plight of helpless slave girls, and do much of the organizational work that kept the anti-slavery movement running smoothly. However, when the Whig Party adopted an abolitionist platform, and when the gag order was released on Congress, women were marginalized as the abolitionists rushed to court politicians and push their agenda through a legislature which had little tolerance for women interfering in politics. The anti-abolitionist movement was very much a reaction to this aggressive new abolition movement. The immediate concern of losing representation for slave states in Congress, as well as the more distant possibility of emancipation, drove ridiculous arguments like paternalism and irrational fears like the black rapist. Such concepts were contradictory (how can slaves be your children, and yet want to assault your wives and daughters at the same time?) but increasingly popular in a South that would only accept reforms that did not threaten slavery.
The abolitionist movement at first favored the gradual emancipation, followed by the colonization of freed slaves; this movement was obviously going nowhere. As a second wave of abolitionist thought came, so to did change. These abolitionists demanded the immediate emancipation of slaves from their masters and equal rights and protection under the law. They claimed that the constitution was a hypocrisy if the institution of slavery were to persist, ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, it was their (white man’s) handwriting, not that of the slave. This group consisted of men and women mostly in the northern part of the country. Contrary to popular belief it was women who fueled this movement. They are the ones who organized the groups and they are the ones who spoke out against the horrors of slavery. Angelina Grimke, an abolitionist, uses the biblical example of Miriam, the sister of Moses, who told Moses to go free the slaves in Egypt. Therefore it was a woman who indeed freed the Jews in Egypt. Women also set up antislavery societies such as the women of Bangor, Maine who founded the Bangor Female Antislavery Society. This group, along with others carried out fairs and protests demonstrating the horrors of slavery, and also for the first time demonstrating to themselves that they too could avoid persecution and step out of their private sphere and into the public light. For the first time these women’s voices were being heard and had a profound impact on the men enacting the abolitionist goals, ect.. The Bangor women held a fair to spread the antislavery message and through donations raised $500, which they rationed out to schools for runaways, the state society, and kept some for their own cause to continue spreading the antislavery message. It was quite obvious to the men of the 19th century that these women were a force to be reckoned with in the public sphere.
ReplyDeleteThose against the movement were Southern Planters and whites in general in the South. They had developed a pro-slavery ideology, which stated that the institution of slavery was necessary to keep King Cotton alive and well. Also implemented in this ideology was the concept of white supremacy. With slavery in tact the social distinctions were very black and white, no pun intended. Even if you were among the poorest of the whites there was no possible way to slip down to the level of a black man, free or slave. Pro Slavery supporters also began using the Bible to support their cause. They claimed that ancient civilizations in the Bible had slavery and that slavery had always been in existence, but that was not racial slavery, slavery in the Bible existed regardless of one’s race, something the blind southern gentry overlooked. They also claimed that southern slavery was more humane than the British wage-slavery, where millions of Irishman lived in their one-room mud hovels without windows. Two wrongs don’t make a right, did they not learn this in their mud hovel-like schools in the South.
The abolitionists were a diverse group of people. They ranged from black and white, men and women, north and south. Many of the African American abolitionists were free blacks from predominately in the North, however strong arguments can be made that even an enslaved black in the South had the potential to be an abolitionist. If he sabotaged any efforts for his master to profit from his slave labor, even if ever so slightly, he was taking a stand against slavery. There were many white abolitionists as well, most of whom tended to be artisans from the North. Men like William Lloyd Garrison published abolitionist periodicals such as “The Liberator.” Women were present in the abolitionist movement, although consistent with the time, they’re efforts were more subtle and less high profile. Many times women made appeals to the Christian religion to argue for abolitionist.
ReplyDeleteAbolitionists believed, quite simply, in the abolition of slavery. But of course, the issue is more complicated than simple abolition of slavery. Some of the earlier abolitionists believed in the colonizing “back to Africa” idea where freed blacks would be sent to Africa in the stead of living in the United States. The theory was that freed blacks would not be able to live freely in the United States post slavery, and that only in the continent of their ancestral heritage could they live properly. The nation of Liberia with the capitol of Monrovia was established to facilitate these aims. Other abolitionists, typically the moderates, believed in a gradual emancipation. The idea was that slavery is evil and wrong but immediate emancipation would reap too much havoc upon society. The more radical abolitionists believed in immediate abolitionism. Slavery is wrong and it must be stopped as soon as possible.
The opponents to abolitionism were most of American society, from moderate liberals all the way to staunch slave owning conservatives. Even if that moderate liberal in the North disliked slavery, he mostly likely did not want to rock the boat with radical abolitionist talk. Most of vocal opponents in the South were slave owners. The intellectual arguments for the preservation of slavery were fairly straight forward. It was posited that blacks, as a clearly inferior race, were being done a favor by being held in bondage because the master took care of the slave who could not otherwise take care for himself. This idea is called paternalism. Additionally, the Bible was used to defend paternalism and slavery. Also, it was believed that slavery was crucial for the freedom of the white race. Firstly, it allowed whites to cultivate the finer things in life since they did not have to do the manual labor of the slaves, and also it gave poor whites a basement that they could not fall below. Regardless of how poor or low they were on the social status ladder, they were still above a slave. Finally, the arguments against the abolitionists were founded in economics. The argument was that the Southern economy, the American economy and the economy of the world in general was completely dependent upon southern American slavery, and its abolition would completely disrupt a fully functioning and profitable status quo.
Abolitionists’ thinkers varied throughout the nation and included freethinkers, antievangelicals, northerners, southerners, women and African Americans. The mainstream of abolitionists believed in gradual emancipation, others believed in the colonization movement, and others like William Lloyd Garrison, believed in the “immediate enfranchisement of our slave population.” It was clear that there was not a clear consensus among abolitionist about how to end the institution of slavery and these conflicting ideas eventually lead to the downfall of the abolitionist movement. The opponents of abolition were mainly southerners although some northerners did exist and some of the most ardent defenders of slavery came from southern clergymen. As the clergyman in document 9 states, “The work assigned is very light—scarcely one half of that performed by a white labor with you,” referring to the white laborers in the North. The majority of southerners were the opponents of abolition because it threatened their way of life economically and socially.
