The Abolitionist Movement

Lindsay Levin, David Lefkowitz, Kyle Connors, Enbar Ozeri

What was the abolitionist movement?• The attempt of emancipation of all

slaves and the end of racial discrimination and segregation during the time of the Civil War

• A great influence on the Abolitionist Movement was the Second Great Awakening, a religious revival movement

The Beginning• One of the first supporters of

abolitionism was William Lloyd Garrison, who published the famous newspaper The Liberator.

• 1833, more than 60 delegates gathered in Philadelphia to found the American Anti-Slavery Society

• denounced slavery as a sin that must be abolished immediately, endorsed nonviolence, and condemned racial prejudice

Frederick Douglass• escaped slavery and

became an abolitionist movement leader

• known for his incisive anti-slavery writing

• wrote many autobiographies about life as a slave

• "I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong."

The Liberty Party• A minor political party in the 1840s;

early advocate of abolitionism• Party was made up of abolitionists who

worked within electoral politics to try and influence the population to support their goals

• Did not gain much support

Compromise of 1850/ Fugitive Slave Act• Popular Sovereignty: the people would

pick whether a state would have slaves or be free

• California becomes state, Republic of Texas gave up some land

• Fugitive Slave Act: made any federal official who did not arrest a runaway slave liable to pay a fine

• Popular sovereignty allowed abolitionists a chance to sway territories toward ending slavery

Uncle tom’s Cabin• 1852, famous anti-slavery

novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe

• The novel depicts the reality of slavery while also asserting that Christian love can overcome something as destructive as slavery.

• was called the “most popular novel of our day”

• goal was to change how Americans viewed slavery

Kansas-Nebraska Act/ Bleeding Kansas

• This act allowed both of these territories to decide upon the issue of slavery based on popular sovereignty

• Bleeding Kansas: Kansas was not a very populous state, so many families settled in state to vote on this issue.

• “bully-boys” would come to intimidate voters and disrupt polls

• Kansas had voted to be free-soil, but popular sovereignty was never used again

Formation of the republican Party• Three northern leaders Horace Greeley,

Salmon Chase, and Charles Summer could not sit back and watch the flood of pro-slavery settlers cross the parallel, so they decided a new party was needed.

• 10,000 people turned out for a mass meeting “Under the Oaks.” Which led to the first organized convention in Pittsburgh on February 22, 1856.

• 1856 in Philadelphia Pennsylvania, the gavel fell to open the Party’s first nominating convention, which announced the birth of the Republican party as a unified political force.

Dred Scott Court Decision• In 1857, the United States Supreme Court declared

that all black people (slaves and free) could never become citizens and that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, therefore allowing slavery in all of the country’s territories.

• Dred Scott was a slave who lived in free states and then moved back to the slave state of Missouri, he brought his case to the Supreme Court in hopes to be given his freedom.

• Chief Justice Roger B. Taney was pro-slavery and explained that the Declaration of Independence didn’t consider “all men are created equal” to include black men.

• Although, Dred Scott wasn’t granted his freedom, it brought slavery to the United States’ attention and became a step closer to abolishing slavery.

Abraham Lincoln Stephen Douglas

Lincoln/Douglas Debates• In 1958, debates

between Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln were held in order to receive a seat in the US Senate from Illinois.

• Douglas was a well-known democrat, he was responsible for the Kansas-Nebraska Act, he helped with the Compromise of 1850, and he chaired the Senate Committee on Territories.

Presidential Election/ Start of South Secession

• After Lincoln was elected president and before his inauguration, states from the south saw this as a threat

• Seven states seceded from the Union: Mississippi, Texas, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana

• Delegates from the states except Texas, met to create a new government called the “Confederate States of America” and elected a president, Jefferson Davis.

• When Lincoln was inaugurated he explained that he had no need  to end slavery in slave states, but he also didn’t accept that they seceded from the Union. He also wanted to resolve the situation peacefully.

Beginning of Civil War• The Civil War started at Fort Sumter when the confederates demanded the Union surrender at Fort Sumter.

• When the Union refused, the Confederates began bombarding the fort, causing the Union to surrender

• Although there were no casualties, the bombardment of Fort Sumter was the beginning of the Civil War.

Emancipation Proclamation• An executive order issued on January 1,1863 to

proclaim freedom of slaves in the ten states then in the rebellion

• The proclamation did not compensate the owners, did not itself outlaw slavery, and did not make the ex-slaves citizens

• Lincoln announced that he would issue a formal emancipation of all the slaves in any state of the Confederate States of America that did not return to union control by January 1, 1863.

• The Proclamation freed most slaves as a war measure it did NOT make slavery illegal. Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, and West Virginia prohibited slavery before the war ended; however, in Delaware and Kentucky slavery continued to be legal until December 18,1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment went into effect.

Thirteenth Amendment• Completely outlawed slavery as well as involuntary servitude

• First Section: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

• Second Section: Victims of human trafficking and other conditions of forced labor are commonly coerced by threat of legal actions to their detriment

• Corwin Amendment: would have forbidden the adoption of any constitutional amendment that would have abolished or restricted slavery, or permitted the Congress to do so. However, did not persuade the southern states to not secede from the union.