Abolitionism in the United States
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In the United States, abolitionism, the movement that sought to end slavery in the country, was active from the colonial era until the American Civil War, the end of which brought about the abolition of American slavery, except as punishment for a crime, through the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (ratified 1865).
The anti-slavery movement originated during the
During the Revolutionary era, all states abolished the
History
Abolitionism in Colonial America
American abolitionism began well before the United States was founded as a nation. In 1652, Rhode Island made it illegal for any person, black or white, to be "bound" longer than ten years. The law, however, was widely ignored,[10] and Rhode Island became involved in the slave trade in 1700.[11]
The first act of resistance against an upper-class white colonial government from slaves can be seen in Bacon's Rebellion in 1676. Occurring in Virginia, the rebellion saw European indentured servants and African people (of indentured, enslaved, and free negroes) band together against William Berkeley because of his refusal to fully remove Native American tribes in the region. At the time, Native Americans in the region were hosting raids against lower-class settlers encroaching on their land after the Third Powhatan War (1644–1646), which left many white and black indentured servants and slaves without a sense of protection from their government.[12] Led by Nathaniel Bacon, the unification that occurred between the white lower class and blacks during this rebellion was perceived as dangerous and thus was quashed with the implementation of the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705.[13] Still, this event introduced the premise that blacks and whites could work together towards the goal of self-liberation, which became increasingly prevalent as abolition gained traction within America.[14]
The first statement against slavery in
Samuel Sewall,[22] a prominent Bostonian, wrote The Selling of Joseph (1700)[23] in protest of the widening practice of outright slavery as opposed to indentured servitude in the colonies. This is the earliest-recorded anti-slavery tract published in the future United States.[24]
In 1737, Quaker abolitionist Benjamin Lay published All Slave-Keepers That Keep the Innocent in Bondage: Apostates,[26] which was printed by his friend, Benjamin Franklin.[27] The following year, during the 1738 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in Burlington, New Jersey, Lay gave a lecture against slavery while dressed as a soldier, after which he plunged a sword into a bible containing a bladder of fake blood (pokeberry juice) that splattered those nearby.[28][29]
On September 9, 1739, a literate slave named Jemmy led a rebellion against South Carolina slaveholders in an event referred to as the Stono Rebellion (also known as Cato's Conspiracy and Cato's Rebellion.) The runaway slaves involved in the revolt intended to reach Spanish-controlled Florida to attain freedom, but their plans were thwarted by white colonists in Charlestown, South Carolina.[30] The event resulted in 25 colonists and 35 to 50 African slaves killed, as well as the implementation of the 1740 Negro Act to prevent another slave uprising. In her book, "The Slave's Cause" by Manisha Sinha, Sinha considers the Stono Rebellion to be an important act of abolition from the perspective of the slave, recognizing their agency and subsequent humanity as cause for self-liberation.[31]
Slave revolts following the Stono Rebellion were a present mode of abolition undertaken by slaves and were an indicator of black agency that brewed beneath the surface of the abolitionist movement for decades and eventually sprouted later on through figures such as Frederick Douglass, an escaped black freeman who was a popular orator and essayist for the abolitionist cause.[32]
The struggle between Georgia and South Carolina led to the first debates in Parliament over the issue of slavery, occurring between 1740 and 1742.[25]
Rhode Island Quakers, associated with Moses Brown, were among the first in America to free slaves. Benjamin Rush was another leader, as were many Quakers. John Woolman gave up most of his business in 1756 to devote himself to campaigning against slavery along with other Quakers.[33]
Between 1764 and 1774, seventeen enslaved African Americans appeared before the
According to historian Steven Pincus, many of the colonial legislatures worked to enact laws that would limit slavery.[37] The Provincial legislature of Massachusetts Bay, as noted by historian Gary B. Nash, approved a law "prohibiting the importation and purchase of slaves by any Massachusetts citizen." The Loyalist governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, vetoed the law, an action that prompted angered reaction from the general public.[38][39] American abolitionists were cheered by the decision in Somerset v Stewart (1772), which prohibited slavery in the United Kingdom, though not in its colonies.[citation needed] In 1774, the influential Fairfax Resolves called for an end to the "wicked, cruel and unnatural" Atlantic slave trade.[40]
Abolitionism during and after the Revolutionary War
One of the first articles advocating the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery was written by Thomas Paine. Titled "African Slavery in America", it appeared on 8 March 1775 in the Postscript to the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser.[41]
The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage (Pennsylvania Abolition Society) was the first American abolition society, formed 14 April 1775, in Philadelphia, primarily by Quakers. The society suspended operations during the American Revolutionary War and was reorganized in 1784, with Benjamin Franklin as its first president.[42][43]
In 1777, independent Vermont, not yet a state, became the first polity in North America to prohibit slavery: slaves were not directly freed, but masters were required to remove slaves from Vermont.[44]
The
The first state to begin a gradual abolition of slavery was Pennsylvania, in 1780. All importation of slaves was prohibited, but none were freed at first, only the slaves of masters who failed to register them with the state, along with the "future children" of enslaved mothers. Those enslaved in Pennsylvania before the 1780 law went into effect were not freed until 1847.[44]
Massachusetts took a much more radical position. In 1780, during the Revolution, Massachusetts ratified
States with a greater economic interest in slaves, such as New York and New Jersey, passed gradual emancipation laws. While some of these laws were gradual, these states enacted the first abolition laws in the entire "New World".[46] In the State of New York, the enslaved population was transformed into indentured servants before being granted full emancipation in 1827. In other states, abolitionist legislation provided freedom only for the children of the enslaved. In New Jersey, slavery was not fully prohibited until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment.[47]
All of the other states north of
Some individual slaveholders, particularly in the
All U.S. states abolished the transatlantic slave trade by 1798. South Carolina, which had abolished the slave trade in 1787, reversed that decision in 1803. In the American South, freedom suits were rejected by the courts, which held that the rights in the state constitutions did not apply to African Americans.[49]
The
Motives
Historian James M. McPherson in 1964 defined an abolitionist "as one who before the Civil War had agitated for the immediate, unconditional and total abolition of slavery in the United States". He notes that many historians have used a broader definition without his emphasis on immediacy. Thus he does not include opponents of slavery such as Abraham Lincoln or the Republican Party; they called for the immediate end to expansion of slavery before 1861.[54]
The religious component of American abolitionism was great. It began with the Quakers, then moved to the other Protestants with the Second Great Awakening of the early 19th century. Many leaders were ministers. Saying slavery was sinful made its evil easy to understand, and tended to arouse fervor for the cause. The debate about slavery was often based on what the Bible said or did not say about it. John Brown, who had studied the Bible for the ministry, proclaimed that he was "an instrument of God".