ReplyDeleteWomen played an important in the abolition movement. Women like the Grimke’s were strong abolitionists but their ideas help to divide abolitionists further over the question of women’s rights. Angelina Grimke, in document 5 even appeals to southern women to come over to the abolitionist cause appealing to their “womanly” qualities. Historian, Julie Roy Jeffrey argues that women provided the “backbone” for the abolition movement, but also used the abolition movement to get more involved in the public sphere of life. Jeffrey argues that women more and more were expected to join societies with, “full duty” and that women thought, “that the real sins were passivity and indifference.” In other words women were expected to actively participate in the abolitionist movement, and articulate their views and not just acquiesce to the single-minded nature of their abolitionist husbands. Women were integral in the abolitionist movement but their thirst for more rights eventually divided the movement.
Southern pro-slavery theorists used a variety of techniques to attack the abolitionist movement. They used religion, mob violence, and public scorn and criticism to attack and intimidate abolitionists. They used the idea of paternalism and depicted slave as a positive good and argued that the abolitionist were nothing more than reactionary republicans. Historian Eugene Genovese, shows how pro-slavery ideologues used religion and economic theory to defend the “peculiar institution.” Genovese believes that “by the 1840’s a southern school of moral philosophy emerged to defend slavery on essentially religious grounds.” Genovese also asserts that slavery’s defenders tried to prove that, “the world economy depended upon slave produced staples,” asserting that in essence, “Cotton was King.” Genovese also discusses the fact that many southern preachers used their pulpits to deride against the abolition movement. The preachers asserted, “that frightful isms that were threaten church and state had their origin in the free-labor system and the social atomization to which it led.” Southern preachers used their influences over their pulpits to deride the message that was being articulated by the abolitionists. The Abolition movement reached its peak in the 1840’s but internal divisions led to the downfall of the movement.
Abolitionists were people who supported the abolition of slavery and openly showed how they felt or helped with the abolitionist movement. They believed that slavery was a moral evil and that it should not exist in America. They support of the abolitionists ranged from immediate emancipation of all slaves to gradual emancipation. These abolitionists included David Walker, William Lloyd Garrison, William Jay, and even quite a few women. They were opposed by the majority of southern society who were strongly against abolitionism. The slaveholders of course were probably the people that opposed abolition the most but they were not alone. They also had help from the clergy and a lot of southern preachers. In the 30 years before the Civil War, abolitionist’s movements began to grow in the north. One of the biggest influences in my opinion was the women who supported the Abolition movement. At first when women began to show an interest in the movement and getting involved the men did not really have a huge issue with them being involved. Eventually their involvement would how ever cause the split in the movement that sends the abolitionists to near destruction till the eve of the civil war. The essay by Julie Jeffery describes the rolls the women played in the abolitionist movement. They believed that by abolishing slavery their society would become morally perfect. They also believed as Jeffery points out that it was not only a moral issue but a public issue. Instead of staying home and taking care of the kids and cleaning the house all day, with this movement, women began to assert themselves in the public sphere of influence. They began to get involved with the movement through planning meetings, fundraisers, and thinking of new ways to convert people to abolitionism. They were able to raise quite a stir in the north with their creative thinking and tireless efforts in the abolition movement. Eventually however, it came to a point where some of the men thought they were to prominent in the sphere of influence and decided they did not want them to be there anymore. That caused a casim in the movement that they were never able to fully recover from. Southern pro-slavery theorists attack abolitionism as something that was economically inevitable but continued to protest against the abolitionism movement as hard as they could. They realized that with technology on the rise in a few years slavery would not be needed as much because machines would take over. They were right there fighting progress they new would happen along with the slaveholders and clergyman of the south. Their main argument was that slavery was religiously ethical and it was supposed to take place. They used Christianity as their clutch to fight the “evil abolitionists” of the north. The abolition movement definitely caused a stir in the mid 1800’s even though they did not have the majority of the support. Until the age of Lincoln they had to chug on slowly and fight for what they believed was right without seeing much success. But finally at the eve of the civil war were their hard efforts finally beginning to show.
ReplyDeleteExplaining exactly who the abolitionists were is not as easy as it would seem at first. To begin with, abolitionists were free blacks across the nation. These were people that had either luckily been born free, escaped freedom, been emancipated, or somehow bought their own freedom. Free African Americans in this time period were probably all in favor of complete abolition of slavery, and many [if not most] wanted fully equal rights. At the same time, abolitionists were also women across the country. With the rise of the cult of domesticity in the early nineteenth century, women seemed to move toward a direction of perfecting the world--immenentizing the eschaton. Due to this, women were often the most ardent participants in reform advocacy in the nineteenth century. Aside from these two groups, white men of all shapes and sizes [although less common in the South] favored abolition of slavery. And even at that, all of these people believed different things about slavery, the extent of its evils, and the implications on society. Many had religious convictions against the 'peculiar institution,' and this brought even more opponents of slavery into the abolitionist movement. Many believed that all slaves should be immediately emancipated and given full rights. Others believed this, but felt the freemen should be shipped 'back' to Africa. Still, others felt that gradual emancipation was much more practical and helpful in sustaining a stable economy in the South. Obviously they were greatly opposed by most Southerners, because [aside from the blatant racism] this directly affected their economy well-being. Many religious universities throughout the South were raising opinions against abolition and supporting the paternalistic society they had made in the young nation. Others felt that blacks were innately inferior to whites just because of their skin pigmentation. The two most common defenses of slavery [or perhaps, attacks of abolition] were the religious paternalism route, and the states' rights route. As previously stated, many religious institutions throughout the South were building opinions supporting slavery in the South. Many professors and theologians claimed that slavery was throughout the Bible and it is not wrong because of that. At the same time, they also cited parts of the Bible that command Christians to submit to their authority, since God is in control anyways. The other argument, perhaps the most widely used, defended the institution of slavery by claiming the tenth amendment to the Constitution gave them the right to operate their own property within their state as long as it is legal in the state they reside in. Unfortunately, these same people must have had difficulties reading, as this is obviously disproved in the FIRST amendment [see also: the other eight amendments preceding the tenth].
