page_title: Abolitionism in the United States
hierarchical_section_title: Abolitionism in the United States
caption_attribution_description: English: Side of collection box of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Note on the box: "Let this box remain stationary upon the chimney piece or table in the most public room in your dwelling, as it will not only give strangers an opportunity to aid in swelling the bondman's treasury, but it will also remind the contributors of their weekly pledge." The cardboard box served as a collection box for contributions to the Abolitionist cause. Courtesy of Randolph Linsly Simpson African-American Collection, Beinecke Rare Book &amp; Manuscript Library, Yale University.[1][2]
context_page_description: Abolitionism in the United States was the movement that sought to end slavery in the United States immediately and was active both before and during the American Civil War. In the Americas and Western Europe, abolitionism was a movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and to free the slaves. In the 18th century, Enlightenment thinkers condemned slavery on humanistic grounds and English Quakers and some Evangelical denominations condemned slavery as un-Christian. At that time, most slaves were Africans, but thousands of Native Americans were also enslaved. In the 18th century, as many as six million Africans were transported to the Americas as slaves, at least a third of them on British ships to North America. The Colony of Georgia originally prohibited slavery.
  Between 1780 and 1804, all Northern states, beginning with An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery from Pennsylvania in 1780, passed legislation abolishing slavery, sometimes by gradual emancipation. Massachusetts ratified a constitution that declared all men equal; freedom suits challenging slavery based on the principle brought an end to slavery in the state.
context_section_description: Abolitionism in the United States was the movement that sought to end slavery in the United States immediately and was active both before and during the American Civil War. In the Americas and Western Europe, abolitionism was a movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and to free the slaves. In the 18th century, Enlightenment thinkers condemned slavery on humanistic grounds and English Quakers and some Evangelical denominations condemned slavery as un-Christian. At that time, most slaves were Africans, but thousands of Native Americans were also enslaved. In the 18th century, as many as six million Africans were transported to the Americas as slaves, at least a third of them on British ships to North America. The Colony of Georgia originally prohibited slavery.
  Between 1780 and 1804, all Northern states, beginning with An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery from Pennsylvania in 1780, passed legislation abolishing slavery, sometimes by gradual emancipation. Massachusetts ratified a constitution that declared all men equal; freedom suits challenging slavery based on the principle brought an end to slavery in the state. In Virginia, similar declarations of rights were interpreted by the courts as not applicable to Africans or African Americans. All the states banned the international slave trade by 1790. South Carolina did so in 1787 but in 1803 reversed itself. During the ensuing decades, the abolitionist movement grew in Northern states, and Congress regulated the expansion of slavery as new states were admitted to the Union. The United States federal government criminalized the international slave trade in 1808 and made slavery unconstitutional in 1865 as a result of the American Civil War.
  Historian James M. McPherson defines an abolitionist "as one who before the Civil War had agitated for the immediate, unconditional and total abolition of slavery in the United States". He does not include antislavery activists such as Abraham Lincoln, U.S. president during the Civil War, or the Republican Party, which called for the gradual ending of slavery.
  Abolitionism in the United States was an expression of moralism, and frequently had a religious component to it: slavery was incompatible with Christianity, according to the many religious abolitionists. It often operated in tandem with another social reform effort, the temperance movement.
caption: Collection box for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, circa 1850.[1]
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