The Abolitionists Movement

Slavery has existed for thousands of years in various cultures from all parts of the world. Slavery in the United States lasted for 245 years and it was a brutal way of life for black African Americans, but it also built the foundation for America’s economy. There have been a number of arguments presented in an effort to justify slavery, as well as many advocating for the abolishment of it. The slave trade was tolerated and fought for in the United States for hundreds of years because without it, plantation owners would not have been able to produce crops as efficiently as they did without the cheap labor that the slave trade provided.

In the early 1600s, plantation owners were in need of workers to produce lucrative crops such as tobacco,

Abolitionists demanded the emancipation of all slaves, as well as racial equality in America. The movement was led by freed black slaves such as Frederick Douglass and white advocates like Elizabeth Cady Stanton. One of the most significant leaders in the movement was William Lloyd Garrison, who began publishing a weekly paper called the Liberator which advocated for the total abolition of slavery in America. Many abolitionists argued that owning slaves was a sin and therefore a direct crime against God. A religious anti-slavery advocate said, "Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!"— Patrick Henry, Speech in the Virginia Convention, March, 1775. Another, non-religious argument towards slavery was that it was an inefficient system and America was not advancing economically with it. Benjamin Franklin said that slavery was “an atrocious debasement of human nature”. Abolitionists were not looked upon kindly by much of the population, they often faced harassment, assault, and heckling. In Concord, New Hampshire in 1835, John Greenleaf Whittier and George Thompson were stoned for being abolitionists. After these acts of violence, many Americans began to join The Abolitionist Movement because they believed that everyone deserved the Constitutional right to speak freely. The attacks on abolitionists were sometimes justified in certain newspapers, but others, like the Hampshire Gazette, criticized the