Abolition Movement

Vocabulary

Definition

Notes

Abolitionist

American Revolution

Quaker

Underground Railroad

Abolition

Advocate

Civil Disobedience

Lobby 

Tactic

1860 Association

Effigy

Nullification

Ordinance of Nullification

Secession

Emancipation

Enlightenment

Incendiary

Indigenous

Natural Right

Nullify

Plantation

Three-Fifths Compromise

Transatlantic Slave Trade

A person who wants to stop or abolish slavery

A war of 1775-1783 in which 13 British colonies in North America broke free from British rule and became the United States of America.

A member of a Christian sect that stresses Inner Light, rejects sacraments and an ordained ministry, and opposes war.

A system of cooperation among active anti slavery people in the US before 1863 by which people escaping enslavement were secretly helped to reach the North or Canada.

The act of officially ending slavery

To support or argue for a cause, policy, etc…

A refusal to obey governmental demands or commands, especially as nonviolent and usually collective means of forcing concessions from the government

To conduct activities aimed at influencing public officials and especially members of the legislative body or legislation.

A strategy used to accomplish a goal

A political organization formed in Charleston to spread secession ideas in the South.

An image or representation, especially of a person.

The action of a state impending or attempting to prevent the operations and enforcement within its territory of a law of the US.

A law passed in South Carolina that declared the federal Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 null and void in the state

A formal withdrawal from an organization

The act of freeing from restraint, control, or the power of another

A philosophical movement of the eighteenth century marked by a rejection of traditional social, religious, and political ideas and an emphasis on rationalism.

Tending or excite or inflame

Of or relating to the earliest known inhabitants of a place and especially or a palace that was colonized by a now-dominant group

A right considered to conferred by natural law

To make of no value or consequence

A large agricultural operation where the labor is done by workers other than the landowner

The Compromise that allowed the enslaved people to be counted as both property and human beings.

The enslavement and forced migration of Africans people to the Americas following European colonization

• The US Constitution had instructions on how to handle slavery. Two important ones were the Three-Fifths clause and a clause that prevented the stopping of importation of slaves for twenty years.

• These clauses were added by the founders to make sure the Constitution would be passed.

• The abolition movement started in the mid 1700s

• Influential Quaker John Woolman gave speeches and publish essays to encourage fellow Quakers to speak out against slavery.

• During the American Revolution many believed it was pointless fighting a war for freedom when people were enslaved.

• Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine were opposed to slavery.

• Key individuals that promoted abolition were Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubman, and William Lloyd Garrison.

• Born into slavery in 1818 Frederick Douglas escaped to freedom in 1838.

• He gave speeches, wrote stories, and even wrote an autobiography to show people the horrors of slavery.

• Harriet Tubman, born in 1820, escaped enslavement in 1849.

• She dedicated her life to helping others escape.

• The Constitution required government officials to help return escaped slaves.

• During the Civil war Tubman was a cook and nurse for the Union.

• She even became a spy.

• William Llyod Garrison born in 1805 became very opposed to slavery very quickly.

• He met a Quaker, Benjamin Lundy and both of them wrote and published an antislavery newspaper. Garrison went on to give anti slavery speeches.

• In 1831 Garrison published his own newspaper.

• The American Anti-Slavery Society was formed in 1833.

• The group sponsored meetings, lectures, and conventions to make people understand the evils of slavery.

• Garrison was an important figure in this society.

• In 1852 Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

• This book tells the story of multiple enslaved individuals.

• Dred Scott V. Sanford was issued by the Supreme Court in 1857.

• This said that enslaved people are still property of their slave holder even when they pass through a state where slavery is illegal.

•  Two tactics used by the abolition movement were political advocacy and social activism.

• It was because these tactics used by abolitionist slavery was finally abolished in 1865 by the Thirteenth amendment.

• Many abolitionist used lobbying to convince government officials slavery was wrong.

• They organized petitions, wrote letters, and held meetings with lawmakers.

• During the 1850s a new political party was formed that called for the end of slavery.

• This party played a key role in the election of Abraham Lincoln.

• Lincoln was against slavery and signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 that freed enslaved people in the Confederate states.

• Social activism was used to raise awareness about slavery and to pressure Congress to end it. They protested, gave speeches, wrote literature, wrote petitions, and more.

• Abolitionist Sojourner Truth was known for ability to sway the public.

• She also fought for women’s rights.

• In 1850 the Fugitive Slave Act was passed. Stating that citizens were required to capture slaves and return them.

• Negro Act of 1870 stated that enslaved people could not gather in groups, earn money, or learn to read and write. It also allowed slaveholders to punish enslaved people.

• Slave Codes:

• These codes controlled every aspect of an enslaved person’s life. Including where they could live, what kind of work they could do, and what they could wear.

• Slave Patrols” Groups of White men that enforced SC’s slave laws. They could search people’s homes and use violence to maintain order.

• All of these laws were strictly enforced in SC.

• Years Slavery was abolished:

• US: 1865

• Great Britain: 1833

• France: 1848

• Dutch Empire: 1863

• Brazil: 1888

• Elizabeth Cady and Susan B. Anthony also fought to end slavery.

• Women’s rights activists used similar tactic as the abolition movement.

• By 1820 SC was the largest and wealthiest cotton producing state.

• Literature from both white and black abolitionists were used in the abolition movement.

• Abolitionists were divided on if freedom for Black Americans should be immediate or done gradually.

• Because the South relied so heavily on slavery to make money most Southerners were pro slavery.

• In 1820 the South imposed penalties to any one who brought in anti-slavery literature.

• Southerners thought this was a campaign against their lifestyle and refused to deliver mail, burned mail, or angrily returned it to the post office.

• Former SC governor, Robert Y. Hayne, led 3000 people and ransacked the Charleston Post Office to destroy abolitionist mail.

• The group even burned 3 effigies written by William Llyod.

• More attacks like this continued to happen.

• Beginning in 1823 people like Charles Pinckney in the South wrote abolitionist literature.

• Pinckney was a US House Representative and Speaker of the House. He supported John C. Calhoun.

• Calhoun served as the Vice President and sought to protect SC’s state rights.

• Calhoun believed in nullification and called SC to secede in 1832 due to the fact that he thought the NOrth was threatening the South’s economics with high tariffs.