ReplyDeleteThe abolition movement was carried out in waves until eventual emancipation proclamation which was the long term goal for abolitionist. The first wave that took place was of course gradual emancipation then moved on to colonization which proved to be inefficient. The abolitionist was made up of mostly free blacks as to hope for freedom of their fellow family members, friends, an entire race of a suppressed people. Also joining hands in the abolition movement was white men both from the north and south and more importantly women. Of course there was much resistance to be met with this abolition movement. However the abolitionist movement was growing like wild fire mostly in the north rather than the cotton kingdom south and western lands but spread none the less. Enslaved blacks in the south and western lands were also able to join the abolition movement. Slaves would destruct tools used for farming and would also run away from the plantation to enter in the north and become free. The abolition movement really started to make a difference when William Lloyd Garrison established what was known as the liberator which was hell bent on ending slavery immediately and not go through any gradual emancipation for colonization. Colonization, which was favored by people like Andrew Jackson (Of course, remember those people called Indians?) had no way of catching on. It made no sense to send an entire race back to a country they had no knowledge of, other than there great, great, great grandfathers had lived there. The beginnings of the abolition movement had little effect but with people like Williams Lloyd Garrison and Elijah B. Lovejoy to exemplify the importance of Abolitionism there might not have been a strong push to abolish this “peculiar institution” as soon as it did. In the first document, David Walker, an active member in the Mass. Colored Association, is basically calling out all Americans. He accuses them of not being able to comply to their own words they have written in the Declaration of Independence and ends this document by saying the American people cannot hide themselves from God and they will pay for their transgressions, “neither can they hide themselves, where he will not find and bring them out.” Angelina Grimke who was a southern born white woman who saw the destruction slavery cause on blacks appealed to the “Christian” white women of the south in document 5. She understands that women can not do anything legally about the institution of slavery. It is a man’s world and they are the only one who has power in the legislature. So, having women involved was completely underestimated in the abolition movement and Julie Roy Jeffrey argues that the women were the roots to the abolitions movement and that not only were that able to voice their opinions about slavery, but it also thrust some independence for them that would eventually lead to women’s rights. Southern anti-abolitionist used many different justifications for slavery but none more evil than arguably religion. Document 9 even references Abraham and his slave holding children to provide names for their justification. Document 7 is a perfect illustration of what anti-abolitionist wanted the public to see, miscegenation. The Abolition movement set the ground work for the eventual emancipation though these people had to deal with problems with each other and most significantly slave holders, there hard would eventually pay off for millions of people.
ReplyDeleteThe abolitionists were seemingly from every group of Americans outside Southern slaveholders, clergy and lay people. Free blacks appear to be passionate supporters of immediate emancipation, as did a significant number of white women particularly in New England. There was also of course the male and largely market-oriented New England males as well, the most prominent of which was William Garrison and his publication The Liberator. They were, in sum, diverse, but they all believed that slavery was an appalling crime, an affront to Christian ideals and offensive to God, the supposed creator (thus owner) of slave and free souls. They fully expected that divine retribution would be meted out not only upon those who held slaves but also on those who stood idly by.
ReplyDeleteWomen’s roles in the movement seem quite prominent, as there were seemingly dozens of women’s anti-slavery societies and they clearly had no qualms applying political pressure to office holders in pursuit of their goals and in expanding the “domestic” role of women to rather generous boundaries incorporating fundraising, petitioning and the like.
Their opponents appear to be almost as varied. Broadly, they fit into two categories: stakeholders and “unionists”. The stakeholders are as varied as the abolitionists themselves, encompassing slaveholders, the clergy and whites in the South who benefited either socially or economically from the institution (traders, yeoman, etc). Slaveholders obviously didn’t wish to relinquish their prime real estate, and the clergy didn’t want to lose their prime followers, so together they concocted a rather insidious ideology, highly reactionary, to combat the increasingly theological protestations emanating from the North. Slavery was the best method of arranging labor because it avoided the immiseration and destitution of the laboring class by assuring they were provided for by their masters, while this moral argument rested on the scriptural support for slavery liberally applied by the clergy to trumpet slavery as a moral imperative or good. No longer was slavery an economic issue (emancipation leading to wide-spread poverty and thus more common insurrection, like supposedly in the North with the Irish), it took on a moral imperative that we today would find sickening and that was indeed highly reactionary.
The unionists are more aptly labeled pragmatists. Not moral crusaders or economic theorists, they simply saw the continuation of slavery as the lesser of two evils when compared with the dissolution of the Union or worse. Seemingly unphased by either moral outcry from the North or South, these people saw the obstacles and costs to attaining emancipation as too high for the nation to bear. The task was unsuccessful at the founding, and it certainly failed thereafter, and the task did not grow any easier or less rife with risk, so why upset the delicate balance? These people likely made up a significant majority of the nation as a whole and particularly the New England areas in which immediate abolition had not fully blossomed.
Abolitionists were a varied group of Americans that wanted to achieve freedom for the slaved populace. The group consisted of free blacks of both gender along with whites of both genders. The abolitionist movement consisted of different segments. The first movements wanted a colonization movement that would send slaves and free blacks “back to Africa”. These abolitionists were not of the same mind as the next segment of abolitionists. The colonization movement was a racist discriminatory movement that wanted to send blacks to a country that they didn’t even know nor have anything to do with. These “abolitionists” saw the colonization of blacks into Africa as helping them since in America due to “inferiority” they would not achieve the same status. The movement was extremely racist. The slaves and freed blacks were just as much Americans as there white counterparts. America was their country. Now the next movement consisted of reformers who wanted to emaciate the slaves. Some wanted gradual emancipation while others called for the immediate emancipation of slaves. The reformers of this movement where more religiously motivated. A lot of the doctrine of the abolitionist consisted of scripture along with religious zeal. They sought to destroy slavery due to its evil and sinful nature. The 2nd abolition movement had a lot of people involved from the north but also some from the south. The southern section consisted mostly of the free blacks in the communities. These abolitionists also used the declaration of independence to support their beliefs and views. David Walker famously used quotes from the declaration in his “appeal to the colored citizens of the world”. The same rhetoric and syntax that the founders used applies to the plight of the slaves. The main verse that was displayed in abolitionist though was that “all men are created equal...” Walker in his appeal capitalized the words All and Equal to place emphasis on that rhetoric. Along with free blacks and white men, women played a crucial role in the abolitionist movement. Women were some of the main members of the societies. Due to the more pious nature of women as compared to their male counterparts, women sought to reform the world around them into a more perfect one. The female abolitionists viewed slavery as the most awful evil and sin in the world. Female abolitionist came out of the “designated space” of the home and held rallies and petitions to try and achieve their goals. They took a active part in the movement Their opponents came from many in the southern part of the US that wanted to keep the status quo as well as retain there wealth acquired through slavery. Wealthy slave-owners of course opposed the abolitionist thought however the arguments against the anti slavery movement came from the southern intellectuals. These intellectuals seem to be most of the leading educators in the region who generally had a background with the church in some way. This view is provided by Genovese in his article on The Proslavery Argument. The opponents of the abolitionist movement also used religion in their doctrine. However the proslavery proponents used the literal wording of the bible to support their claims. Since in the Old Testament, slavery was permitted for the Hebrews, the pro slavers saw it as an ok quality and not a sin to have slavery. They also used history to say that slavery had been performed by all the great civilizations. And that slavery was better for the slaves then the conditions of wage labors.
