Essential Question:

Why were some reasons that the vast majority of Americans were unwilling to take sides in the debate over slavery in the 1830s? Evangelical Abolitionism Rejecting Walker’s call for violence, northern evangelical Christians launched a moral crusade to outlaw slavery If planters did not allow blacks their God-given status as free moral agents, these radical Christians warned, they faced eternal damnation at the hands of a just God People like set about getting in the face of slaveholders through his newspaper, the Liberator Garrison, Weld, & the Grimke Sisters

Garrison was a young Massachusetts printer who worked on a Baltimore anti- slavery newspaper of the 1820s, The Genius of Universal Emancipation 1830-Garrison went to jail, convicted of libeling a New England merchant engaged in the domestic slave trade 1831-The same year as Turner’s Revolt, Garrison moved back to , where he started his own weekly newspaper, The Liberator, & founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society “I WILL NOT RETREAT A SINGLE INCH” Garrison demanded slaves be freed immediately without compensation He accused the American Colonization Society, which was recruiting free blacks for return to Africa, of perpetuating slavery He assailed the US Constitution as “a covenant with death and an agreement with Hell” because it accepted racial bondage Other Northerners Thought Like Him

1833-Garrison, Theodore Weld, & 60 other religious abolitionists, black & white, established the American Anti-Slavery Society Arthur & , wealthy New York silk merchants, gave them funds Women abolitionists established their own groups, including Lucretia Mott’s Philadelphia Theodore Weld Female Anti-Slavery Society Through a network of local societies, women Lucretia Mott raised money for The Liberator & carried the movement to the farm villages & small towns of the Midwest Their goal: distribute abolitionist literature & collect thousands of signatures on antislavery petitions

Arthur Tappan Lewis Tappan The Grimke Sisters To win the support of religious Americans, Theodore Weld published The Bible Against Slavery in 1837-He said Christian’s holiest book condemned slavery 1839-Weld teamed up with Sarah & Angelina Grimke of South Carolina (he ended up marrying Angelina) The Grimke girls had left their Angelina Grimke Sarah Grimke father’s plantation over slavery, converted to Quakerism, & had taken up the abolitionist cause in Philadelphia Together they published American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses Using First-Hand Evidence

Using reports from Southern newspapers & first-hand accounts, they presented incriminating evidence of the inherent violence of slavery “One poor girl, sent there to be flogged, and who was accordingly stripped naked and whipped, showed me the deep gashes on her back—I might have laid my whole finger in them—large pieces of flesh had actually been cut out by the torturing lash” Filled with such images of pain & suffering, the book sold more than 100,000 copies in a single year The American Anti-Slavery Society Using the new steam powered presses, the abolitionists printed a million pamphlets They used mass communication techniques The American Anti-Slavery Society carried out a “great postal campaign” in 1835, flooding the nation, including the South, with its literature Their second tactic: aid fugitive slaves in escaping their masters The Beginning of the

They set up a network of sympathizers who provided lodging and jobs for escaped slaves in free states This so-called “Underground Railroad” had operatives, white & black, in Richmond, Charleston, & other southern towns In Baltimore, a free African American sailor loaned his identification papers to a young slave, Frederick Douglass, who used them to escape to New York Harriet Tubman

This little woman escaped from slavery, yet returned to the South 19 times to bring out more than 300 slaves to the North She and other runaways risked re-enslavement or death “I should fight for…liberty as long as my strength lasted, and when the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me” she explained Thanks to the Underground Railroad, about 1000 African Americans reached freedom in the North each year from 1835-1850 The Not-So-Friendly North

Most northern whites were not willing to grant civic or social equality to African Americans Voters in 6 northern & mid-western states adopted constitutional amendments that denied or limited the right to vote for free blacks Under the Fugitive Salve Law of 1793, slave owners & their hired slave catchers were allowed to seize suspected runaways & return them to slavery Often, though, white abolitionists would form mobs to attack slave catchers, release their prisoners, & spirit them off to Canada, which refused to extradite fugitive slaves The Political Strategy

While using the mass media and the Underground Railroad, abolitionists had a 3rd strategy Between 1835-1838, the American Anti-Slavery Society bombarded Congress with petitions containing nearly 500,000 signatures They demanded the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, where slave markets could be seen not far from the White House They also insisted on an end to the interstate slave trade, & a ban on admission of new slave states Who Supported the Abolitionists?