As such, abolitionism in the United States has been identified by historians as an expression of moralism,[55] It often operated in tandem with another social reform effort, the temperance movement. Slavery was also attacked, to a lesser degree, as harmful on economic grounds. Evidence was that the South, with many enslaved African Americans on plantations, was definitely poorer than the North, which had few.
The South after 1804
The institution remained solid in the South, and that region's customs and social beliefs evolved into a strident defense of slavery in response to the rise of a growing anti-slavery stance in the North. In 1835 alone, abolitionists mailed over a million pieces of anti-slavery literature to the South, giving rise to the gag rules in Congress, after the theft of mail from the Charleston, South Carolina, post office, and much back-and-forth about whether postmasters were required to deliver this mail.[56] According to the Postmaster General, they were not.[57]
Under the Constitution, the importation of enslaved persons could not be prohibited until 1808 (20 years). As the end of the 20 years approached, an Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves sailed through Congress with little opposition. President Jefferson signed it, and it went effect on January 1, 1808.
In 1820, the
Abolitionism's sudden emergence
In 1830, most Americans were, at least in principle, opposed to slavery. However, opponents of slavery deliberated on how to end the institution, as well as what would become of the slaves once they were free. As put in
Garrison and immediate emancipation
The American beginning of abolitionism as a political movement is usually dated from 1 January 1831, when
Immediate abolition
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Abolitionists included those who joined the
While instructive, the distinction [between anti-slavery and abolition] can also be misleading, especially in assessing abolitionism's political impact. For one thing, slaveholders never bothered with such fine points. Many immediate abolitionists showed no less concern than did other white Northerners about the fate of the nation's "precious legacies of freedom". Immediatism became most difficult to distinguish from broader anti-Southern opinions once ordinary citizens began articulating these intertwining beliefs.[60]: 78
Nearly all Northern politicians, such as
Anti-slavery as a principle was far more than just the wish to prevent the expansion of slavery.[citation needed] After 1840, abolitionists rejected this because it let sin continue to exist; they demanded that slavery end everywhere, immediately and completely. John Brown was the only abolitionist to have actually planned a violent insurrection, though David Walker promoted the idea. The abolitionist movement was strengthened by the activities of free African Americans, especially in the Black church, who argued that the old Biblical justifications for slavery contradicted the New Testament.
African-American activists and their writings were rarely heard outside the Black community. However, they were tremendously influential on a few sympathetic white people, most prominently the first white activist to reach prominence,
In the early 1850s, the American abolitionist movement split into two camps over the question of whether the
Another split in the abolitionist movement was along class lines. The artisan republicanism of Robert Dale Owen and Frances Wright stood in stark contrast to the politics of prominent elite abolitionists such as industrialist Arthur Tappan and his evangelist brother Lewis. While the former pair opposed slavery on a basis of solidarity of "wage slaves" with "chattel slaves", the Whiggish Tappans strongly rejected this view, opposing the characterization of Northern workers as "slaves" in any sense. (Lott, 129–130)[citation needed]
Many American abolitionists took an active role in opposing slavery by supporting the
Numerous known abolitionists lived, worked, and worshipped in downtown Brooklyn, from Henry Ward Beecher, who auctioned slaves into freedom from the pulpit of Plymouth Church, to Nathaniel Eggleston, a leader of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society,[64] who also preached at the Bridge Street African Methodist Episcopal Church, and lived on Duffield Street. His fellow Duffield Street residents Thomas and Harriet Truesdell were leading members of the abolitionist movement. Mr. Truesdell was a founding member of the Providence Anti-slavery Society before moving to Brooklyn in 1838. Harriet Truesdell was also very active in the movement, organizing an anti-slavery convention in Pennsylvania Hall (Philadelphia). Another prominent Brooklyn-based abolitionist was Rev. Joshua Leavitt, trained as a lawyer at Yale, who stopped practicing law in order to attend Yale Divinity School, and subsequently edited the abolitionist newspaper The Emancipator and campaigned against slavery, as well as advocating other social reforms. In 1841, Leavitt published The Financial Power of Slavery, which argued that the South was draining the national economy due to its reliance on enslaved workers. In 2007, Duffield Street was given the name Abolitionist Place, and the Truesdells' home at 227 Duffield received landmark status in 2021.[65]
Violence against abolitionists
Abolitionists nationwide were outraged by the murder of white abolitionist and journalist Elijah Parish Lovejoy by a proslavery mob in Alton, Illinois on 7 November 1837. Six months later, Pennsylvania Hall, an abolitionist venue in Philadelphia, was burnt to the ground by another proslavery mob on May 17, 1838. Both events contributed to the growing American debate over slavery and marked an increase in violence against abolitionists in the United States.[66]
Abolitionism at colleges
Western Reserve College
Both Garrison's newspaper The Liberator and his book Thoughts on African Colonization (1832) arrived shortly after publication at
The college's chaplain and theology professor Beriah Green said that "his Thoughts and his paper (The Liberator) are worthy of the eye and the heart of every American."[69]: 49 Green delivered in the college chapel in November and December 1832 four sermons supporting immediate abolition of slavery. These so offended the college's trustees, more conservative than either the students or the faculty, that Green resigned, expecting that he would be fired. Elizur Wright, another professor, resigned soon afterwards and became the first secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, of which Green was the first president. Storrs contracted tuberculosis, took a leave of absence, and died within six months.[68]: 28 This left the school with only one of its four professors.
