abolition

(noun)

The emancipation of slaves by the Emancipation Proclamation.

Related Terms

Examples of abolition in the following topics:

  • From Gradualism to Abolition

    • By 1805, most Northern states had passed laws calling for either immediate or gradual abolition.
    • An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, passed by the Pennsylvania legislature on March 1, 1780, was the first attempt by a government in the Western Hemisphere to begin the abolition of slavery.
    • Pennsylvania's "gradual abolition"—as opposed to Massachusetts's 1783 "instant abolition"—became a model for freeing slaves in other Northern states.
    • New Jersey's gradual abolition law freed future children of slaves at birth, but those enslaved before the passage of the gradual abolition law remained enslaved for life.
    • Identify which group and/or region supported the policy of gradual abolition

  • The 13th Amendment

    • The Thirteenth Amendment completed the abolition of slavery in the United States, which had begun with President Abraham Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.
    • The Thirteenth Amendment completed the abolition of slavery in the United States.

  • Abolitionism and the Women's Rights Movement

    • Women began to form their own abolition groups, organizing events such as the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women held in 1837.
    • This convention brought 200 women to New York City, where they called for the immediate abolition of slavery in the US.
    • The convention was organized primarily by a group of Quaker women during a visit by Lucretia Mott, a Quaker woman well known for her role in the abolition movement and advocacy for women's rights.
    • In terms of Abolition more incremental groups preferred advocating against the expansion of slavery, but would often stop short of calling for full or immediate abolition.
    • Many advocates of incremental abolition and colonization also held more traditional views on the role of women, claiming that women should play a supporting role in both the abolitionist movement and in society more generally.

  • Conclusion: The State of Slavery before the War

    • Abolition movements grew in opposition to what was seen by many as an evil institution.
    • Historians distinguish between moderate antislavery reformers who favored gradual abolition as a means of stopping the spread of slavery, and radical abolitionists whose demands for unconditional emancipation merged with a concern for African-American civil rights.
    • The Pennsylvania legislature in 1780 was the first government in the Western Hemisphere to pass an act to begin the process of abolition.
    • An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery prohibited further importation of slaves into the state, required slaveholders to register their slaves, and provided that all children born in Pennsylvania were free regardless of the condition or race of their parents.

  • The Politics of Slavery

    • Some even believed that the abolition of slavery would be detrimental to their economic interests, whether by slowing the supply of slave-produced raw materials from the South or through increased job competition as thousands of freemen flooded the northern markets.
    • Because slavery represented the basis of the southern social and economic system, even those who did not own slaves the South often violently opposed any suggestions for ending the practice, whether through abolition or gradual emancipation.
    • While relatively few Northerners favored outright abolition, many more opposed the expansion of slavery into new territories.
    • Beginning in the 1830s, the U.S. postmaster general refused to allow the postal system to carry abolition pamphlets to the South.

  • Slavery and the Abolitionist Movement

    • By 1804, most of the northern states had moved towards the abolition of slavery. although this process was quite gradual, and freed slaves were often subject to racial segregation and discrimination.
    • Describe the history of slavery in the United States and early efforts at abolition

  • The Old South

    • For some that meant the immediate abolition of slavery because it was a sin to hold slaves and a sin to tolerate slavery.
    • The first state to begin a gradual abolition of slavery was Pennsylvania, in 1780.
    • The other states north of Maryland began gradual abolition of slavery between 1781 and 1804, based on the Pennsylvania model.

  • Black and White Abolitionism

    • The Garrisonians, led by Garrison and Wendell Phillips, publicly burned copies of the Constitution, called it a pact with slavery, and demanded its abolition and replacement.
    • Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), a former slave whose memoirs, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) and My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), became bestsellers which aided the cause of abolition.

  • The Politics of Slavery

    • The principal organized bodies to advocate these reforms in the north were the Pennsylvania Abolition Society and the New York Manumission Society.
    • Many slave owners in the South feared that the real intent of the Republicans was the abolition of slavery in states where it already existed.

  • Slavery in the Antebellum Period

    • However, by 1804, all states north of the Mason-Dixon Line had either abolished slavery outright or passed laws for the gradual abolition of slavery based upon abolition movements that viewed the practice of slavery as unethical, antithetical to the core principles of the United States, and detrimental to the rights of all free persons.
    • In 1862, the federal government made abolition of slavery a war goal.