 The idea that slavery was wrong had two separate elements 1. Political 2. Religious

 Political reasons went back to the Declaration of Independence  “all men are created equal”

 Religious ideas believed that all men and women are equal in the eyes of God › Quakers spoke out against slavery since the colonial times › Second Great Awakening: early 1800’s religious movement  Minister Charles Grandison was one of the leaders  Called on Christina to join a crusade and stamp out the evil of slavery

 By 1804 all states from Pennsylvania north had promised to free their slaves

 American Colonization Society proposed to end slavery by setting up a colony in Africa for freed slaves  Presdient Monroe help the society set up the nation of Liberia in western Africa › Liberia is Latin for free

 The society did not call for an end to slavery but to pay slave owners who freed slaves  Some African Americans thought they should go to Africa because they would never have equal right in the U.S.

 Most African Americans opposed colonization, they wanted to stay in the United States › Most free and slaves were born in the U.S.  Only a few thousand free African Americans settled in Liberia.

 Abolitionist: people who wanted to end slavery in the U.S. › Some called for a gradual end to slavery thinking that it would die out if it were kept out of western states › Others demanded an end to slavery everywhere at once

 Used lawsuits and petitions  Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm set up an antislavery newspaper called Freedman’s Journal › Printed stories about the brutal treatment of enslaved African Americans

 Douglas was born into slavery in Maryland › He defied the slave codes and taught himself to read  Picked through “the mud and filth of the gutter” to find discarded newspapers

 1838 Douglas escaped and made his way to Boston › Spoke at an antislavery meeting about the sorrows of slavery and the meaning of freedom › Soon traveled throughout the U.S. and Britain lecturing against slavery  1847 began publishing an antislavery newspaper, the North Star

 William Llyod Garrison, the most outspoken white abolitionist › 1831 wrote an antislavery paper the Liberator  He proclaimed that slavery was an evil that that needed to be ended immediately

 Founded the New England AntiSlavery Society › Theodore Weld, a young minister brought religious revival to antislavery meetings

 Women played an important role in the abolitionist movement  Angelina and Sarah Grimke sisters  Daughters of a wealthy slaveholder in South Carolina  Hated slavery and moved to Philadelphia to work for abolition  Their lectures on the evils of slavery drew large crowds

 Some people objected to women speaking out in public  Grimkes and others started a crusade for women’s rights

 Some risked prison and even death for helping slaves escape from the South  Underground railroad: network of abolitionists that secretly helped runaway slaves reach freedom in the North and in Canada

 Stayed in homes and churches or even caves led by conductors whom were whites and free black abolitionists  Harriet Tubman, an escaped slave, returned to the South 19 times to help more than 300 slaves reach freedom.

 Northern mill owners, bankers, and merchants saw attacks on slavery as a threat to their livelihood  Northern workers oppose abolition › Some northern workers opposed the abolitionists fearing that free African Americans would come North and take their jobs › Mobs sometimes broke up antislavery meetings and attacked the homes of abolitionists

 If owners were well treated they would love and serve their master  Slaves were better off then northern workers › Wage slaves  Slavery was essential to the southern economy