Oneida Institute for Science and Industry
Green was soon hired as the new president of the Oneida Institute. Under the previous president, George Washington Gale, there had been a mass walkout of students; among the issues was Gale's lack of support for abolition.
He accepted the position on conditions that 1) he be allowed to preach "immediatism", immediate emancipation, and 2) that African-American students be admitted on the same terms as white students. These were accepted, and we know the names of 16 Blacks who studied there. Native American students, of whom we know the names of two, were openly accepted as well.
Under Green, Oneida became "a hotbed of anti-slavery activity."[68]: 44 It was "abolitionist to the core, more so than any other American college."[68]: 46 For Presbyterian minister and Bible professor Green, slavery was not just an evil but a sin, and abolitionism was what Christ's principles mandated. Under him a cadre of abolitionists was trained, who then carried the abolitionist message, via lectures and sermons, throughout the North. Many future well-known black leaders and abolitionists were students at Oneida while Green was president. These include William Forten (son of James Forten), Alexander Crummell, Rev. Henry Highland Garnet and Rev. Amos Noë Freeman.
Lane Seminary
The Oneida Institute did not have an incident, like that of Western Reserve, which brought national attention to it. Its successor, Lane Seminary, in Cincinnati, did.
"Lane was Oneida moved west."
At the same time that Weld was scouting a location for a new school, the barely-functioning Lane Seminary was looking for students. Based on Weld's recommendation, the Tappans started giving Lane the financial support they had previously given Oneida. Weld, though on paper enrolled as a student at Lane, was de facto its head, choosing, through his recommendations to the Tappans, the president (Lyman Beecher, after Charles Grandison Finney, who became later the second president of Oberlin, turned it down), and telling the trustees whom to hire.[70]: 54
The group of students led by Weld constituted the first student movement in the history of the country. He left Oneida, and they did. He chose Lane, and they followed him there. When he soon left Lane for another new, struggling institution,
Students, many of whom considered him the real leader of Lane,[72]: 77 responded to Weld's announcement of the new school in Cincinnati.
[Y]oung men gathered in Cincinnati "as from the hives of the north". Most of them were from western New York. H. B. Stanton and a few others from Rochester floated down the Ohio from Pittsburgh on a raft. More than a score came from Oneida Institute. Even more arrived from Utica and Auburn, Finney's converts all. From Tennessee came Weld's disciple, Marius Robinson, and across the Ohio from Kentucky came James Thome, scion of a wealthy planting family. Up from Alabama journeyed two others of Weld's disciples, the sons of the Rev. Dr. Allan. From Virginia came young Hedges; and from Missouri, Andrew, of the famous family of Benton. From the South came another, James Bradley, a Negro who had bought his freedom from slavery with the earnings of his own hands. Most of these students were mature; only eleven were less than twenty-one years old; twelve of them had been agents for the national benevolent societies, and six were married men with families. The theological class was the largest that had ever gathered in America, and its members were deeply conscious of their importance.[73]: 46
Lane ended up with about 100 students, the most of any seminary in America.
One of Weld's key contentions (and of Puritan abolition sentiment in general) was that slavery was inherently anti-family. While
Lane Seminary debates
No sooner had this disparate group of former Oneida students and others arrived at Lane, under the leadership of Weld, than they formed an anti-slavery society. They then proceeded to hold
These "debates", which were well publicized, alarmed Lane's president
Oberlin Collegiate Institute
Due to its students' anti-slavery position, Oberlin soon became one of the most liberal colleges and accepted African-American students. Along with Garrison, Northcutt and Collins were proponents of immediate abolition.
After 1840, "abolition" usually referred to positions similar to Garrison's. It was largely an ideological movement led by about 3,000 people, including free blacks and
Evangelical abolitionists founded some colleges, most notably Bates College in Maine and Oberlin College in Ohio. The movement attracted such figures as Yale president Noah Porter and Harvard president Thomas Hill.[76]
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In the North, most opponents of slavery supported other modernizing reform movements such as the
Abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison repeatedly condemned slavery for contradicting the principles of freedom and equality on which the country was founded. In 1854, Garrison wrote:
I am a believer in that portion of the Declaration of American Independence in which it is set forth, as among self-evident truths, "that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Hence, I am an abolitionist. Hence, I cannot but regard oppression in every form – and most of all, that which turns a man into a thing – with indignation and abhorrence. Not to cherish these feelings would be recreancy to principle. They who desire me to be dumb on the subject of slavery, unless I will open my mouth in its defense, ask me to give the lie to my professions, to degrade my manhood, and to stain my soul. I will not be a liar, a poltroon, or a hypocrite, to accommodate any party, to gratify any sect, to escape any odium or peril, to save any interest, to preserve any institution, or to promote any object. Convince me that one man may rightfully make another man his slave, and I will no longer subscribe to the Declaration of Independence. Convince me that liberty is not the inalienable birthright of every human being, of whatever complexion or clime, and I will give that instrument to the consuming fire. I do not know how to espouse freedom and slavery together.[79]
Uncle Tom's Cabin and The Impending Crisis of the South
The most influential abolitionist publication was
According to a book reviewer, "Next to
The Constitution and ending slavery
The Republican strategy of using the Constitution
Two diametrically opposed anti-slavery positions emerged regarding the United States Constitution. The Garrisonians emphasized that the document permitted and protected slavery and was therefore "an agreement with hell" that had to be rejected in favor of immediate emancipation. The mainstream anti-slavery position adopted by the new Republican party argued that the Constitution could and should be used to eventually end slavery. They assumed that the Constitution gave the government no authority to abolish slavery directly. However, there were multiple tactics available to support the long-term strategy of using the Constitution as a battering ram against the peculiar institution. First Congress could block the admission of any new slave states. That would steadily move the balance of power in Congress and the Electoral College in favor of freedom. Congress could abolish slavery in the District of Columbia and the territories. Congress could use the Commerce Clause[85] to end the interstate slave trade, thereby crippling the steady movement of slavery from the southeast to the southwest. Congress could recognize free blacks as full citizens and insist on due process rights to protect fugitive slaves from being captured and returned to bondage. Finally, the government could use patronage powers to promote the anti-slavery cause across the country, especially in the border states. Pro-slavery elements considered the Republican strategy to be much more dangerous to their cause than radical abolitionism. Lincoln's election was met by secession. Indeed, the Republican strategy mapped the "crooked path to abolition" that prevailed during the Civil War.[86][87]