ReplyDeleteAbolitionists were people that wanted to end slavery in the United States of America. There were many different groups of people that took part in the abolitionist movement. Within the abolitionists movement there were both white and black men, women, and children. Slaves were also a part of the abolitionist movement. Some abolitionists believed that one the slaves were free they should be sent back to Africa or their “homeland.” But the problem with calling Africa the slaves’ “homeland” is that most of them were born in America and multiple generations of their forefathers had lived in America. Most slaves opposed the colonization method because they called America home and had never stepped foot in Africa. Another group of abolitionists wanted general emancipation while another group wanted immediate emancipation. The group of abolitionists that wanted general emancipation thought that if the slaves were set free all at once chaos would consume the nation. Some people thought that if the slaves were set free immediately and all at once they would turn against their former masters and kill them and their families. The abolitionists believed that slavery went against the teachings of Jesus and against the foundations of Christianity. They also believed that blacks could integrate into American society and could in fact rise to the moral and educational level of whites if they were simply given the same ability to pursue those abilities as white people. The abolitionists’ opponents were slave holding whites in the South, some non-slave holding whites in the South, and a very few white people in the North. It is common sense why the slave holding whites would be against abolition. But why some of the non-slave holding whites in the South went against abolition is a messy matter. Some may have been “brain washed” into believing that blacks were black and suited for slavery because God had made them that way. In the South slaves provided a “mudsill” that made a floor for whites within the social structure that would not allow them to reach the bottom of the social structure. No matter how bad off a white person was they still were not as low as a slave. Also the agrarian economy of the South made it impossible to gain excess wealth without holding slaves and anyone that wanted wealth had to want to own slaves. So non-slave owning whites in the South went against abolition because they were surrounded by a pro-slavery society. Slavery was intertwined within religion, social classes, and the economy. Women fit into the abolitionist movement because they were the wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters of slaves, the men who owned slaves, and the men who held the power within the government to end slavery. Some women would pray for abolition. Some women would plead with their husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers to favor abolition and free the slaves. And some women even broke out into the public sphere to keep abolition at the forefront of peoples’ minds and to gain support for abolition. Pro-slavery people argued against abolition by saying that a lot of slaves liked their conditions because they were given a roof over their head, clothes on their back, and food in their belly. Some pro-slavery people argued that scriptures within the Bible proved that God did not frown upon slavery and that some people were made to be slaves. And some pro-slavery people thought that the North’s economy was worse than slavery because people worked for next to nothing and their overseers did not care about their well being like a master cared about his slave.
ReplyDeleteAbolitionism had existed since the peculiar institution had started in America. However, a new type of abolition evolved during the early republic that started a wave that would sweep many abolitionist politicians into office over the decades preceding 1860. One of the most famous abolitionists was William Lloyd Garrison. In the 1810s and 1820s he, like many others against slavery, believed that gradual emancipation would be the best way out of the system. In document two, Garrison has changed his mind to state that immediate emancipation is the only way. These heavy statements by Garrison such as “I shall strenuously content for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population,” ruffled a number of feathers North and South of the Mason-Dixon Line. Abolitionists and their foil, the anti-abolitionists had existed in both sections of the country. It wasn’t until around the 1830s that sectionalism began defining people’s definitions of slavery. Before you could have found just as many pro-slavery public figures in the North as in some areas in the South (numbers wise anyway since the North’s population was much more dense than the South), now due to men like Garrison and other popular publications like “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and the widespread use of pamphlets Northerners saw the institution in a new way. Abolitionists cited the Declaration of Independence to back up their beliefs, the controversial David Walker in his aggressive leaflet in 1829 (document 1) preached for immediate emancipation citing Jefferson’s work and saying “hear your language.” The same document is used for the abolition argument many more times. What is significant about this to me is how just thirty years before (in the 1780s and 1790s) there were serious debates about ending slavery in most every state, South included, their mindset was that slavery was a necessary evil required for their fragile economies that were still recovering for war and excessive debt. So, the argument for slavery then was that it was economically necessary and would eventually go away. Well, it never did go away like they had envisioned. The argument for slavery now was Biblically justified. Slavery was now a positive good as the ancients had used nonconsenting labor to build their empires, so now must America use have of its labor for the benefit of the whole (the language men like William Jay use almost seems anti-capitalistic, but that’s another argument). William Jay evidences this in one of the opening paragraphs of document four by saying that “it is not a modern institution. Indeed he traces it to very high antiquity,” and goes on just like Hammond and Richard Fuller (document 9) do using the Bible and Christianity to say that using slave labor was what Abraham’s descendants had done. A rhetorical question proposed by a PRO-slavery writer (this is that document 9) says the following, “is it necessarily a crime in the sight of God to control or curtail the natural personal liberty of a human being?” Guess what he believes that answer to be? I think it very odd that a large portion of our population, just a generation removed from the Revolution, could propose a question such as that and believe that taking personal liberty from other humans is not a crime.
ReplyDelete. Anyway, one last point I would like to ramble on about is the importance of the women’s rights movement and its relationship with abolitionism. I had thought that the two were interrelated a good bit earlier on, but now it is more obvious through Jeffrey’s essay on exactly that subject. Women’s sewing circles and other social groups were strong advocates of fighting for not only legal and political freedom for themselves but for the Southern population still in bondage. I found this essay one of the most compelling so far in the “Major Problems” reader. I had no idea that these women’s societies did for the advancement of abolition. Putting on fairs with knittings of oppressed slaves and donating funds to slave schools in Canada were two good examples of how Northern women encouraged emancipation. I firmly believe that one of the biggest reasons for the rise in the immediate emancipation movement in the 1830s onward had to do with the rise of organized women’s rights and other social organizations.
