Chapter 12: An Age of Reform (1820-1840)

Robert Owen, “The First Discourse on a New System of Society“ (1825)

The Greatest “Errors“ of Society in 1820

• Inequality, Dependence, and Lack of Education
• At the time, most poor parents had to send their children to work. Therefore, a lot of children did not receive formal education
• Robert Owen believed that education was an important step in creating a positive quality of life
• Education functioned as the foundation for the rest of one’s life
  • It gave the people knowledge and information
  • It allowed them to gain the ability to read, write, and think
  • Education also helped people become independent
• Education is the way to improve the condition of the society
  • People needed to receive equal education because equal education could provide a head start toward a quality life

Robert Owen’s Plans

• Robert Owen planned to increase the enjoyment of liberty and equality
  • He plans to provide proper education to children
• For Owen, education knows no limits and no boundaries
• He encouraged independent thinking
• Robert Owen built the infant schools for young children
  • He believed that the early childhood education was very important
  • A child’s life between six and younger is one’s foundation
  • This is the most rapid phase of development
  • The first eight years of a child’s life is crucial to academic success
• Robert Owen pioneered infant schools
  • It attracted foreigners, ambassadors, and royalties

Philip Schaff on Freedom as Self-Restraint (1855)

How Christianity Influences American Understanding of Freedom

• Schaff believes that the whole Anglo-American conception of freedom is specifically different from the purely negative narrative which prevails amongst the radicals and revolutionists on the continent of Europe
• The American view believes that true national freedom rests upon a moral groundwork, upin the virtue of self-possession and self-control in individual citizens
  • He alone is worthy of this great blessing and capable of enjoying it, who holds his passions in check; is master of his sensual nature; obeys natural laws, not under pressure from without, but from inward impulse, cheerfully, and joyfully
  • These sound views of freedom, in connection with the moral earnestness and the Christian character of the nation, from the basis of the North American republic, and can alone secure its permanence

Schaff’s Reservations of the Maine Law

• Maine Law - was first introduced in the predominantly Puritanical, New England State of Maine
• It has since been extended to several other states by a popular majority
• It described the horrible consequences, temporal and eternal, of intemperance, and demonstrated to the people by the most convincing arguments, the duty of using their elective franchise in a way demanded by the public weal, in the consciousness of their high responsibility of God and the world.
• He mentioned that we would here neither advocate nor condemn it.
• We must admire the moral energy and self denial of a free people.
• We would rather renounce an enjoyment in itself lawful, than see it drives thousands of weak persons to bodily and spiritual ruin.

David Walker’s Appeal (1829)

Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World

• Walker addressed his pamphlet to "the coloured citizens of the world" to remember the slavery history.
• He wanted to tell the Americans that the Africans shouldn't be a slave
• Walker was the one who opposed to the idea on slavery.
• He stood out and fight for the rights for the blacks.
• He insisted that the black had as much right to live in the United States as whites and spoke of the possibility of armed struggle against slavery.
• He stated that the blacks were ought to be slaves to the American and their children forever.
• They shouldn't work on the farm and dig mines, they should have better education in their lives.

Lessons America Should Learn from History of the Ancient World and Haiti

• Walker thinks America should learn to believe in the Lord
• He challenged racism by invoking the achievement of ancient civilizations in Africa, and he urged black America to identify with the Black republic of Haiti, an early example of internationalism in Africa

Frederick Douglass on the Fourth of July (1852)

The Goal of Accussing White Americans

• Frederick Douglass accused white Americans of injustice and hypocrisy in his speech
• He wanted them to throw off their hypocrisy and truly help the slaves
• He is trying to get them to see that their own actions and those of their fellow Northerners really are part of the problem
• He wants them to realize that the country that they feel so proud of is really not based on freedom and slavery but on %%slavery and tyranny%%
• He is trying to get them to see that so they will be motivated to do something about slavery

Evidence Against Black Inferiority

• He shows that the blacks are just as inferior as whites because they do a white man’s job
• They only reason they can celebrate independence is because of the blacks
  • The blacks show that they fight for what they believe in, such as freedom and what is right, which is what whites should do under God too

Catharine Breecher on the “Duty of American Females“ (1837)

Women Exerting Power Within Society

• The Abolition Movement changed the future of the United States.
• It also changed the ways of people's thinking and behaviors toward the slaves in America.
  • The North did not rely on slaves. However, the South relied heavily upon slaves to sustain their farms.
• The social and economic differences made a conflict between the North and the South about having slaves.
• The women started thinking about they should have many rights as the men during the abolitionist movement.
• Beecher thought women should exert their power within American society because she explained men were superiors in certain roles.
• She did not agree with women to be able to go out and speak publicly in forth of people.
  • It was inappropriate for women to take part in political areas.
• She thought that the society would not be acceptable for women' political debates.
• The one of the abolition movement's leaders Angelina disagreed with Beecher's opinion.
  • Angelina was speaking in public in forth of mixed genders.
  • She encouraged both men and women to had passion and active involvement in this reform.

Beecher Against Abolitionist Movement

• Beecher believed that the most important thing was having the children educated, and not only intellectually.
• She thought the abolition movement was seemed unwise and inexpedient for women to unite themselves in the Northern states.
• The abolition movements would make people aroused their fellow citizens to correct their own evils.
• The abolition movement's character was not peaceful because it was violent and caused riots.
• She believed men's spheres were in public, politics, and business.
  • Their values were ambition, responsible, and being successful.
• Women's spheres were private life and family.
  • Their value were obedience and persuasion.
• Men were considered the breadwinners in the family.
• The women just stayed at home with their family and managed the households.
• She believed that the abolition movement was dangerous because she thought it was wrong for women to become active in politics such as antislavery movement.

Angelina Grimké on Women’s Rights (1837)

Abolitionist Movement: School of Human Rights

• Angelina Emily Grimke - was an American political activist, abolitionist, women’s rights advocate, and supporter of the women’s suffrage movement
• Her series of twelve letters for rightly defending the right of woman to %%take part in political debate%%
• The final one addressed the question of human rights directly
• She also declares that whatever is morally right for woman to do

The Roles of the Sexes in Determining a Person’s Rights and Obligations

• Grimke believed that human rights in general have nothing to do with sex
• Men or women have the same obligation in regards to laws, moral values, freedom, and respect of the basic human right

Declaration of Sentiments of the Seneca Falls Convention (1848)

Other Demands of the Seneca Falls Convention

• There came 11 resolutions, which demanded women be regarded as men’s equals
• The resolutions called on Americans to regard any laws that placed women in an inferior position to men as having “no force or authority“
• They resolved for women to have equal rights within the church and equal access to jobs

How the Declaration Defined the Freedom of Women

• The Declaration of Sentiments defined freedom for women as being liberated from patriarchal oppression
• The Declaration of Sentiments stated that the right to vote was the key to dismantling patriarchal oppression and to women becoming full and equal citizens
• Having the right to vote would allow women greater independence in American Society
• As a result, the early women’s rights movement became one that was centered on achieving female suffrage