religiously inspired activists saw blacks
and whites as one family created by
God, although many remained
paternalistic toward blacks and were
reluctant to accept the notion of full
social equality. Garrison and his
followers also alienated more traditional
abolitionists by supporting women’s
rights. Some Southerners saw a link
between The Liberator and Nat Turner’s
insurrection and demanded that
Garrison’s paper be shut down.The postal campaign of 1835
The abolitionists were a tiny minority,
but they used newspapers and the
postal system to spread their message—
even to the South. In 1835, members of
the AAS gathered the names and
addresses of politicians, clergymen,
businessmen, and prominent citizens to
create a national mailing list. They then
mailed abolitionist papers, pamphlets,
tracts, children’s books, and sheet music
across the nation, including the South.
Southerners were outraged. Many
Southern states had already banned the
circulation of abolitionist literature, and
President Andrew Jackson authorized
postmasters in each community to
censor the mails as they saw fit. Mail
bags were opened and literature deemed
inflammatory or
dangerous was
seized and
frequently burned.
Even Northerners
opposed to these
tactics by
abolitionists were
troubled by this restriction on the free
speech of fellow white citizens.
Southern politicians demanded that
public “agitation” about slavery cease as
a matter of safety and sectional peace.
Southern Democrats and Whigs agreed
that the right of citizens to petition
Congress on the subject of slavery must
also stop. A “gag rule” was devised that
blocked presentation of citizen petitions
in Congress between 1836 and 1844.Violence against abolitionists
In a nation where slavery was legal
and its products the core of the export
economy, abolitionists often met aAN IMPERFECT UNIOND
avid Walker, a free black, wrote
his Appeal to the Colored Citizens of
the World in 1829, demanding the
immediate abolition of slavery. Echoing
the Declaration of Independence, he
asserted that blacks were Americans
and entitled to the rights of citizens.
He denounced moderate anti-slavery
leaders who advocated sending free
blacks to the struggling colony of
Liberia, and accused the United States
of hypocrisy as a Christian nation.
Shortly after its publication, copies of
Walker’s Appeal were discovered in
South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, and
Louisiana, carried South by free black
sailors. White Southerners feared that
free blacks and sympathetic Northerners
were inciting slaves to rebellion. To
prevent such insurrections, most
Southern states banned teaching all
blacks—slave or free—to read.Rebellion in Virginia
In 1831, Southerners’ worst fears were
realized when the slave Nat Turner
led an insurrection in Southampton
County, Virginia. Turner and his allies
swiftly moved between isolated farms,
killing all the whites they encountered,
some 70 people in all. Terrified Virginians
killed anyone believed associated with
the revolt and finally captured Turner
two months later and executed him. The
revolt underscored the lie of contented
slaves who harbored no ambitions for
freedom or vengeance. After the revolt,BEFORE
Opposition to slavery began in the colonial
era, but in the 30 years prior to the Civil War,
abolitionist organizations formed to promote
freedom at the local and national level.
RELIGIOUS INSPIRATION
Few white Americans actively opposed slavery
before 1830, but the abolition of slavery in
many Northern states, by the British Empire,
and in most of the new nations of Latin
America marked its continuation in the
American South as an anomaly.
Numerous religious revivalist
movements, particularly across the North,
stimulated newly energized evangelicals to
seek the perfection of American society by
eliminating shameful social and political
evils, such as slavery.
DIFFERING APPROACHES
White abolitionists attacked slavery as
a moral and political evil even as they
disagreed among themselves. One faction
demanded immediate emancipation and
complete political equality for blacks. They
would tolerate no compromises with
slaveholders and offered no compensation.
Gradualists hoped to minimize social
and economic upheaval by emancipating
slaves slowly and providing owners with
some kind of compensation.
the Virginia legislature debated the
future of slavery in the state. Some
recognized the evils of slavery; others
feared that it slowed economic
development and discouraged
immigration. Yet others defended slavery
as a financial
necessity and as a
part of God’s plan
to Christianize and
civilize Africans.
The possibility
of gradual
emancipation was
discussed, but in the end, by a close vote,
it was decided to end public discussion of
the issue and to regulate the slave
community more tightly.William Lloyd Garrison
That same year, 1831, William Lloyd
Garrison printed the first copy of his
abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator.
He saw slavery as a grave national sin
and demanded its immediate abolition.
Two years later, he helped form the
American Anti-Slavery Society (AAS)
with many members drawn from
evangelical churches in New England
and western New York. Many of theseABOLITIONIST AND AUTHOR 1811–96Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s
Cabin at the peak of Northern resentment
against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
First appearing in 40 installments in the anti-
slavery newspaper, the National Era, it was
published as a book by a Boston company
in 1852. It would outsell all others, except
the Bible, throughout the 19th century.
Southerners resented its portrayal of slavery
and the audacity of a Northern woman who
dared condemn it. Among Northerners,
many responded with tears and pity for the
fictional slaves —a sympathy that many had
rarely felt for those actually enslaved. The
book created an emotional climate that
made more Northerners receptive to
anti-slavery appeals and sectional claims of
the moral superiority of the free states.HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
The Fury of Abolition
The great majority of prominent abolitionists were white, many of them pastors who were loath to
preach a doctrine of violent insurrection. With their personal experience and hatred of slavery, black
abolitionists challenged these white abolitionists who preached pacifism and patience.
Am I not a Man and a Brother?
London abolitionists campaigning for the end of slavery
in the British Empire produced this copper medallion,
designed by the firm of Josiah Wedgwood, in the 1790s.
U.S. abolitionists adopted its motif of the kneeling slave.“Strike for your lives and
liberties ... Rather die freemen
than live to be slaves.”
HENRY HIGHLAND GARNET, IN A SPEECH DELIVERED IN BUFFALO, AUGUST 21, 1843The number of chapters in
the American Anti-Slavery
Society in 1838—a more than threefold
increase in three years. With 150,000
members, the society was a small but
vociferous proportion of the population.1,350