ReplyDeleteThe face of the abolitionist movement was extremely diverse, and perhaps it was its diversity that helped give the momentum it needed in the early and mid nineteenth century to catch the attention of slave holding states and the federal government. Members of the abolitionist movement included free black men, former and current slaves, white men, and women, nearly all of whom felt obligated by their Christian upbringings and morals to oppose an institution which they believed violated the ethics of human rights and God’s wishes for humanity. In 1829, for instance, David Walker, a free black from North Carolina, made a speech in which he used Christianity and God fearing rhetoric to rouse a black crowd of supporters, stating that, “For I declare to you, whether you believe it or not, that there are some on the continent of America, who will never be able to repent. God will surely destroy them, to show you his disapprobation of the murders they and you have inflicted on us,” (Wilentz 389).Other abolitionists and abolitionist groups such as William Lloyd Garrison and The New England Anti-Slavery Society, also backed Walker’s cause, arguing that permitting slavery to exist in the United States was a sin against God, and that only full and immediate abolition would be an acceptable solution to the South’s “peculiar institution,” which was gradually beginning to tear the country apart. Women’s participation in the abolitionist movement has been recorded by writers like Julie Roy Jeffrey, who argues that women found ways to use the abolitionist movement not only to raise public concerns about the institution of slaver, but also as a way for women to assert themselves in the public sphere by organizing public meetings and rallies: “Whether responding to criticism or reflecting on the meaning of their commitment, abolitionist women proved adept at exploiting, subverting, and contesting conservative definitions of appropriate female behavior,” (Wilentz 414). With women and black and white men in support of the abolitionist movement, the effort gained momentum and persisted to challenge the established economic and social system of slave holding states.
ReplyDeletePro-slavery theorists and advocates, however, did not stand idly by and allow their beliefs to crumble at the hand of abolitionists. Though the abolitionist movement was strongly rooted in the doctrine of Christianity, one Christian did support the pro-slavery effort by claiming that slaveholders “place[d] him [a slave] under the deepest corresponding obligations to promote the interest, temporal and eternal, of his slaves,” and that the conditions of American slaves were far superior to “most operatives in Europe,” (Wilentz 407). Eugene Genovese looks at how pro-slavery sentiments were passed on to Christians like the one mentioned above. He asserts that, “In endorsing slavery as the natural and proper condition of labor, the country preachers were led by such learned theologians as James Henley Thornwell, George Armstrong, and Robert L. Dabney, and in their pulpits and schoolhouses, they passed that teaching on to their flock,” (Wilentz 419). In these cases, slavery became a part of theologians’ weekly sermons to their congregations. Physically and geographically removed from much of the abolitionist rhetoric of the North, the messages of preachers in the South were able to resonate rather freely and were easily accepted because their messages reinforced a way of life that South had always known.
The abolitionist movement of the 19th century was one of, if not the most important reformist movements in American history and it brought about great changes, as we all know. It wasn’t easy by any means to make abolition a reality. The abolitionists were mainly freed blacks, northern whites, women, and even slaves and on the rare occasion, southern whites. The abolitionist movement can be broken up into two waves. The first wave called for all free blacks to be deported to Africa for colonization in Liberia. Several thousand free blacks were sent there by the American Colonization Society, and they believed that if blacks stayed in the U.S. they would never be equal due to the racist undertones in American society during this time. It is important to note that many of the blacks were against colonization. The second movement which started around the 1830s called for immediate emancipation of all slaves and grant them equal rights. This movement drew on the religious conviction that slavery was a sin. Many abolitionists called for the blacks to mobilize and take their freedom by force, if necessary. This second wave expanded rapidly throughout the north thanks to the printing press and increased literacy rates. They used the constitution and the argument that the slaves core rights were not being granted. Women became more and more involved in the abolitionist movements too. Women were seen as the moral guides to their families and communities and they saw the argument of slavery as a moral argument that placed them into the public sphere. Women argued that slavery was a sin, and that God himself is the highest authority, not wealthy slaveholders trying to save their peculiar institution. Women also created a problem in the abolitionist movement, although it was not their intention to do so. The abolitionist movement split in the 1840s over the issue of a woman’s involvement in the movement. Neither of the two new abolitionist groups were all that influential and the movement weakened. The opponents of abolitionism mainly resided in the south where slavery was vital to the economy and the everyday lives of the citizens. Their arguments were that blacks were inferior to whites and therefore should not be equal, that the Bible itself promotes slavery, mainly just the parts about obeying one’s master. They saw slavery as being essential to human progress, citing that the Greeks and Romans had slaves. They also felt that the institution guaranteed equality among whites since no white would ever be as low as a black. They also claimed to be inspired by the revolutionary generation in which many of the Founding Fathers were slave-owners. Many also argued that the paternal system of slavery in the south was far superior then the wage labor system in the north, both for the wealthy and the poor. The argument over slavery was very heated and began to dominate the political debates of the mid 19th century, ultimately leading to a Civil war over the issue.