Events leading to emancipation
In the 1850s, the slave trade remained legal in all 16 states of the
The white abolitionist movement in the North was led by social reformers, especially William Lloyd Garrison, founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and writers such as John Greenleaf Whittier and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Black activists included former slaves such as Frederick Douglass, and free blacks such as the brothers Charles Henry Langston and John Mercer Langston, who helped to found the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society.[89][c]
Some abolitionists said that slavery was criminal and a sin; they also criticized slave owners for using black women as
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 attempted to resolve issues surrounding slavery caused by the War with Mexico and the admission to the Union of the slave
Republican Party
In 1854, Congress passed the
The Republicans wanted to achieve the gradual extinction of slavery by market forces, because its members believed that free labor was superior to slave labor. Southern leaders said the Republican policy of blocking the expansion of slavery into the West made them second-class citizens, and challenged their autonomy. With the 1860 presidential victory of Abraham Lincoln, seven Deep South states whose economy was based on cotton and slavery decided to secede and form a new nation. The American Civil War broke out in April 1861 with the firing on Fort Sumter in South Carolina. When Lincoln called for troops to suppress the rebellion, four more slave states seceded.
Explorer and abolitionist John C. Frémont ran as the first Republican nominee for president in 1856. The new party crusaded on the slogan: "Free soil, free silver, free men, Frémont and victory!" Although he lost, the party showed a strong base. It dominated in Yankee areas of New England, New York and the northern Midwest, and had a strong presence in the rest of the North. It had almost no support in the South, where it was roundly denounced in 1856–60 as a divisive force that threatened civil war.[95]
Without using the term "containment", the new Party in the mid-1850s proposed a system of containing slavery, once it gained control of the national government. Historian James Oakes explains the strategy:
The federal government would surround the south with free states, free territories, and free waters, building what they called a "cordon of freedom" around slavery, hemming it in until the system's own internal weaknesses forced the slave states one by one to abandon slavery.[96]
Abolitionists demanded immediate emancipation, not a slow-acting containment. They rejected the new party, and in turn its leaders reassured voters they were not trying to abolish slavery in the U.S. altogether, which was politically impossible, and were just working against its spread.
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry
John Brown has been called "the most controversial of all 19th-century Americans".[97] When Brown was hanged after his attempt to start a slave rebellion in 1859, church bells rang across the North, there was a 100-gun salute in Albany, New York, large memorial meetings took place throughout the North, and famous writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau joined other Northerners in praising Brown.[98] Whereas Garrison was a pacifist, Brown believed violence was unfortunately necessary to end slavery.
The raid, though unsuccessful in the short term, may have helped Lincoln get elected and moved the Southern states to secede, leading to the Civil War. Some historians regard Brown as a crazed lunatic, while David S. Reynolds hails him as the man who "killed slavery, sparked the civil war, and seeded civil rights".[99][100]
The raid did not go as expected. Brown hoped to have quickly a small army of runaway slaves, but made no provision to inform these potential runaways, although he got a little local support. Lt. Colonel Robert E. Lee of the U.S. Army was dispatched to put down the raid, and Brown was quickly captured. He was tried for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, murder, and inciting a slave revolt, was found guilty of all charges, and was hanged. At his trial, Brown exuded a remarkable zeal and single-mindedness that played directly to Southerners' worst fears. Under Virginia law there was a month between the sentencing and the hanging, and in those weeks Brown spoke gladly with reporters and anyone else who wanted to see him, and wrote many letters. Few individuals did more to cause secession than John Brown, because Southerners believed he was right about an impending slave revolt. The day of his execution, Brown prophesied, "the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had as I now think vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done."[102]
American Civil War
The American Civil War began with the stated goal of preserving the Union, and Lincoln said repeatedly that on the topic of slavery, he was only opposed to its spread to the Western territories. This view of the war progressively changed, one step at a time, as public sentiment evolved, until by 1865 the war was seen in the North as primarily concerned with ending slavery. The first federal act taken against slavery during the war occurred on 16 April 1862, when Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, which abolished slavery in Washington, D.C. A few months later, on June 19, Congress banned slavery in all federal territories, fulfilling Lincoln's 1860 campaign promise.[104] Meanwhile, the Union suddenly found itself dealing with a steady stream of thousands of escaped slaves, achieving freedom, or so they hoped, by crossing Union lines. In response, Congress passed the Confiscation Acts, which essentially declared escaped slaves from the South to be confiscated war property, and thus did not have to be returned to their Confederate owners. Although the initial act did not mention emancipation, the Second Confiscation Act, enacted on 17 July 1862, stated that escaped or liberated slaves belonging to anyone who participated in or supported the rebellion "shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves." Pro-Union forces gained control of the border states of Maryland, Missouri, and West Virginia; all three states would abolish slavery before the end of the war. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, effective 1 January 1863, which declared only those slaves in Confederate states to be free. The United States Colored Troops began operations in 1863. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was repealed in June 1864. Eventually support for abolition was enough to pass the Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in December 1865, which abolished slavery everywhere in the United States, freeing more than 50,000 people still enslaved in Kentucky and Delaware, in 1865 the only states in which slavery still existed.[105][106][107] The Thirteenth Amendment also abolished slavery among the Native American tribes.
