Antebellum Era Dbq

During the nineteenth century, reform movements in the United States led to an expansion of democratic ideals from 1825 to 1855. Throughout the Antebellum period there was a focus on forming a better individual and society. This was exemplified through the increased interest in religion, medicine, education reforms, transcendentalism, abolitionism, and women’s rights.
One such powerful reform, the Second Great Awakening, brought about a crusade against personal immorality. Some advocated for temperance because they believed that with an apparently innocent “glass with a friend”, the young man rises step by step to the summit of drunken revelry, then declines to desperation and suicide while his abandoned wife and child grieve (Doc 4). This

Transcendentalists believed that every person’s goal should be the the cultivation of reason and the liberation of understanding, in order to “transcend” the limits of the intellect and allow the emotions to create an original relation to the Universe (Doc 2). One such transcendentalist, Henry David Thoreau, went even further to say that each individual should work for self realization by resisting pressures to conform to society’s expectations and responding to his or her own instincts using “civil disobedience” or “passive resistance”. This belief became integral to many anti slavery reforms and, much later in the mid-twentieth century, attacks on racial segregation. The growing abolitionist phenomenon began with the American Colonization Society, which proposed a gradual freeing of slaves to Africa, with masters receiving compensation. However, the population was too big for this idea to be feasible, and many African-Americans were opposed since they considered themselves Americans, and therefore had the right to remain in the country. Others, such as William Lloyd Garrison, had more radical views. Garrison believed that opponents of slavery should talk about the damage the system did to slaves and called for the immediate abolition of slavery and the extension of all rights of American citizenship to both slaves

Leaders of the American Feminist Movement began to draw parallels between the struggles of women and the plight of slaves, and pressed the boundaries of “acceptable” female behavior. The Seneca Falls Convention was organized to discuss the question of women’s right, and out of the meeting came the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions. This declaration stated that “all men and women are created equal,” and women no less than men are endowed with certain inalienable rights (Doc 6). In demanding the right to vote, they launched a movement for woman suffrage that would survive until the battle was finally won in 1920. Yet, during this time, women who were black faced an even greater struggle. Sojourner Truth, a runaway slave, became an influential figure in both women’s societies and the abolitionist movement. In her famous speech, “Ain’t I a women?”, Truth argues that she is more oppressed as a woman than as a slave (Doc 7). While she campaigned publicly for women’s civil rights, others attempted to reform society from within their religious