ReplyDeleteIt is clear that the fight over slavery had escalated dramatically in the 1820s from the writing of David Walker presented in source one. Walker pushed forward the idea of open slave hostility to the slave owner and overseer and he was also able to shift the language surrounding the slavery debate to include the hypocrisy of the nation’s founders, such as Thomas Jefferson. David Walker further believed in divine retribution for the slaveholders for their cruelty and unwillingness to free the people they kept in bondage. Although Walker died soon after his work’s publication, his preaching’s of “immediate abolition” had sufficiently caught on with large portions of the Abolitionist Movement as seen in source two. William Lloyd Garrison felt the need to recant and apologize to his readers for favoring gradual abolition previously. Source three follows in Garrison and Walker’s footsteps. The piece is from a New England abolitionist society which questions what possible grievances one might have to immediate abolition. William Jay, the son of John Jay, uses blatant mockery to buffoon proslavery arguments coming out of the south, specifically those of Thomas R. Dew. Jay does an excellent job of threshing out the hypocrisy in the examples of failed abolitions around the world. Source five zeros in on women’s abilities to affect the slavery movement, while highlighting southern women’s complicit role in the institution of slavery. Angelina Grimke was well founded to discuss the role of southern women in slavery, having grown up in South Carolina. Her appeal to the women of the south comes through the form of Christian religious ideology. Sources six, seven, eight, and nine all present the opposing forces to the Abolitionist Movement. In source six, T. R. Sullivan seems to partially agree with the principle that slavery must end, however goes on to write that “it is now too late for gradual abolition” and that the Immediate Abolitionists have brought the country to the brink of hostilities. The cartoon in source seven was meant to lampoon the abolitionist movement and to harden southern white’s resistance to the antislavery movement my presenting mixed racial courtship. Going forward, J. H. Hammond (the incestuous pedophile) delivers a speech to the House of Representatives promoting the paternalistic views of the Pro-Slavery Argument. That is to say, that slaves: were happy not having any freedom, being beaten, and living in constant fear of their families disintegrating around them. In source nine, the connection between Christian Ministers and the proslavery movement in the south is made abundantly clear. As Eugene Genovese makes clear in his essay, the strongest argument of the pro-slavery movement was the biblical sanctioning position. Lastly, source ten was written by another free-black, much like David Walker. Henry Highland Garnet argues that it must be the slaves themselves that rise up and throw off their yokes through violent rebellion. His words must have struck fear into every slaveholder throughout the south.
ReplyDeleteIn the first essay, Julie Roy Jeffery looks at the commercial aspects of the women’s abolitionist societies prevalent in the north. Jeffery’s essay illustrates that these women’s groups had to find funding to support different elements of the abolition movement, such as ex-slave schools in Canada and their own get-togethers. Finally, the prominent scholar Eugene Genovese studies the mind of pro-slavery thinkers such as the aforementioned Dew, Jacob Cardozo, and George Tucker. There were fiscal arguments that were often made, but the strongest was founded on religious justification.
Northern intellectuals, free blacks, women, members involved with the evangelical movement and the Second Great Awakening, slaves, and even a few southerners all eventually got involved with abolitionism and the emancipation of slaves. When the abolition movement first hit the Early Republic before the 1830s the founders of the movement believed in gradual emancipation for all slaves and once these slaves became emancipated, they would be colonized “back” to their native lands of Africa. Organizations like the American Colonization Society (ACS) believed that bringing freed slaves back to Africa was essential in the abolition process. But as the 1830s came, a new wave of abolition formed that opposed gradual emancipation and colonization “back” to Africa. Walker’s Appeal of 1829 called on all blacks to mobolize and actively pursue their American rights given to them found both in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Walker, a slave, marked the beginning of slave involvement in the abolition movement on a national scene and as more slaves got involved with the movement, northern activists involved with the plethora of reform movements that occurred during the 1820s onward jumped onto the abolition movement. William Lloyd Garrison published “The Liberator” an abolitionist newspaper, and the use of the printing press and mass publication of abolitionist interests and theories spread rapidly through the north and the south through a number of pamphlets, newspapers, and Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which sold over one million copies in America in its first two years on the market. The abolitionists believed that slavery destroyed the Christian values of family life both for the slaveholders and the slaves, and the strong resurgence of the evangelical movement made religion and Christianity an important aspect in American society.
ReplyDeleteSouthern slave owners were clearly the major group of people who were extremely opposed to the abolition movement. They needed their slaves to work their plantations, cotton fields, and perform chores around the house and the slaves essential were the driving labor force behind the south’s cotton kingdom that exported cotton throughout the globe. Their main arguments against the abolition movement were that great republics of the past and classical periods had slavery and prospered under the institution of slavery. Also anti-abolitionists argued that the bible had slavery in it and slaves and if that the great book permitted slavery than why can’t the great republic of America? Another major argument southern slaveholders developed was that the relationship between slave and master was patriarchal and that the slaves needed a master to help them live and the master would treat the slave well because he needed their labor and health in order to prosper in the cotton market.
Women got involved in the abolition movement through the church. The evangelical movement brought women out of their homes and their accepted spheres of influence and through the massive change in reform movements such as temperance, education, and asylum reforms women got involved and thus also wanted to get involved in the abolition movement. The evangelical movement brought a rebirth of Christian ideals and morals for women in America and beating, starving, harassing and abusing human beings who essential were supposed to be a part of the family (according to the patriarchal argument of slaveholders) did not seem very Christian to the women involved in the evangelical church and the other reform movements of American society.
The abolitionists first favored a system of "gradual emancipation, just as the earliest teetotalers advocated a mere decrease in the consumption of alcohol before they pushed for full-blown temperance. Even the great abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison once favored gradual emancipation. However, he later termed it a "pernicious doctrine" characterized by "timidity, injustice, and absurdity." Many "anti-slavery societies," rose up in New England, and many of their adherents were fairly well-to-do, such as John Jay's son William. However, women played a strong role in the abolitionist movement, including Angelina and Sarah Grimke, who were originally from the South but moved to New England and became very active in the movement. Specifically, they targeted southern women as an untapped resource of potential abolitionist power in the South, condemning their inaction to be "criminal idleness." More importantly, their rhetoric was extraordinarily significant for the burgeoning women's rights movement, as the Grimke sisters sought to empower women to move out of their domestic "sphere" and into public and political life. By using phrases such as "overthrow" and "moral suasion," the Grimke's were able to combine two of the most important reform movements: the abolition and women's rights movements. Interestingly, both abolitionists and advocates of slavery used religious and economic justifications for their causes. Sullivan even used the argument that blacks by nature were "good-natured, obliging...forgetful of injuries...and ready in deference to the superiority in character and station" and to deprive him of his "right" to slavery would be unnatural. Sullivan and others argued that the abolition movement was nothing more than a stirring of ignorant and mindlessly passionate masses, an argument which always seems to be used to describe one's political opponents. They even attacked women's roles in the abolitionist movement, claiming that when women left their place in the home, the world would be shaken both literally and figuratively. In Jeffrey's article, she states that abolitionist women were able to "exploit, subvert, and contest" traditional gender roles through the movement. By creating their own societies and organizing their own functions, women were not only able to recruit others to their cause but they were also able to strengthen social ties and establish themselves as a force in the community. However, the religious question still persisted: was a woman's role as an abolitionist a dual abomination against the Scriptures? In fact, many southern Christians justified their ownership of slaves, as servitude was considered a biblical principle. After all, the greats of the Old Testament such as Abraham and David held slaves (although interestingly, pro-slavery southerners ignored the story of Moses in their biblical justification of slavery). Additionally, one pro-slavery Christian argued that because government was inherently an "ordinance of God," its ability to strip the rights of the minority away in favor of the rights of the majority was also a God-given duty. In this case, the whites maintained their "God-given" right to own slaves at the expense of the slaves themselves. In addition to the religious argument, pro-slavery advocates used an economic one as well. Genovese in his article writes that many pro-slavery advocates believed that emancipation would result in an overwhelming surplus of labor, causing the working classes to "rise up in insurrection." In short, the abolition of slavery would result in social revolution and an overthrow of "life as they knew it."