Variations by area
Abolition in the North
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The abolitionist movement began about the time of the United States' independence. Quakers played a big role. The first abolition organization was the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, which first met in 1775; Benjamin Franklin was its president.[108] The New York Manumission Society was founded in 1785 by powerful politicians: John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and Aaron Burr.
There is quite a bit of confusion about when slavery was abolished in the Northern states, because "abolishing slavery" meant different things in different states. (
However, what the abolition forces passed in 1799 in New York State was an Act for the gradual abolition of slavery.[111] Slavery in New York did not officially end until 1827, and more than 70 enslaved people in New York appeared on the 1830 decennial census. No slaves appeared in the state's 1840 census.[112][113][114] New Jersey abolished slavery in 1804,[115] but in 1860 a dozen black people were still held as "perpetual apprentices".[116][117]
In the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, the Congress of the Confederation prohibited slavery in the territories northwest of the Ohio River.
At the
Congress declined to pass any restriction on the lucrative interstate slave trade, which expanded to replace the supply of African slaves (see Slavery in the United States#Slave trade).
Manumission by Southern owners
After 1776,
By 1860, 91.7% of the blacks in Delaware and 49.7% of those in Maryland were free. Such early free families often formed the core of artisans, professionals, preachers, and teachers in future generations.[125] However, this did not signal racial equality. Though free from slavery, blacks still faced immense discrimination. For example, Delaware affirmed and reaffirmed black disenfranchisement several times throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries. Delaware's General Assembly enacted harsh black codes throughout the 19th century that restricted travel, property ownership, expression, and socialization for African Americans.[126]
Western territories
During Congressional debate in 1820 on the proposed Tallmadge Amendment, which sought to limit slavery in Missouri as it became a state, Rufus King declared that "laws or compacts imposing any such condition [slavery] upon any human being are absolutely void, because contrary to the law of nature, which is the law of God, by which he makes his ways known to man, and is paramount to all human control". The amendment failed and Missouri became a slave state. According to historian David Brion Davis, this may have been the first time in the world that a political leader openly attacked slavery's perceived legality in such a radical manner.
Beginning in the 1830s, the U.S.
Abolitionist viewpoints
Religion and morality
The
"Anti-slavery men", such as John Quincy Adams, did not call slavery a sin. They called it an evil feature of society as a whole. They did what they could to limit slavery and end it where possible, but were not part of any abolitionist group. For example, in 1841, John Quincy Adams represented the Amistad African slaves in the Supreme Court of the United States and argued that they should be set free.[134] In the last years before the war, "anti-slavery" could refer to the Northern majority, such as Abraham Lincoln, who opposed expansion of slavery or its influence, as by the Kansas–Nebraska Act or the Fugitive Slave Act. Many Southerners called all these abolitionists, without distinguishing them from the Garrisonians.
Historian James Stewart (1976) explains the abolitionists' deep beliefs: "All people were equal in God's sight; the souls of black folks were as valuable as those of whites; for one of God's children to enslave another was a violation of the Higher Law, even if it was sanctioned by the Constitution."[60]
In contrast, most Irish Nationalists and Fenians supported the abolition of slavery. Daniel O'Connell, the Catholic leader of the Irish in Ireland, supported abolition in the United States. He organized a petition in Ireland with 60,000 signatures urging the Irish of the United States to support abolition. John O'Mahony, a founder of the Irish Republican Brotherhood was an abolitionist and served as colonel in the 69th Infantry Regiment during the Civil War.[136]
The Irish Catholics in the United States were recent immigrants; most were poor and very few owned slaves. They had to compete with free blacks for unskilled labor jobs. They saw abolitionism as the militant wing of evangelical anti-Catholic Protestantism.[137]
The Catholic Church in the United States had long ties[citation needed] in slaveholding Maryland and Louisiana. Despite a firm stand for the spiritual equality of black people, and the resounding condemnation of slavery by Pope Gregory XVI in his bull In supremo apostolatus issued in 1839, the American church continued in deeds, if not in public discourse, to avoid confrontation with slave-holding interests. In 1861, the Archbishop of New York wrote to Secretary of War Cameron: "That the Church is opposed to slavery ... Her doctrine on that subject is, that it is a crime to reduce men naturally free to a condition of servitude and bondage, as slaves." No American bishop supported extra-political abolition or interference with states' rights before the Civil War.
The secular Germans of the
Black abolitionist rhetoric
Historians and scholars have largely overlooked the work of black abolitionists; instead, they have focused on only a few black abolitionists, such as Frederick Douglass.[138] Yet lesser-known black abolitionists, such as Martin Delany and James Monroe Whitfield, also played an undeniably large role in shaping the movement. Black abolitionists had the distinct problem of having to confront an often-hostile American public, while still acknowledging their nationality and struggle.[139] As a result, many black abolitionists "intentionally adopted aspects of British, New England, and Midwestern cultures".[139] Furthermore, much of abolitionist rhetoric, and black abolitionist rhetoric in particular, were influenced by the Puritan preaching heritage.[140]
Abolitionist women
Angelina and Sarah Grimké were the first female anti-slavery agents, and played a variety of roles in the abolitionist movement. Though born in the South, the Grimké sisters became disillusioned with slavery and moved North to get away from it. Perhaps because of their birthplace, the Grimké sisters' critiques carried particular weight and specificity. Angelina Grimké spoke of her thrill at seeing white men do manual labor of any kind.[142] Their perspectives as native Southerners as well as women, brought a new important point of view to the abolitionist movement. In 1836, they moved to New York and began work for the Anti-Slavery Society, where they met and were impressed by William Lloyd Garrison.[143] The sisters wrote many pamphlets (Angelina's "Appeal to the Christian Women of the South" was the only appeal directly to Southern women to defy slavery laws) and played leadership roles at the first Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women in 1837.[144] The Grimkés later made a notable speaking tour around the north, which culminated in Angelina's February 1838 address to a Committee of the Legislature of Massachusetts.