Thousands of deeply-religious farmers & small-town merchants joined the network of anti-slavery societies 1835—There were 200 such societies, but by 1840, the number had grown to 2000, with nearly 200,000 members Transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson & Henry David Thoreau joined the cause Thoreau was arrested for refusing to pay his taxes because they were used to finance the Mexican War, which he considered a naked scheme to extend slavery 1848-He published “Resistance to Civil Government” in which he urged individuals to follow a higher moral law & peacefully resist unjust laws Opposition and Internal Conflict While raising a lot of noise in the North and antagonizing southern planters, abolitionists remained in the minority Perhaps 10% of northerners and midwesterners strongly supported the movement Only another 20% were sympathetic to its goals By contrast, a small minority of plantations had more than 50 slaves Over 80,000 southern households kept just one slave The map shows slavery was concentrated in cotton-growing areas, or in Virginia, which bred slaves for trading Attacks on Abolition

Those who supported slavery did not just stand back & take the verbal abuse from abolitionists Ministers warned that abolitionist agitation risked setting one part of society against another Wealthy men feared an attack on slave property might become an assault on all property rights Conservative clergymen looked at how the abolition movement Accompanying text: “God bless you was dominated by women, and massa! you feed and clothe us. When we condemned their activities as are sick, you nurse us, and when too old sinful to work, you provide for us!” This represented the pro-slavery view of the ante-bellum South in its defense of the “peculiar institution.” Attacks from Northerners

Northern wage workers—those who worked in factories—feared that freed blacks would take their jobs Since southern cotton supplied the raw materials for many northern factories, many merchants & manufacturers supported slavery To underline the national reach of slavery, hog farmers in Ohio, Indiana, & Illinois & pork packers in Cincinnati profited from lucrative sales to slave plantations They were not very supportive of abolition Racial Mixing One big taboo for nearly all whites was the idea of “amalgamation”—racial mixing & intermarriage It seemed that abolitionists like Garrison were supporting racial mixing by holding meetings of blacks & whites of both sexes Such racial fears led to mob actions and violence

Southerners: This is what Garrison wants for all. Attacking Blacks & Abolitionists

White workers in northern towns often laid waste to taverns & brothels where blacks & whites mixed They vandalized “respectable” African American churches, temperance, halls, & orphanages 1833-A New York mob stormed a church in search of Garrison & the Tappan brothers Another white mob swept thru Philadelphia, clubbing & stoning black residents, destroying homes & churches The Death of Elijah P. Lovejoy

1835-”Gentlemen of property & standing”—that is, lawyers, merchants, & bankers, broke up an abolitionist convention in Utica, New York 1837-A mob broke into the offices of the Alton Observer, an abolitionist newspaper in Alton, Illinois They shot & killed the editor, Elijah P. Lovejoy By pressing for emancipation & equality, abolitionists had revealed just how much racial prejudice existed in America at the time Racial Solidarity in the South Whites in the South officially banned abolitionists The Georgia Legislature offered a $5000 reward for anyone who would kidnap Garrison & bring him to the South to be tried (or lynched) Nashville—Vigilantes whipped a northern college student for distributing abolitionist literature Charleston—A mob attacked a post office & destroyed sacks of abolitionist mail After 1835, southern postmasters simply refused to deliver any mail they thought might be from abolitionists Shutting Off Debate Over Slavery

1835-Pres. Andrew Jackson, a Tennessee slaveholder, asked Congress to restrict the sue of the mails by abolitionist groups Congress refused, but in 1836, the House of Representatives adopted the “gag rule” Under this law, the House automatically tabled any anti-slavery petition sent to Congress, keeping the explosive issue of slavery off the national agenda until 1844, when it was repealed Internal Divisions As racists attacked the evangelical abolitionists, the anti-slavery forces fought amongst themselves over gender issues Many anti-slavery clergymen opposed the idea of women’s involvement in the movement Garrison, however, broadened his reform agenda to not only include slavery, but also pacifism, abolition of prisons, & women’s rights Turned Away at the Door 1840-Elizabeth Cady Stanton went with her abolitionist husband to London for the World Anti- Slavery Convention They were both delegates, but when they tried to enter the convention, Stanton & other women delegates were denied entry At the convention, Stanton found a friend in Quaker abolitionist Lucretia Mott The pair returned to the US determined to advance women’s Elizabeth Lucretia rights Cady Mott They found a friend in Garrison, but Stanton some of the American Anti- Slavery Society split off because of its endorsement of women’s rights A New Abolitonist Group Forms

Those who disagreed with the women’s rights movement founded a new organization, the American & Foreign Anti-Slavery Society Its members began organizing the Liberty Party, the first anti-slavery political party 1840-The Liberty Party nominated James G. Birney for president Birney, as former slave owner, argued that the Constitution did not recognize slavery as legal, therefore, slaves should be free whenever they entered Washington, DC or the western territories Birney won few votes—abolition’s future looked dim Abolitionism Seems to Stall

With popular violence against abolitionists in the North & South, and internal schisms among its members, the abolitionist movement seemed stunned Blending the energies & ideas of evangelical Protestants, reformers, & transcendentalists, it had raised the banner of anti-slavery to new heights, only to face a hostile backlash “When we first unfurled the banner of The Liberator, it did not occur to us that nearly every religious sect, and every political party would side with the oppressor,” Garrison admitted