1. Give Me Liberty! Norton Media Library An American History
Chapter 12
Give Me Liberty!
An American History
Second Edition Volume 1 by
Eric Foner

2. The reform impulse A. Overall patterns Voluntary associations
Wide-ranging targets and objectives
Activities and tactics
Breadth of appeal
Utopian communities
Overall patterns
Varieties of structures and purposes
Common visions
Cooperative organization of society
Social harmony
Narrowing of gap between rich and poor
Gender equality

3. Map 42

4. The reform impulse (cont’d)
Utopian communities
Spiritual communities
Shakers
Outlooks on gender and property
Outcome
Oneida
John Humphrey Noyes

5. The reform impulse (cont’d)
Utopian communities
Worldly communities
Brook Farm
Transcendentalist origins
Influence of Charles Fourier
Outlooks on labor and leisure
Outcome
New Harmony
Communitarianism of Robert Owen
Forerunner at New Lanark, Scotland
Outlooks on labor, education, gender, and community

6. The reform impulse (cont’d)
Utopian communities
Worldly communities
Utopia and Modern Times
Anarchism of Josiah Warren
Outlooks on labor, exchange, and gender
Outcome
Limits of mainstream appeal

7. The reform impulse (cont’d)
Mainstream reform movements
Visions of liberation
From external “servitudes” (e.g. slavery, war)
From internal “servitudes” (e.g. drink, illiteracy, crime)
Influence of Second Great Awakening
“Perfectionism”
Appeal in “burnt-over districts”
Radicalization of reform causes
Badge of middle-class respectability

8. The reform impulse (cont’d)
Opposition to reform
Leading sources
Workers
Catholics
Immigrants
Points of controversy
Temperance crusade
Perfectionism
Imposition of middle-class Protestant morality

9. The reform impulse (cont’d)
Ambiguities of reform
Impulse for liberation, individual freedom
Impulse for moral order, social control
Program of institution building
Jails
Poorhouses
Asylums
Orphanages
Common schools
Thomas Mann
As embodiment of reform agenda
Reception and outcome

10. Crusade against slavery
American Colonization Society
Founding (1816)
Principles
Gradual abolition
Removal of freed blacks to Africa
Establishment of Liberia (Monrovia)
Skepticism over
Harriet Martineau’s Society in America (1837): “relieve their consciences w/o annoying neighbors”
Following: Clay, Marshall, Webster, Jackson, etc.
In North: the only way to rid the nation of slavery
In South: a way to extricate America of free blacks
Black response
Emigration to Liberia (thousands)
Opposition
First black national convention
Insistence on equal rights, as Americans

11. Crusade against slavery (cont’d)
Take-off of militant abolitionism
Distinctive themes
Demand for immediate abolition
Explosive denunciations of slavery
Religious - as a sin
Secular - as incompatible with American freedom
Rejection of colonization
Insistence on racial equality, rights for blacks
Active role of blacks in movement
Mobilization of public opinion
Moral suasion
Radical social critics
Most abolitionists were proponents of non-violence

12. Crusade against slavery (cont’d)
Take-off of militant abolitionism
Initiatives and methods
Founding of American Anti-Slavery Society (1833)
Printed propaganda: aka American Revolution / 2nd Great Awakening
Oratory; public meetings
Petitions

13. Crusade against slavery (cont’d)
Take-off of militant abolitionism
Pioneering figures and publications
David Walker’s An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (1829)
William Lloyd Garrison
The Liberator (1831)
Thoughts on African Colonization
Theodore Weld’s Slavery As It Is
Lydia Maria Child’s An Appeal In Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans
Spread and growth
Strongholds of support

14. Crusade against slavery (cont’d)
Take-off of militant abolitionism
Visions of American freedom
Self-ownership as basis of freedom
Priority of personal liberty over rights to property or local self-government
Freedom as universal entitlement, regardless of race
Right to bodily integrity
Identification with revolutionary heritage

15. Crusade against slavery (cont’d)
Black and white abolitionism
Prominence of blacks in movement
As opponents of colonization
As readers and supporters of The Liberator
As members and officers of AAAS
As organizers and speakers
As writers: Frederick Douglas
Racial strains within movement
Persistence of prejudice among white abolitionists
White dominance of leadership positions
Growing black quest for independent role

16. Crusade against slavery (cont’d)
Black and white abolitionism
Remarkable degree of egalitarianism among white abolitionists
Anti-discrimination efforts in North
Spirit of interracial solidarity
Black abolitionists’ distinctive stands on freedom and Americanness
Exceptional hostility to racism
Exceptional impatience with celebrations of American liberty; “Freedom celebrations”
Exceptional commitment to color-blind citizenship
Exceptional insistence on economic dimension to freedom
Frederick Douglass’s historic Fourth of July oration

17. Crusade against slavery (cont’d)
D. Slavery and civil liberties
Assault on abolitionism
Mob violence
Attack on Garrison in Boston (1835)
Attack on James G. Birney in Cincinnati (1836)
Fatal attack on Elijah P. Lovejoy in Alton, Illinois (1837)
Suppression
Removal of literature from mails
“Gag rule” on petitions to House of Representatives
Resulting spread of antislavery sentiment in North

18. Crusade against slavery (cont’d)
Split within AAAS
Points of conflict
Role of women in movement
Garrisonian radicalism
Relationship of abolitionism to American politics
Outcome
Formation of rival American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society
Founding of Liberty party
Weak performance of Liberty party in 1840 election
James G. Birney

19. Origins of feminism Rise of the public woman
Importance of women at grassroots of abolitionism
Forms of involvement in public sphere
Petition drives
Meetings
Parades
Oratory
Range of reform movements involving women
Abolitionism as seedbed for feminist movement
New awareness of women’s subordination
Path-breaking efforts of Angelina and Sarah Grimké
Impassioned antislavery addresses
Controversy over women lecturers
Sarah Grimké’s Letters on the Equality of the Sexes

20. Origins of feminism (cont’d)
Launching of women’s rights movement; Seneca Falls Convention
Roots in abolitionism
Influence of Grimké sisters
Leadership of antislavery veterans Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott
Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments
Echoes of Declaration of Independence
Demand for suffrage
Denunciation of wide-ranging inequalities

21. Origins of feminism (cont’d)
Characteristics of feminism
International scope
Middle-class orientation
Themes of feminism
Self-realization
Transcendentalist sensibility
Margaret Fuller’s Woman in the Nineteenth Century
Right to participate in market revolution
Denial that home is women’s “sphere”
Amelia Bloomer’s new style of dress
Analogy between marriage and slavery; “slavery of sex”
Laws governing wives’ economic status
Law of domestic relations

22. Origins in feminism (cont’d)
Tensions within feminist thought
Belief in equality of the sexes
Belief in natural differences