The Temperance Movement to Early Antislavery

The Temperance Movement

• argued alcohol abuse caused social problems
  • women and children as main victims
• The American Temperance Society, established 1826
  • 5,000 branches
  • over 1 million members
  • liquor prohibition in several states
• consumption of alcohol fell 50% by the 1840s

Early Antislavery: The Colonization Movement

• the idea:
• resettle former slaves overseas
• American Colonization Society was established 1817, popular through 1860s
• moderate, mainstream anti-slavery
• 1820s, established a west African colony
  • Liberia 1847
• later critics argue Black Americans deserved freedom and citizenship
  • first, free Black activists like David Walker
  • later, growing numbers of white allies

“Moral Suasion”

• 1831-37, print culture to win hearts and minds
  • sentimental storytelling and persuasive essays
  • newspapers, pamphlets, books…
  • sent out in millions of copies
• established hundreds of local anti-slavery societies
• 1835 mail campaign:
  • sent over 1 million copies of Abolitionist texts, including directly to southern slaveholders
  • thousands of petitions to Congress