In the time period of 1776 to 1852, slavery was a highly debated topic. Most abolitionists were northerners and most southerners didn’t see anything wrong with slavery because it helped their economy. Different groups felt different views could be split up into the difference over time in religion, abolitionism, and the places where slavery was illegal. The first group depended on how they interpreted religion. All throughout history, people have interpreted the word of God in different ways. Some, such as pastor Thornton Stringfellow, believed that since slavery was in the bible, God must approve of it. Stringfellows’ view was important because if a pastor believed that human beings could be owned, then that meant slavery wasn‘t going anywhere anytime soon. After time, people began to see slavery as the bad thing that it was. Ajuw in Massachusetts, for example, said that slavery was wrong because it is humans owning other humans.
The differences in views all come down to the differences in upbringing. Most of the people who approved of slavery had been brought up in an environment in which slavery was portrayed as a good thing, such as that slaves were happier than wage laborers because they got to be outside. The next area is how abolition changed over time. In the beginning of abolitionism, there were abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison who mostly just wrote pamphlets against slavery. Next there came one of the first abolitionists groups that had different views on what should happen to the blacks after they were emancipated: The American Colonization Society. The American Colonization Society wanted to send blacks back into Africa, though some of them had never even been to Africa. A different type of abolitionist was Frederick Douglass.
Douglass had been born a slave and after his owner’s wife taught him to read and write, he dedicated his life to the full emancipation of slavery. Over time, abolitionists changed because it became a wider group of people. The last category is slavery was illegal. The north did not want slavery and tried their hardest to end it. Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts outlawed slavery by their original state constitution. Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut were all emancipated gradually by state law. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 outlawed slavery in the Northwest territory. The getting rid of slavery in these areas proves that times were changing. In conclusion, the main differences were in religious views, types of abolitionists, and location. Some may say that neither the north or the south was against slavery because the north was quite neutral, but this is not true because there were many abolitionists.
The issue came to a head in the mid-19th century with the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in 1852. The book depicted the horrors of slavery and helped to galvanize anti-slavery sentiment in the north. However, it also provoked outrage in the south, where it was seen as an attack on their way of life. The debate over slavery ultimately led to the American Civil War, which was fought from 1861 to 1865. The war was fought over a variety of issues, but the central issue was the question of slavery and its future in the United States. The Union’s victory in the war resulted in the end of slavery with the passage of the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865. In conclusion, the debate over slavery in the United States between 1776 and 1852 was a contentious and divisive issue that reflected deep-seated cultural, economic, and moral differences between the north and south. The debate ultimately resulted in the Civil War and the end of slavery, but its legacy continues to shape the nation to this day.