ReplyDeleteThe abolitionist movement that came into prominence in the 1830s grew from the moral, social, and political reform associations of previous decades. First favoring gradual emancipation, probably so because they feared the social and economic fabric of the nation would be torn asunder if immediate freedom was given to those in bondage, abolitionists later supported immediate abolition. Not unsurprisingly, the many abolition societies created during this time coincided with the Second Great Awakening. This revival of religious, spiritual, and moral ideals undoubtedly helped shape the convictions and judgment of later abolitionists.
ReplyDeleteAbolitionists tried to stake out the moral and religious high-ground in their arguments versus slavery. Referring to widely respected documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Holy Bible, abolitionist decried slavery as the “greatest sin”, painting this peculiar institution as against the will of mankind and God. Many would point to the nation’s founding documents in support of ending slavery based on moral and philosophical grounds. “We hold these truths to be self evident – that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (p.390). By pointing out to Americans that their nation, which was founded on certain principles now being denied to men and women in their own nation, it created doubt among slavery advocates and strengthened the resolve of its opponents. Abolitionists found many supporters around the nation, particularly in the North and its female segment, but also some in the South.
Many women in the North and South of the country were involved in pushing the issue of anti-slavery forward. Creating associations such as the Bangor Female Anti-Slavery Society, women were able to participate in the “public sphere” more than in any other period prior to this in American history. As the essay by Julie Jeffery states, “Whether responding to criticism of reflecting on the meaning of their commitment, abolitionist women proved adept at exploiting, subverting, and contesting conservative definitions of appropriate female behavior” (p.414). Harkening back to their roles as the protectors of the family’s morals and expressing sound moral judgment, women no doubt felt they were the correct in their demonstrations against slavery and decrying its evils. Abolition was not without its opponents though and many prominent figures tried to paint abolition as a step towards anarchy and national stagnation.
Anti-abolitionists relied on a variety of arguments in support of slavery and opposed to emancipation. Like the many abolition societies and anti-slavery rhetoric, anti-abolitionists too relied on the Holy Scripture as evidence that God ordained slavery and its perpetuation. A passage from the Bible such as this one and similar ones were routinely used to justify slaveholding: “Both thy bondmen, and they bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.” Not only did the Bible allow and actually encourage slavery, pro-slavery advocates would argue, but that God himself created the African race less-robust of constitution than he did of the white man. “God has implanted in the constitution of the black man, a principle of idleness and dissipation, which is inherent and intrinsic” (p.396).
ReplyDeleteProslavery advocates moved from a defense of their institution on the grounds of economic necessity to one of moral, philosophical, and religious. Led by clergymen, historians, and many other well-educated members of Southern society, proslavery advocates tried to retake the moral high ground from the abolitionists in defense of their way of life. A common rebuttal to the abolitionists’ charges of immoral behavior, southerners would say “slavery is the best possible relation between the employer and the laborer.” Moreover, as Genovese argues, advocates of slavery believed that the free-labor system was a “revolutionary and self-revolutionizing force that promoted radical egalitarianism and thereby assaulted social order.” Advocates of the system of slavery believed wholeheartedly that by endorsing slavery, they were helping to preserve the natural and proper condition of labor (p.419). By emancipating all of those in slavery, many across the nation believed that a massive retaliation would occur, destroying the social, political, and economic fabric of society.
Abolition seems to have the exact same impetus as the other "perfectionisms" in the early republic: Middle class, educated, christian, and heavily influenced by women.
ReplyDeleteAbolition drew on the writing of freed slaves (David Walker an early example, and Frederick Douglass a successor) but the influence of the movement came from Middle and upper class whites-- specifically those who had access to publishing.
William Lloyd Garrison spearheaded a movement that was aggressive and unapologetic. The arguments against slavery were "self evident" and most of our primary sources in some way cite the Declaration of Independence.
Women and Christianity seem to fill a very similar role in the movement. Both represent the moral conscience of the movement, the less aggressive and more accessable wing of the movement (compared to The Liberator). The women of the New England Anti-Slaver Society and the Bangor Female Anti- Slavery Society appealed to other women and raised money and support through community fund raisers and activities. In the same way, entire churches took a position against the cause. Abolition became a progressive but accessable movement-- the problem came in the divide between North and South.
In the South Antiabolition was vital to preserving wealth, culture, society, and in many Southerner's minds safety. The religious arguments draw on Old Testement slavery as an example of precedence, but these arguments fail to counter the moral arguments of Northern churches.
Pro-slavery arguments failed to draw on reasonable economic arguments. The strength of this policy came from old, conservative, and Southern men holding positions of power in Colleges, Government, Church, and Society. These voices of opposition sound like they know that abolition was inevitable (maybe even just) but they tried every tactic they could to make slavery last into the next generation.
It seems like it would be hard to make a convincing, logical, level headed and well intentioned argument for slavery in the face of the abolitionist movement. Our documents and essays indicate the there really weren't any strong points made... hard headedness and fear drove the anti-abolitionist movement.
The Southern anti-abolitionist seem to have misread history, economics, and religion. They argue that wage labor is the "peculiar" institution because it is not very old. That there is a natural aristocracy and that economic forces will simply create slavery even if Africans were liberated. And the religious argument that God intended for some men to serve others, even a mention of the descendents of Abraham (Moses's people) as slave owners themselves as a justification (the great exodus is obviously a moral and allegorical attack on slavery) seem ridiculous. No educated man/woman could have believed these ideas if they allowed themselves to think objectively.
