Fight Against Slavery Goals To understand the abolitionist

Fight Against Slavery Goals: To understand the abolitionist stance on slavery To understand the resistance of abolition To understand the deep divisions in the North and the South

Garrison Demands Emancipation �William Lloyd Garrison published The Liberator, an antislavery newspaper �Used moral suasion in an attempt to persuade people using moral arguments �Garrison wanted immediate emancipation �He began the American Anti-Slavery Society �Insisted that holding slaves was counter to most Americans’ religious ideals

Abolitionists Spread the Word �Working through churches was an effective way to use moral suasion �Many southerners were so moved that they went north to join the antislavery movement �Frederick Douglass was a former slave who spoke to thousands as he denounced slavery

Southerners Cling to Slavery �Slavery was seen as necessary to the Southern economy �Slavery benefitted Northern industries because they depended on Southern cotton �Argued that wage earners had it much worse than slaves �Slaves are provided housing, food, medical care, and security

Southerners Cling to Slavery �Argued that Christianity supported slavery �Slavery was historically inevitable �Southern post offices refused to deliver abolitionist newspapers �Many who didn’t own slaves still embraced it as a way of life �Seen as a freedom that is threatened

Northerners Resist Abolition �In Alton, IL, Elijah Lovejoy’s printing press was thrown in the river (twice!) for printing anti-slavery newspapers �Lovejoy was killed defending his press in 1837 �Workers in cities saw freed slaves as competition �Nobody wanted to deal with the issue at hand �A Gag Rule was established in Congress, preventing them from debating slavery

Slavery Divides a Nation �Abolition movement was small and confined to the North �Abolitionists were vocal and persistent �Slavery widened cultural differences between the North and the South �This divisive issue would prove to be a devastating wedge between the North and the South