Other leaders in the abolitionist movement were Lydia Maria Child, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth. But even beyond these well-known women, abolitionism maintained impressive support from white middle-class and some black women. It was these women who performed many of the logistical, day-to-day tasks that made the movement successful. They raised money, wrote and distributed propaganda pieces, drafted and signed petitions, and lobbied the legislatures. Though abolitionism sowed the seeds of the women's rights movement, most women became involved in abolitionism because of a gendered religious worldview, and the idea that they had feminine, moral responsibilities.[153] For example, in the winter of 1831–1832, women sent three petitions to the Virginia legislature, advocating emancipation of the state's slave population. The only precedent for such action was Catharine Beecher's organization of a petition protesting the Cherokee removal.[154] The Virginia petitions, while the first of their kind, were by no means the last. Similar backing increased leading up to the Civil War.
Even as women played crucial roles in abolitionism, the movement simultaneously helped stimulate women's-rights efforts. A full 10 years before the Seneca Falls Convention, the Grimké sisters were travelling and lecturing about their experiences with slavery. As Gerda Lerner says, the Grimkés understood their actions' great impact. "In working for the liberation of the slave," Lerner writes, "Sarah and Angelina Grimké found the key to their own liberation. And the consciousness of the significance of their actions was clearly before them. 'We Abolition Women are turning the world upside down.'"[155]
Women gained important experiences in public speaking and organizing that stood them in good stead going forward. The Grimké sisters' public speaking played a critical part in legitimizing women's place in the public sphere. Some Christian women created cent societies to benefit abolition movements, where many women in a church would each pledge to donate one cent a week to help abolitionist causes.[156]
The July 1848
Abolitionism brought together active women and enabled them to make political and personal connections while honing communication and organizational skills. Even Sojourner Truth, commonly associated with abolitionism, delivered her first documented public speech at the 1850 National Women's Rights Convention in Worcester. There, she argued for women's reform activism.[158]
Anti-abolitionist viewpoints
Anti-abolitionism in the North
It is easy to overstate the support for abolitionism in the North. "From Maine to Missouri, from the Atlantic to the Gulf, crowds gathered to hear mayors and aldermen, bankers and lawyers, ministers and priests denounce the abolitionists as amalgamationists, dupes, fanatics, foreign agents, and incendiaries."[159] The whole abolitionist movement, the cadre of anti-slavery lecturers, was primarily focused on the North: convincing Northerners that slavery should be immediately abolished, and freed slaves given rights.
A majority of white Southerners, though by no means all, supported slavery; there was a growing feeling in favor of emancipation in North Carolina,[160] Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky, until the panic resulting from Nat Turner's 1831 revolt put an end to it.[161]: 14 [162]: 111 But only a minority in the North supported abolition, seen as an extreme, "radical" measure. (See Radical Republicans.) Horace Greeley remarked in 1854 that he had "never been able to discover any strong, pervading, over-ruling Anti Slavery sentiment in the Free States."[163] Free blacks were subject in the North as well as in the South to conditions almost inconceivable today (2019).[164]
Although the picture is neither uniform nor static, in general free blacks in the North were not citizens and could neither vote nor hold public office. They could not give testimony in court and their word was never taken against a white man's word, as a result of which white crimes against blacks were rarely punished.
Most colleges would not admit blacks. (
Southern actions against white abolitionists took legal channels: Amos Dresser was tried, convicted, and publicly whipped in Knoxville, and Reuben Crandall, Prudence Crandall's younger brother, was arrested in Washington D.C., and was found innocent, although he died soon of tuberculosis he contracted in jail. (The prosecutor was Francis Scott Key.) In Savannah, Georgia, the mayor and alderman protected an abolitionist visitor from a mob.[171]
In the North there was far more serious violence by mobs, what the press sometimes called "mobocracy".
Giving to blacks the same rights that whites had, as Garrison called for, was "far outside the mainstream of opinion in the 1830s."[177]: 27 Some opposed even allowing blacks to join abolitionist organizations.[178] The one time that Garrison defended Southern slave-owners was when he compared them with anti-abolitionist Northerners:
I found [in the North] contempt more bitter, opposition more active, detraction more relentless, prejudice more stubborn, and apathy more frozen, than among slave owners themselves.[179]: 36–37 [177]: 42
Alexis de Tocqueville, in Democracy in America said:
[T]he prejudice of race appears to be stronger in the States which have abolished slavery, than in those where it still exists; and nowhere is it so intolerant as In those States where servitude has never been known.[180]: 460
Similarly, Harriet Beecher Stowe stated that "The bitterness of Southern slaveholders was tempered by many considerations of kindness for servants born in their houses, or upon their estates; but the Northern slaveholder traded in men and women whom he never saw, and of whose separations, tears, and miseries he determined never to hear."[181]: 607
The pro-slavery reaction to abolitionism
Slave owners were angry over the attacks on what some Southerners (including the politician
Colonization and the founding of Liberia
In the early 19th century, a variety of organizations were established that advocated relocation of black people from the United States, most prominently the
Most African Americans opposed colonization, and simply wanted to be given the rights of free citizens in the United States. One notable opponent of such plans was the wealthy free black abolitionist James Forten of Philadelphia.
