Abolitionist Movement

The goal of the abolitionist movement was the immediate emancipation of all slaves and the end of racial discrimination and segregation. Advocating for immediate emancipation distinguished abolitionists from more moderate anti-slavery advocates who argued for gradual emancipation, and from free-soil activists who sought to restrict slavery to existing areas and prevent its spread further west. Radical abolitionism was partly fueled by the religious fervor of the Second Great Awakening, which prompted many people to advocate for emancipation on religious grounds. Abolitionist ideas became increasingly prominent in Northern churches and politics beginning in the 1830s, which contributed to the regional animosity between North and South leading up to the Civil War.

The Underground Railroad c.1780 - 1862

The Underground Railroad, a vast network of people who helped fugitive slaves escape to the North and to Canada, was not run by any single organization or person. Rather, it consisted of many individuals -- many whites but predominantly black -- who knew only of the local efforts to aid fugitives and not of the overall operation. Still, it effectively moved hundreds of slaves northward each year -- according to one estimate, the South lost 100,000 slaves between 1810 and 1850. Still, only a small percentage of escaping slaves received assistance from the Underground Railroad.

An organized system to assist runaway slaves seems to have begun towards the end of the 18th century. In 1786 George Washington complained about how one of his runaway slaves was helped by a "society of Quakers, formed for such purposes." The system grew, and around 1831 it was dubbed "The Underground Railroad," after the then emerging steam railroads. The system even used terms used in railroading: the homes and businesses where fugitives would rest and eat were called "stations" and "depots" and were run by "stationmasters," those who contributed money or goods were "stockholders," and the "conductor" was responsible for moving fugitives from one station to the next.

For the slave, running away to the North was anything but easy. The first step was to escape from the slaveholder. For many slaves, this meant relying on his or her own resources. Sometimes a "conductor," posing as a slave, would enter a plantation and then guide the runaways northward. The fugitives would move at night. They would generally travel between 10 and 20 miles to the next station, where they would rest and eat, hiding in barns and other out-of-the-way places. While they waited, a message would be sent to the next station to alert its stationmaster.

The fugitives would also travel by train and boat -- conveyances that sometimes had to be paid for. Money was also needed to improve the appearance of the runaways -- a black man, woman, or child in tattered clothes would invariably attract suspicious eyes. This money was donated by individuals and also raised by various groups, including vigilance committees.

Vigilance committees sprang up in the larger towns and cities of the North, most prominently in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. In addition to soliciting money, the organizations provided food, lodging and money, and helped the fugitives settle into a community by helping them find jobs and providing letters of recommendation.

The Underground Railroad had many notable participants, including John Fairfield in Ohio, the son of a slaveholding family, who made many daring rescues, Levi Coffin, a Quaker who assisted more than 3,000 slaves, and Harriet Tubman, who made 19 trips into the South and escorted over 300 slaves to freedom.

Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman was an American bondwoman who escaped from slavery in the South to become a leading abolitionist before the American Civil War. She was born in Maryland in 1820, and successfully escaped in 1849. Yet she returned many times to rescue both family members and non-relatives from the plantation system. She led hundreds to freedom in the North as the most famous "conductor" on the Underground Railroad, an elaborate secret network of safe houses organized for that purpose.

In April 1858, Tubman was introduced to the abolitionist John Brown, who advocated the use of violence to disrupt and destroy the institution of slavery. Tubman shared Brown’s goals and at least tolerated his methods. Tubman claimed to have had a prophetic vision of Brown before they met. When Brown began recruiting supporters for an attack on slaveholders at Harper’s Ferry, he turned to “General Tubman” for help. After Brown’s subsequent execution, most southerners saw him as a criminal. Tubman, as well as most northerners and abolitionists, however, praised him as a martyr.

North vs. South agriculture North The Northwest's agriculture slowly became more industrialized as the decades went on. By adopting new cultivating techniques, farmers were able to greatly increase production. Farmers began to use new types of seeds, import breeds of domesticated animals from Europe and utilize the numerous inventions from the Northeast. Steel plows, automatic reaper and the thresher became commonly used by the Northern farmers. These ground-breaking machines sped up the harvesting of wheat by almost 50 percent, therefore escalating production. This surge of production helped form the strong economic alliance between the two Northern sections, the factory centered Northeast and the agricultural Northwest. This however, increased the isolation of the South within the Union (Brinkley, 274). The Northern free states also were proved to produce more crops than the South, even with the North having considerably smaller labor force than the South's slave industry. For instance, the North produced 499,190,041 total bushels of crops, including wheat, oats and more, in 1850, while the South produced only 481,766,889 bushels of the same crops in the same year. (Helper, 189). The North's increased crops is most likely due to the recent invention of many farming machines that the South did invent and utilize. The northern farms were originally centered around little communities, but as they pushed farther west, they became more isolated and only worked with their families to make a profit. The major force that drew farm communities together was religion, which was one of the only reasons for communication. However, around the time of harvest large numbers of families gathered to bring in the crops allowing families to produce more crops (Brinkley, 275).

South The country had become very dependent on agriculture from the South. In fact, by 1860, exports grown in the south accounted for over half all US foreign trade. The South's agricultural system was more focused on cotton growing and slave trade than other aspects of farming. Southerners utilized the plantation system, creating a wealthy planter class, who owned hundreds of slaves to do the difficult farming labor of planting and harvesting cotton and keep up with the daily farm tasks. These planters, along with capitalists in this area, invested ample amounts of money in land and slave trade, both crucial parts of Southern agriculture. After investing so much money in these areas, it left little to be invested in other areas of trade. Also, the South tended to have different values than their northern counterparts. The southerners were inclined to believe that they were "representatives of a special way of life" (Brinkley, 284). In turn, both of these aspects of the South contributed to the isolation of the South from the North, and the growing separation of the two Union sections. (Brinkley, 284). The South also produced less crops in a year than the North, aforementioned above. The reasoning behind the South's deceased production is most likely due to the major cotton industry in the South, as it was not able to be grown in the North. The working conditions in the south tended to be difficult and harsh, due to the sometimes unbearable heat and the cruelty of the slave owners. Slaves lived in prisonlike conditions in some areas and were susceptible to harsh punishment if they disobeyed their master (Brinkley, 289).