The Abolitionist Movement

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All throughout history, and even today, people will have their own positions on certain subjects, in the early half of the 19th century a raving topic was that of slavery. Along with the bringing of the first Africans into America came the controversy of whether it was right to use and abuse fellow humans just because of the color of their skin. The period of opposition towards slavery can be broken down into two periods, a period of antislavery movements prior to 1830 and a period of abolitionist movements from the 1830s until the end of the civil war. Despite the efforts of many in the period of antislavery, the movement just didn’t generate an impact as grand as that of the abolitionist’s movement. The antislavery movement in the long run only aided in the removal of most slavery in the North, where slaves weren’t even really needed, and the colonization of a few Southern slaves in other areas outside the country, while the abolitionists movement led to a war that resulted in the freeing of millions of enslaved people, a truly revolutionary event in American history. The period of antislavery is easily categorized as nothing big at all, rather just by calm and gentle people that expressed disapproval in the practice and didn’t engage in many activities to do something about the situation. In the North they pled their case, claiming that slavery was an inhumane atrocity and that it should be forbidden. The North, not relying so heavily on the strenuous work of slaves due to the reliance on skilled work as opposed to strength-required labor, agreed with them and removed most of the slave force in the North. However the South remained unfazed by the North’s movements towards a more equal society between races. One “solution” th... ... middle of paper ... ...to changes in economy, because now there was no cheap labor in the South, so agriculture became less profitable, which led to more movement to the northern industries. Although the efforts where there in the antislavery movements prior to 1830, they lacked the drive and intensity to transform the opinions of Americans and change the nation. Though they did free some slaves through both the idea of colonization, implemented by the American Colonization Society, and simple persuasion, it wasn’t enough to compete with the millions of slaves given their freedom through the winning of the civil war and the establishment of the 13th amendment thanks to the valiant efforts of the abolitionists. The post 1830s abolitionists are the fathers of equality (when speaking about race) and really left their mark in United States history unlike the pre-1830s antislavery activists.

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