American Antislavery 1820-1860 :: History African Americans Essays

American Antislavery 1820-1860missing works citedThe antebellum American antislavery movement began in the 1820s and was sustained all over 4 decades by organizations, publications, and undersize acts of resistance that challenged the legally protected and powerful institution of slavery and the more than insidious enemy of black equality, racism. Abolitionists were always a radical minority even in the free states of the North, and the movement was never comprised of a star group of people with unified motivations, goals, and methods. Rather, the movement was fraught with ambiguity over who its leaders would be, how they would go about fighting the institution of slavery, and what the future would be like for black Americans. Some of the persisting goals of antislavery activism were legal emancipation, aid to play slaves through vigilance groups and the Underground Railroad, civil rights for freed blacks in the north, and education, suffrage, and stinting procession for Afri can-Americans. Perhaps the most unifying ideal of the anti-slavery movement was that the racial solid ground for American slavery could be undermined by promoting Christian values, education and economic circulate among free blacks to show that they were capable of succeeding as individuals in an integrated American society. Richard Allen, leader of the A.M.E. church, stated the case for black progress as an answer to the justifications of slaveholders if we are lazy and idol, the enemies of freedom plead it as a cause why we ought non to be free. In do-gooder to the connection between abolition and economic and social progress, most abolitionists worked for the self-assurance of civil rights and legal protection for free blacks, who lived in an anomalous set apart of freedom without citizenship and with constant threat of discrimination, violence, and abduction to be sold into slavery. There were roughly bitter conflicts over specific strategies. Though Garrison and most blacks prefer immediate abolition, many whites continued to prefer or express willingness to dip for gradual emancipation. Violent resistance was at first rejected by many, over again under the influence of Garrison, but David Walkers put forward that violence should be used against slavery became more popular as blacks and abolitionists searched for an effective means of self-defense against mobs and pursuit of civil rights. Whether or not individuals worked within the policy-making framework of the constitution to effect change again depended on allegiance to Garrison, and in general the early antislavery activists preferred example arguments while later leaders were more willing to use political means.