American Antislavery 1820-1860
American Antislavery 1820-1860
The antebellum American antislavery movement began in the 1820s and was sustained over 4 decades by organizations, publications, and small acts of resistance that challenged the legally protected and powerful institution of slavery and the more insidious enemy of black equality, racism. Abolitionists were always a radical minority even in the free states of the North, and the movement was never comprised of a single group of people with unified motivations, goals, and methods. Rather, the movement was fraught with ambiguity over who its leaders would be, how they would go about fighting the institution of slavery, and what the future would be like for black Americans.
Some of the persisting goals of antislavery activism were legal emancipation, aid to runaway slaves through vigilance groups and the Underground Railroad, civil rights for freed blacks in the north, and education, suffrage, and economic advancement for African-Americans. Perhaps the most unifying ideal of the anti-slavery movement was that the racial basis forAmerican slavery could be undermined by promoting Christian values, education and economic progress among free blacks to show that they were capable of succeeding as individuals in an integrated American society. Richard Allen, leader of the A.M.E. church, stated the case for black progress as an answer to the justifications of slaveholders: “if we are lazy and idol, the enemies of freedom plead it as a cause why we ought not to be free.” In addition to the connection between abolition and economic and social progress, most abolitionists worked for the assurance of civil rights and legal protection for free blacks, who lived in an anomalous condition of “freedom” without citizenship and with constant threat of discrimination, violence, and abduction to be sold into slavery.
There were some bitter conflicts over specific strategies. Though Garrison and most blacks favored immediate abolition, many whites
The antebellum American antislavery movement began in the 1820s and was sustained over 4 decades by organizations, publications, and small acts of resistance that challenged the legally protected and powerful institution of slavery and the more insidious enemy of black equality, racism. Abolitionists were always a radical minority even in the free states of the North, and the movement was never comprised of a single group of people with unified motivations, goals, and methods. Rather, the movement was fraught with ambiguity over who its leaders would be, how they would go about fighting the institution of slavery, and what the future would be like for black Americans.
Some of the persisting goals of antislavery activism were legal emancipation, aid to runaway slaves through vigilance groups and the Underground Railroad, civil rights for freed blacks in the north, and education, suffrage, and economic advancement for African-Americans. Perhaps the most unifying ideal of the anti-slavery movement was that the racial basis forAmerican slavery could be undermined by promoting Christian values, education and economic progress among free blacks to show that they were capable of succeeding as individuals in an integrated American society. Richard Allen, leader of the A.M.E. church, stated the case for black progress as an answer to the justifications of slaveholders: “if we are lazy and idol, the enemies of freedom plead it as a cause why we ought not to be free.” In addition to the connection between abolition and economic and social progress, most abolitionists worked for the assurance of civil rights and legal protection for free blacks, who lived in an anomalous condition of “freedom” without citizenship and with constant threat of discrimination, violence, and abduction to be sold into slavery.
There were some bitter conflicts over specific strategies. Though Garrison and most blacks favored immediate abolition, many whites