Abolitionists in the United States from 1850 to 1880 played an important role in ending slavery. The abolitionist movement believed slavery was illegal, and the movement worked to end slavery in the United States. There were several famous abolitionists from different ethnic groups such as William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, a former slave. The Abolitionist Movement used various tools such as publications, newspapers, pamphlets and political conventions to spread its message about the abolition of slavery in the United States. Tensions between abolitionists and slave owners increased after the Missouri Compromise was passed. Tensions increased after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. This new law required freed persons to help capture fugitive slaves. Tensions between abolitionists and slave owners increased after the Supreme Court`s Dred-Scott decision, which concluded that blacks, whether free or enslaved, were not entitled to citizenship. An abolitionist was someone who wanted to end slavery, especially in the United States before the Civil War – when slave ownership was common.
After the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, pro- and anti-slavery groups inhabited the Kansas Territory. In 1856, a pro-slavery group attacked the town of Lawrence, founded by Massachusetts abolitionists. In retaliation, abolitionist John Brown staged a raid in which five pro-slavery settlers were killed. An abolitionist, as the name suggests, is a person who tried to abolish slavery in the 19th century. Specifically, these individuals sought the immediate and complete emancipation of all slaves. As the Civil War raged, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, hoping to free slaves living in states allied with the Confederate government. The proclamation was an initiative of the abolitionists, but did not free the slaves. It was not until 1865 that many slaverys were banned in the United States with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Most historians believe that the abolitionist movement ended when Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave black men the right to vote. The abolitionist movement gained momentum during the Second Great Awakening in the United States. They used the Second Great Awakening in the United States as a platform for abolitionists to spread their anti-slavery ideas in the United States.
At first, most abolitionists were white men like William Lloyd Garrison, who was the editor of The Liberator, an abolitionist publication in the North. The abolitionist movement grew stronger as more and more people learned about the evils of slavery. People were disgusted by the cruelty of the slave hunters who brought back the seekers for freedom to their owners. Harriet Beecher Stowe`s novel, Uncle Tom`s Cabin (1852), presents powerful descriptions of how slaves were abused. The book became extraordinarily popular. Most early abolitionists were white and religious Americans, but some of the movement`s most prominent leaders were also black men and women who had escaped servitude. When the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 went into effect, tensions between the two sides escalated and turned violent. John Brown led a group of abolitionists against pro-slavery activists and many struggles between the two groups in the new territories. The first formal organization to emerge in the abolitionist movement was the Abolition Society, founded in Britain in 1787. By 1807, Britain had abolished the slave trade with its colonies.
By 1833, all slaves in the British colonies in the Western Hemisphere had been freed. Other European countries quickly followed suit. The France banned the slave trade until 1819, and in 1848 slavery was banned in all French colonies. There were many publications containing propaganda for the abolitionist movement. In the Southern states, abolitionism and pro-abolition literature were banned as early as the 1830s. Even President Andrew Jackson has banned the U.S. Postal Service from providing literature associated with pro-abolitionists. They imprisoned people for producing abolitionist literature in the South. They also killed many abolitionists in the Southern states for producing abolitionist literature or propaganda. Although the abolitionist movement seemed to dissolve after the addition of the Thirteenth Amendment, many historians argue that efforts did not completely stop until 1870 with the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, which extended the right to vote to black men. Meanwhile, the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, granted citizenship to all persons “born or naturalized in the United States,” including former slaves. President Abraham Lincoln opposed slavery but was reluctant to fully support the most radical ideas of abolitionists.
When the power struggle between North and South reached its climax, civil war broke out in 1861. By 1840, slavery no longer existed in the northern states above the Mason-Dixon Line, established by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The compromise divided the country into an equal number of slave states in the South and free or non-slave states in the North. After Missouri was passed, compromise abolitionists supported anti-slavery politicians, and some ran for political office themselves. Many Americans, including free and formerly enslaved people, worked tirelessly to support the abolitionist movement. Some of the most famous abolitionists were: Did you know? Abolitionists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott became prominent figures in the women`s rights movement. Frederick Douglass, a former slave, was a leader of the American abolitionist movement. In the United States, the slave trade was officially abolished in 1807, but slave smuggling continued until the Civil War. As cotton plantations expanded in the South, the demand for slaves increased.
The Southern states therefore supported slavery. By 1804, all states north of Maryland had abolished slavery. The North became the center of the abolitionist movement in the United States. In the late 1700s, people who opposed slavery started a movement to abolish or end the practice. This has been called the abolitionist movement. The followers of the movement were known as abolitionists. When slavery officially ended, many prominent abolitionists focused on women`s rights issues. Historians believe that the experiences and lessons learned during the abolitionist movement paved the way for leaders who eventually succeeded in the women`s suffrage movements.