The white southerners obviously saw the writing on the wall-- they just didn't know how to transition into a free labor marked without losing control.
The term abolitionist has come to mean anyone and everyone who was opposed to slavery. This definition, however, does not embrace the meaning of abolitionist in the 1830’s. The truth is, that very few abolitionists existed in the public sphere of influence before William Lloyd Garrison took up the fight for freedom in 1831. As more and more people started speaking out against the evils of slavery within the United States, these people (true abolitionists) began to form deep divides between themselves with regards to the strategy to end slave bondage. Men and women of many races began to choose sides between the three main tactics involved in ending slavery: gradual emancipation, relocation, and immediatism (immediate emancipation).
ReplyDeleteWith regards to the first tactic, gradual emancipation, it is safe to say that this was the most common abolitionist view. The people who greatly supported this view thought of slavery as an awful institution that was immoral and had to go. The only problem with ending the institution immediately however was the fact that much of the nations income relied heavily on slave labor, especially in the highly agricultural south. The best compromise for these abolitionists then was to slowly wane the economy off of slave dependency by implementing a system of gradual emancipation.
Another tactic was relocation. This is the least supported out of the three because of its radicalism. Abolitionists who promoted the idea of relocation for blacks back to Africa, believed that “returning home” would be the best thing for the slaves and also solve the “problem of having free blacks roaming around. The third and final tactic was immediatism, or immediate emancipation. This was the favorite of famous authors such as William Lloyd Garrison and David Walker. In their eyes, there was no need to gradually emancipate because slavery was an inherent evil and should be stopped immediately. Thoughts of violent revolt were even spread around as a reminder of what would happen soon if slavery was not ended immediately.
While many of these famous abolitionists were men, women also had a say in abolitionism. Angelina and Sarah Grimke played a part in the freedom of the slaves although they were bound by the social constraints on women of the time and could not manage to have a huge voice in the matter as an abolitionist leader.
Along with abolitionism also came anti-abolitionism. The leaders of this movement, many of whom were white, southern, slave-owners, often used biblical references to defend slavery as well as a mindset of superiority. Men like J.H. Hammond also used a slanted viewpoint on history to defend his practice, stating, “If it [slavery] be an evil, it is one to us alone, and we are contented with it.”
The abolitionist movement, like the civil rights and women’s movements, was comprised of a diverse set of people with different end aims of reform. Also, abolitionists disapproved of slavery for different reasons; some for the moral ills of slavery and some simply because of its inconsistency with the Constitution of the United States. Prior to 1830, a common theme among abolitionists was colonization. Under this model when a slave was free he or she would be shipped back to their “home” in Africa. The land of Liberia, with the appropriate name given to the capital Monrovia (James Monroe), was designated as the land to ship the slaves. This method was devised because it was believed that separation between the races was such at the core of the United States that no attempt at integrating former slaves into society would be of any use. Opponents of abolition were commonly wealthy southern planters, as well as people in the South who believed in the institution simply as a way of life. These planters fought voraciously to maintain slavery in the South, bending and changing laws when necessary. Slave laws like not teaching slaves to read and write or meet in groups were designed to make sure that blacks were kept to their place and were not allowed any methods of advancing themselves. Rather, anti-abolitionists resorted to attempting to keep everything the way it was, silencing critics by destroying printing presses or by simply killing opponents. Women played key roles in the abolitionist movement. Leaders like the Grimke sisters and Elizabeth Cady Stanton worked alongside men like Fredrick Douglass for the cause of abolition. One of the most interesting issues the Grimke sisters had to deal with was that their background was from a wealthy family in the south. Many often questioned their sincerity, until they heard them speak. The women’s movement grew out of many of these abolition leaders. Women like Stanton grew in public prominence through the stage of abolition and were able to shift their influence to pressing for more women’s rights after slavery was abolished. Anti-abolitionists commonly held to the Bible to silence their critics. Preachers in the South quoted the scripture without fail that “slaves should obey their masters.” Also, the example of Philemon being encouraged to return to his master after running away was told to slaves in order to influence them from fleeing their plantation. These twisted scriptures were fought by abolition opponents from the Bible as well with how one should treat their neighbor and that it was against human decency to own another person. The simple disconnect was that, for the most part, anti-abolitionists did not consider blacks to be full-fledged people. The study of the people in the abolitionist movement has been just as interesting to study as the movement itself because of the changing personalities and philosophies for what would work to free slaves and how society would look after they had been freed.
ReplyDeleteThe abolition movement began as a confused effort to end slavery without having to deal with free black people. Although the American Colonization Society and similar organizations found a decent amount of support in the West, where the populace despised slavery and black people equally, in the North, where any program of abolition that did not risk further sectional divisions was applauded, and even, to a limited degree, in the South, where freed slaves were seen as a grave danger to the peculiar system and were immediately forced out of the state where they worked as a slave. However, the ACS was anathema to black freedmen, since practically all of them were born in America and resented being told to go back to a continent that their family had been torn from hundreds of years ago.
ReplyDeleteMen like David Walker put forward a compelling new theory against both slavery and the back-to-Africa movement. Both the Declaration of Independence, as created by the Founders, and the Bible, as created by God, supported not just an end to slavery, but the acceptance of black people as American citizens with equal rights. This re-interpretation of American history shifted the struggle completely. Instead of a sectional argument between white men about whether an inferior race should be subjugated at home or exiled abroad, the fight over abolition became a fight over freedom, a fight over civil rights, and a fight for control over the most powerful events and ideas in the American memory.
Women had a place in the abolition movement for as long as the movement was away from the male-dominated field of politics. Women could distribute pamphlets, talk to their relatives about the plight of helpless slave girls, and do much of the organizational work that kept the anti-slavery movement running smoothly. However, when the Whig Party adopted an abolitionist platform, and when the gag order was released on Congress, women were marginalized as the abolitionists rushed to court politicians and push their agenda through a legislature which had little tolerance for women interfering in politics.
The anti-abolitionist movement was very much a reaction to this aggressive new abolition movement. The immediate concern of losing representation for slave states in Congress, as well as the more distant possibility of emancipation, drove ridiculous arguments like paternalism and irrational fears like the black rapist. Such concepts were contradictory (how can slaves be your children, and yet want to assault your wives and daughters at the same time?) but increasingly popular in a South that would only accept reforms that did not threaten slavery.