Why Is Frederick Douglass An Abolitionist

The Civil War will be known in history to be a unique war. A war within the confines of the country,dividing the United States into. In the South slaves provided labor that ran the agricultural economy. The institution of slavery took basic human rights away from slaves and would further divide the country, making it the cause of the Civil War.
In the 1800s the need for cotton rapidly increased as the textile industry was on the rise in the North and even in Europe. As the need for cotton increased, the need for labor increased as well. “American cotton production soared from 156,000 bales in 1800 to more than 4,000,000 bales in 1860.”(Dattel, 2006) Southerners believed that slavery was the answer to all of their problems. The South

Frederick Douglass, a free black man in the North, is strongly opposed to slavery for obvious reasons. Abolitionist like Douglass gained support mostly from the North and increased the hatred for slavery. He informed many in the North of the unethicality and immorality of slavery since he was once a slave himself. In a power speech he says, “What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters?”(The Meaning of Douglass, 2016) Douglass’ descriptions of horrors slaves had to go through would rile up the nation and would cause even more tensions between the North and the

After Lincoln was elected into office, many Southerners started to fear he was going to abolish slavery. Although Lincoln was opposed to slavery, he had no intention of ending it. In Lincoln’s final speech he said, “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races...say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.” (Lincoln, 1858) Lincoln thought that slavery was immoral but he wasn’t going to try abolish it. The Southerners were still afraid because they now had someone in power that was against the institution of slavery. The election of Abraham Lincoln was the breaking point for the South and a month later the South seceded on December 20, 1860 from the Union. This division would set up the Civil