In 1832, prominent white abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison published his book Thoughts on African Colonization, in which he attacked severely the policy of sending blacks to (not "back to") Africa, and specifically the American Colonization Society. The Colonization Society, which he had previously supported, is "a creature without heart, without brains, eyeless, unnatural, hypocritical, relentless and unjust."[186]: 15 "Colonization", according to Garrison, was not a plan to eliminate slavery, but to protect it. As it was put by a Garrison supporter:
It is no object of the Colonization Society to ameliorate the condition of the slave.... The thing is, to get them out of the way; the welfare of the negro is not consulted at all.[186]: 13, 15
Garrison also pointed out that a majority of the colonists died of disease, and the number of free blacks actually resettled in the future Liberia was minute in comparison to the number of slaves in the United States. As put by the same supporter:
As a remedy for slavery, it must be placed amongst the grossest of all delusions. In fifteen years it has transported less than three thousand persons to the African coast; while the increase on their numbers, in the same period, is about seven hundred thousand!"[186]: 11
See also
- Abolitionism in Boston, Massachusetts
- Abolitionism in Brazil
- Abolitionism in France
- Abolitionism in New Bedford, Massachusetts
- Abolitionism in the United Kingdom
- Abraham Lincoln and slavery
- African American founding fathers of the United States
- Compensated emancipation
- George Washington and slavery
- History of slavery
- History of slavery in the United States
- James Redpath
- John Quincy Adams and abolitionism
- List of opponents of slavery
- Slavery among Native Americans in the United States
- Slavery in the colonial United States
- Thomas Jefferson and slavery
- Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom
- Treatment of the enslaved in the United States
Explanatory notes
- ^ Specifically, the Northern states adopted anti-slavery policies or court decisions as follows: Vermont (1777, before it had become a U.S. state);[3] Pennsylvania (1780);[4] Massachusetts (1783);[5] New Hampshire (1783);[3] Connecticut (1784);[6] Rhode Island (1784);[3] New York (1799);[3] Ohio (1802)[7] (although the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 had already banned slavery in the lands that would later become Ohio);[8][9] and New Jersey (1804).[3]
- ^ The Northern states adopted anti-slavery policies or court decisions as follows: Vermont (1777, before it had become a U.S. state);[3] Pennsylvania (1780);[4] Massachusetts (1783);[5] New Hampshire (1783);[3] Connecticut (1784);[6] Rhode Island (1784);[3] New York (1799);[3] Ohio (1802)[7] (although the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 had already banned slavery in the lands that would later become Ohio);[8][9] and New Jersey (1804).[3]
- Putnam and assisted [in April of 1835] in the formation of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society."[90], where, by the grace of Judge Sterling, his law office was made free to us for the purpose, and there was opened a school of abolition, where, copying documents, with hints, discussions and suggestions, we spent two weeks in earnest and most profitable drill. A chemical question arose, which related to
[W]e gathered at Cleveland
tar and feathers and how to erase their stain. This practical question was disposed of in a single lesson. The names of those availing themselves of this course were: T. D. Weld, S[ereno] W. Streeter, Edward Weld, H. B. Stanton, H[untington] Lyman, James A. Thome, J[ohn] W. Alvord, M[arcus] R. Robinson, George Whipple and W. T. Allan.[91]The American Anti-Slavery Society soon had up to 70 agents.
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- ISBN 023106800X.
- S2CID 143974211.
- ^ Clarke, Rev. James Freeman (1859). Present condition of the free colored people of the United States. New York: American Anti-Slavery Society. Archived from the original on 11 March 2021. Retrieved 3 December 2020.
- ^ "Persecution of colored people". Anti-Slavery Record. Vol. 1, no. 12. December 1835.
- S2CID 151585971.
- Project MUSE chapter 1124697.
- OCLC 1058274625. Archivedfrom the original on 7 July 2021. Retrieved 19 September 2019.
- ^ Irvine, Russell W.; Dunkerton, Donna Zani (Winter 1998). "The Noyes Academy, 1834–35: The Road to the Oberlin Collegiate Institute and the Higher Education of African-Americans in the Nineteenth Century". Western Journal of Black Studies. 22 (4): 260–273.
- S2CID 224836323.
- ISBN 9780199837601.
- ISBN 0195172817.
- The National Gazette (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). 16 July 1834. p. 2. Archivedfrom the original on 1 October 2019. Retrieved 1 October 2019 – via newspapers.com.
- The Newark Advocate (Newark, Ohio). 4 July 2005. p. 35. Archivedfrom the original on 1 October 2019. Retrieved 1 October 2019 – via newspapers.com.
- JSTOR 363035.
- Project MUSE book 8885.
- ^ ISBN 9780819576460.
- ^ Litwack, Leon F. (1961). The Abolitionist Dilemma: The Antislavery Movement and the Northern Negro (PDF). Vol. 34. pp. 50–73. Archived (PDF) from the original on 30 December 2019. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
{{cite book}}:|magazine=ignored (help) - Atlantic Monthly Press.
- ISBN 9780665415944.
- JSTOR 25100763.
- ^ "John C. Calhoun" Archived 9 April 2007 at the Wayback Machine, Clemson University
- ^ David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bondage (2006), pp. 186–192.
- ^ Mitchell Snay, "American Thought and Southern Distinctiveness: The Southern Clergy and the Sanctification of Slavery", Civil War History (1989) 35(4): 311–328; Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese, The Mind of the Master Class: History and Faith in the Southern Slaveholders' Worldview (2005), pp. 505–527.
- ^ "History Haunts War-Torn Liberia". National Geographic. July 2003. Archived from the original on 25 August 2014.
- ^ a b c Wiggins, John H. (1838). A review of anti-abolition sermon, preached at Pleasant Valley, N.Y., by Rev. Benjamin F. Wile, August, 1838. Whitesboro, New York: Press of the Oneida Institute.
General and cited references
- Morin, Isobel V. (1994). Women Who Reformed Politics. Oliver Press. pp. 13–27. ISBN 978-1-881508-16-8.
- ISBN 0-393-03026-1.
Further reading
- Abzug, Robert H. Cosmos Crumbling: American Reform and the Religious Imagination. Oxford University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-19-503752-9.
- "Anti-Slavery Books and Pamphlets. Anti-Slavery Publications". The Rochester Freeman (newspapers.com.
- Bacon, Jacqueline. The Humblest May Stand Forth: Rhetoric, Empowerment, and Abolition. University of South Carolina Press, 2002. ISBN 1-57003-434-6.
