abolition

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 is again the exception: its 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

• 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 non-slave-owners in 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.
  • Postmaster General refused to allow the postal system to carry abolition pamphlets to the South.

• 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.

• Child Labor

  • The National Child Labor Committee , an organization dedicated to the abolition of all child labor, was formed in 1904.
  • Alongside the abolition of child labor, compulsory education laws also kept children out of abusive labor conditions.

• 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 U.S., and detrimental to the rights of all free persons.
  • In 1862, the federal government made abolition of slavery a war goal.

• The Gastonia Strike of 1929

  • The strikers demanded a 40-hour work week, a minimum $20 weekly wage, union recognition, and the abolition of the stretch-out system.
  • The main objective of these strikes was the abolition of the stretch out, and some met with a measure of success.

• Slavery and Liberty

  • The principal organized bodies to advocate these reforms in the North were the Pennsylvania Abolition Society and the New York Manumission Society.