How did abolitionists want to change us society in the early 1800s?
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William Lloyd Garrison published the Liberator, a radical anti-slavery newspaper, from 1831 until after the end of the Civil War in 1865. One of the few whites to support Walker's Appeal, he favored a non-violent, pacifist approach known as moral suasion; if people could be persuaded of the immorality of slavery, they would change their ways. Garrison used incendiary language to advocate the immediate emancipation of all slaves and their legal equality in every way with the country's white citizens. Some southerners alleged a link between the Liberator and the August, 1831 slave uprising in Virginia, led by Nat Turner, in which over 55 whites were killed. Show Garrison denounced the insurrection in Editorial Regarding David Walker's Appeal stating that "a good end does not justify wicked means." Women played a strong role in the abolitionist movement, often breaking new ground for women as well as for blacks. By the mid-1830s, abolitionists engaged in heated debates over whether women should participate in "male" activities for the sake of the cause. In fact, the idea for the first convention for women's rights, held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848, grew out of women abolitionists' dissatisfaction with the limitations placed on their role. In 1831, Maria Stewart began to write essays and make speeches against slavery, promoting educational and economic self-sufficiency for blacks. The first black woman, or woman of any color, to speak on political issues in public, Stewart gave her last public speech in 1833 before retiring to work only in women's organizations. Although her career was short, it set the stage for the African American women speakers who followed: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman, among others. Since more direct participation in the public arena was fraught with difficulties and danger, many women assisted the movement by boycotting slave-produced goods and organizing fairs and food sales to raise money for the cause. Pennsylvania Hall was the site in 1838 of the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women. As 3,000 white and black women gathered to hear prominent abolitionists such as Maria Weston Chapman and Angelina Grimké Weld, the speakers' voices were drowned out by the mob which had gathered outside. When the women emerged, arms linked in solidarity, they were stoned and insulted. The mob returned the following day and burned the hall, which had been inaugurated only three days earlier, to the ground. • Pennsylvania Hall When the women emerged, arms linked in solidarity, they were stoned and insulted. • Henry Highland Garnet • Garnet's "Call to Rebellion" • Frederick Douglass • The Meaning of the Fourth of July for the Negro Mob violence against abolitionists began to increase, as they were seen as a threat to the social order. And increasingly in the 1840s, abolitionist leaders were escaped slaves. They had a different, more personal approach to the issue of slavery and were more anxious for action rather than rhetoric in the fight for freedom. Henry Highland Garnet, a well-educated clergyman born a slave, issued his incendiary Call to Rebellion at the 1843 National Negro Convention in Buffalo, New York. His speech, which encouraged slaves to rise up against their masters rather than wait for political solutions to their plight, was not endorsed by the committee. The American Anti-Slavery Society was one of the most prominent abolitionist organizations in the United States of America during the early nineteenth century. In 1833, abolitionists Theodore Weld, Arthur Tappan, and Lewis Tappan founded the American Anti-Slavery Society. These men provided local and state antislavery societies, including the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, with an organization that could take their cause to the national level. The American Anti-Slavery Society hoped to convince both white Southerners and Northerners of slavery's inhumanity. The organization sent lecturers across the North to convince people of slavery's brutality. The speakers hoped to convince people that slavery was immoral and ungodly and thus should be outlawed. The American Anti-Slavery Society also bombarded the United States Congress with petitions calling for the end of slavery. Rather than addressing the slavery issue, Congress imposed "the gag rule." The gag rule stated that Congress would not accept any petitions from the people of the United States that pertained to slavery. Unlike earlier organizations, American Anti-Slavery Society members called for an immediate end to slavery. Most of the society's members also demanded that African Americans receive the same political, economic, and social rights as white people. Leadership of the American Anti-Slavery Society soon passed to William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison was perhaps the most vocal and best-known opponent of slavery before the Civil War. Under his leadership, the organization attracted more than 150,000 members. In 1840, the American Anti-Slavery Society split. Garrison and his supporters called for the creation of a new government that prohibited slavery from the very beginning. He contended that the United States Constitution was an illegal document because it denied African Americans their freedom. If the South would not agree to form a new nation that outlawed slavery, Garrison said that the North should secede from the United States and create its own country. Some members of the American Anti-Slavery Society, including most members of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, thought that Garrison's views were too radical. They agreed that slavery was wrong but also believed that the United States Constitution had created a legitimate government under which the people had the right to end oppression. These abolitionists hoped to elect people of their beliefs to political offices to make laws ending slavery. To achieve this end, these abolitionists formed the Liberty Party. Another reason contributed to the split within the American Anti-Slavery Society. Garrison's followers called for women to receive prominent roles within the abolitionist movement. Not all abolitionists agreed that women were the equals of men and refused to take direction from people that they believed to be inferior. Abolitionists remained divided until the end of the American Civil War in 1865, when the United States formally ended slavery throughout the entire country with the Thirteenth Amendment. The American Anti-Slavery Society disbanded in 1870. How did abolitionists change American society?After the Civil War began in 1861, abolitionists rallied to the Union cause. They rejoiced when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, declaring the slaves free in many parts of the South. In 1865, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery in the country.
What is abolitionism and how did it affect the US in the mid 1800s?Abolitionism was a social reform effort to abolish slavery in the United States. It started in the mid-eighteenth century and lasted until 1865, when slavery was officially outlawed after the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
What did the abolition movement want to change?Slavery. Slavery was a deeply rooted institution in North America that remained legal in the United States until 1865. It took the abolition movement, a civil war, and the ratification of the 13th amendment to end slavery.
How did abolishing slavery change society?Former slaves would now be classified as “labor,” and hence the labor stock would rise dramatically, even on a per capita basis. Either way, abolishing slavery made America a much more productive, and hence richer country.
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