Chapter two
Abolitionism
The three decades leading to the Civil War saw the birth and growth of a mass social movement for the abolition of slavery. The abolitionist movement became a significant force in U.S. politics; it involved tens of thousands of active members, and mobilized and influenced even greater numbers. The abolitionist movement remains one of the most important social movements ever seen in this country. This chapter is not meant to be a comprehensive history of abolitionism in the United States. Rather, it aims to highlight some of the key features of the movement: its explosive growth from a marginal movement to one involving tens of thousands; its political diversity as illustrated in the debates and competing approaches within the movement; and its points of intersection and divergence with the currents of Black separatism and radicalism both before and after the Civil War.
In its early years, the abolitionist movement was marginalized, ridiculed, and attacked. As Michael Goldfield notes: “At first, abolitionists were denounced throughout the country, especially in New England. They were stoned, had their meetings broken up, were arrested, and were threatened to death.”1 Abolitionists were unpopular in both the North and South. As Goldfield reports: “Let us look first at their strongest opponents. Leonard Richards has analyzed anti- abolitionist mobs in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Utica, New York, concluding that the rank and file overwhelmingly consisted of commercial and property men, in stark contrast with the composition of the abolitionist ranks in both cities. Herbert Aptheker argues ‘the most avid opponents of Abolitionism were the rich—slaveowners and their lackeys, the merchants and their servitors, the dominant figures in politics, the press, the churches, and the schools.’”2 The Ohio legislature passed a resolution condemning the abolitionists as “wild, delusive, and fanatical.”3 Yet by 1838, one abolitionist estimated that there were more than 1,400 antislavery societies, with at least 112,000 members.4 Thousands of activists, both Black and white, dedicated themselves to the eradication of slavery.
The new abolitionist movement that began to take shape in the 1830s was quite different to its predecessors. The earlier generation of abolitionists was politically conservative and timid. In 1827, twenty-four abolition societies with a membership of 1,500 existed in the free states, and the slave states had 130 societies with a membership of 6,625.5 As Benjamin Quarles points out, “These earlier abolitionists had a religious orientation, a moderate and conciliatory tone, and...a colonizationist outlook. With branches in the slaveholding South, these reformers counted in their ranks an imposing roster of men of means and high public position. No Negroes or women held membership in their societies.”6
These early abolitionists believed that slavery would gradually disappear of its own accord. Writes Quarles: “With rare exceptions...these early abolitionists were gradualists, trusting what they conceived as the slow but inevitable operation of religious and equalitarian principles. They felt that slavery was not to be abolished overnight but that it would certainly disappear in the fullness of time.”7 Moreover, the previous generation of abolitionists was not particularly hostile to slaveholders in the South and often crafted its appeal to them by making reference to the slaveholders’ own best interests.
Many historians date the beginning of the modern abolitionist movement to the publication of William Lloyd Garrison’s Liberator, in 1831. In contrast to the earlier generation of abolitionists, Garrison called for an immediate end to slavery. The first issue of Garrison’s publication made clear how it would approach the struggle against slavery: “I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write with moderation.... I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—and I will be heard.”8
Along with the Liberator, Garrison launched the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1832. Twelve people, all white, attended the founding meeting and declared the organization’s purpose to be the abolition of slavery and the improvement of the economic conditions of Northern Blacks. In December 1833, Garrison and sixty other abolitionists founded the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia.
The influence of the abolitionist movement grew, but so too did the number of factions within the movement. Almost immediately, the abolitionist movement split into gradualist and militant wings. The issue of Black membership in abolition societies and the call for “social equality” for Blacks (i.e., whether the movement should go beyond advocating the abolition of slavery to embracing equality of Blacks and whites in all spheres of life) similarly divided abolitionists. The militant wing of the abolitionist movement was itself divided over several questions, including the role of women in the abolitionist movement; the relationship between abolitionists and labor unions; the use of force or of “moral suasion”; and proposals for Black emigration. Of these, the latter two will be discussed in detail here.
The debate over “moral suasion” versus force built to its climax in John Brown’s 1859 raid on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry. On one side of the abolitionist movement were those who insisted that campaigns of education were necessary to persuade politicians and, in some cases, even slaveholders themselves, to abolish slavery. On the other side of this debate were those like Brown, who believed that only struggle would overthrow slavery.
The Role of Black Abolitionists
While the contribution of Garrison and the American Anti-Slavery Society to the “second generation” of abolitionists was fundamental, it may be more correct to assign the pivotal role to David Walker, who published his antislavery Appeal in 1829.9 A clothing dealer in Boston, Walker was also an agent for Freedom’s Journal, the first Black newspaper in the United States. His writings share many of the themes later developed by other nineteenth-century Black intellectuals. “We are the most degraded, wretched, and most abject set of beings that ever lived since the world began,” wrote Walker. He targeted whites, like Thomas Jefferson, who spoke against slavery, but were themselves slaveholders and held that Black people were inferior to whites:
For let no one of us suppose that the refutations which have been written by our white friends are enough—they are whites—we are Blacks. We, and the world wish to see the charges of Mr. Jefferson refuted by the Blacks themselves, according to their chance; for we must remember that what the whites have written respecting this subject, is other men’s labors, and did not emanate from the Blacks.10
Walker named four factors for the condition of Blacks: slavery, ignorance, “the preachers of Jesus Christ,” and the influence of the American Colonization Society—an organization of whites that sought to repatriate Blacks to Africa.11 Walker argued that Blacks had to fight for economic and political rights in the United States and therefore should oppose schemes of emigration.
Let no man of us budge one step, and let slave-holders come to beat us from our country. America is more our country, than it is the whites.... The greatest riches in all America have arisen from our blood and tears—and will they drive us from our property and homes, which we have earned with our blood?12
Walker died in August 1830, soon after the publication of the third edition of his Appeal. Copies of his tract were found in Georgia, Virginia, and Louisiana.13 Although his public career was short, his influence was large. The abolitionist movement was to receive its most consistent support from Blacks, and Black abolitionists weighed in on all the central questions in the movement discussed above. But they also brought particular insight to the questions of the relations of Blacks and whites in the movement and to the movement’s position on emigration to Africa.
Henry Highland Garnet, another Black abolitionist, was deeply influenced by Walker’s ideas. Born a slave in Maryland in 1816, he escaped with his family to New York City. Garnet’s address at the National Negro Convention held in Buffalo, New York, in 1843, echoed the sentiments of Walker:
Brethren arise, arise! Strike for your lives and liberties. Now is the day and the hour. Let every slave throughout the land do this,