- Barnes, Gilbert H. The Anti-Slavery Impulse 1830–1844. Reprint, 1964. ISBN 0-7812-5307-1.
- ISBN 1-56584-997-3.
- Blue, Frederick J. No Taint of Compromise: Crusaders in Antislavery Politics. Louisiana State University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8071-2976-3.
- ISBN 0-06-052430-8.
- Carey, Brycchan. From Peace to Freedom: Quaker Rhetoric and the Birth of American Antislavery, 1657–1761. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012.
- ISBN 0-19-514073-7.
- ISBN 9780674064447
- Dinius, Marcy J. (2018). "Press". Early American Studies. 16 (4): 747–755. Project MUSE 707752.
- Filler, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery 1830–1860. 1960. ISBN 0-917256-29-8.
- Fischer, David Hackett. African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals (Simon & Schuster, 2022).
- Frost, Karolyn Smardz (2007). I've Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-374-53125-6.
- Gellman, David Nathaniel. Emancipating New York: The Politics of Slavery And Freedom, 1777–1827. Louisiana State University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-8071-3174-1.
- Hammond, John Craig and Matthew Mason, eds. Contesting Slavery: The Politics of Bondage and Freedom in the New American Nation. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2011. ISBN 9780813931050
- ISBN 0-8131-0968-X.
- Harrold, Stanley. The American Abolitionists. Longman, 2000. ISBN 0-582-35738-1.
- Harrold, Stanley. The Rise of Aggressive Abolitionism: Addresses to the Slaves. University Press of Kentucky, 2004. ISBN 0-8131-2290-2.
- Harrold, Stanley. American Abolitionism: Its Direct Political Impact from Colonial Times into Reconstruction (U of Virginia Press, 2019) online.
- Horton, James Oliver. "ISSN 1551-5486
- Huston, James L. "The Experiential Basis of the Northern Antislavery Impulse", Journal of Southern History 56:4 (November 1990): 609–640.
- Locke, Mary S. (1968). Anti-Slavery in America From the Introduction of African Slaves to the Prohibition of the Slave Trade (1619–1808). P. Smith. ISBN 978-0-3843-3290-4.
- James, E. Wyn, 'Robert Everett (1791–1875): "An Honourable Exception"', Ninnau: The North American Welsh Newspaper, 48:5 (September/October 2023), 24. ISSN 0890-0485, for the abolition movement among the Welsh in the USA.
- ISBN 0-312-18740-8.
- McKivigan, John R. The War Against Proslavery Religion: Abolitionism and the Northern Churches, 1830–1865. Cornell University Press, 1984. ISBN 0-8014-1589-6.
- ISBN 0-691-04637-9.
- Oakes, James. The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution. W. W. Norton, 2021.
- Oakes, James. Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861–1865. W. W. Norton, 2012.
- Osofsky, Gilbert. "Abolitionists, Irish Immigrants, and the Dilemmas of Romantic Nationalism" American Historical Review 1975 80(4): 889–912. ISSN 0002-8762
- Perry, Lewis and Michael Fellman, eds. Antislavery Reconsidered: New Perspectives on the Abolitionists. Louisiana State University Press, 1979. ISBN 0-8071-0889-8.
- Peterson, Merrill D. John Brown: The Legend Revisited. University Press of Virginia, 2002. ISBN 0-8139-2132-5.
- Pierson, Michael D. Free Hearts and Free Homes: Gender and American Antislavery Politics. University of North Carolina Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8078-2782-7.
- Quarles, Benjamin. "Sources of Abolitionist Income", Mississippi Valley Historical Review (1945) 32#1 pp. 63–76 in JSTOR Archived 21 December 2016 at the Wayback Machine
- Quarles, Benjamin. Black Abolitionists. Oxford University Press, 1969.
- Schafer, Judith Kelleher. Becoming Free, Remaining Free: Manumission and Enslavement in New Orleans, 1846–1862. Louisiana State University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8071-2862-7.
- Salerno, Beth A. Sister Societies: Women's Antislavery Organizations in Antebellum America. Northern Illinois University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-87580-338-5.
- Speicher, Anna M. The Religious World of Antislavery Women: Spirituality in the Lives of Five Abolitionist Lecturers. Syracuse University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-8156-2850-1.
- ISBN 0-674-00645-3.
- Vorenberg, Michael. Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment. Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-521-65267-7.
- Wilson, Thomas D. The Oglethorpe Plan: Enlightenment Design in Savannah and Beyond. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2012. ISBN 978-0-8139-3290-3.
- Yee, Shirley J. Black Women Abolitionists: A Study in Activism, 1828-1860 (University of Tennessee Press, 1992). online
- Zilversmit, Arthur. The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North. University of Chicago Press, 1967. ISBN 0-226-98332-3.
External links
- The Abolitionist Seminar, summaries, lesson plans, documents and illustrations for schools; focus on United States
- Original Document Proposing Abolition of Slavery 13th Amendment
- "John Brown's body and blood" by Ari Kelman: a review in the TLS, 14 February 2007.
- Report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice
- Elijah Parish Lovejoy: A Martyr on the Altar of American Liberty Archived 29 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine
- Teaching resources about Slavery and Abolition on blackhistory4schools.com
- John Brown Museum
- American Abolitionism
- James Monroe Whitfield black Abolitionist poet "America and other poems" 1853
- American Abolitionists and Antislavery Activists, comprehensive list of abolitionist and anti-slavery activists and organizations in the United States, including historic biographies and anti-slavery timelines, bibliographies, etc.
- Escape to Freedom at scholastic.com
- National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio
- The Liberator Files, Horace Seldon's collection and summary of research of William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberatororiginal copies at the Boston Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts.
- University of Detroit Mercy Black Abolitionist Archive, a collection of over 800 speeches by antebellum blacks and approximately 1,000 editorials from the period.
- Maps about "Slavery" in the U.S. at the Persuasive Cartography, The PJ Mode Collection, Cornell University Library
