Marhia McAndrew

Abolition: the movement to end slavery as a legal institution.
Emancipation: the act of freeing slaves, making them legally no longer property. Slaves could be emancipated by their owners, by others paying the owners for the cost of their freedom, or could purchase their own freedom in some cases. The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 freed all slaves residing in the Confederate states during the Civil War. The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery anywhere in the United States in 1867.

      The institution of slavery was already in place at the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, despite the stirring words "…all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights…” George Washington himself owned slaves, but freed them at the end of his life when he became convinced that it was immoral to support slavery. But nothing in the original Constitution forbade the practice of slavery in the United States in states where it was already established.
     
       The practice of slavery was so disturbing to many Americans that they formed societies dedicated to ending it. Many women with strong moral opinions became involved in these abolitionist groups. As they became skilled in organizing, and fervent in expressing their opinions, they developed skills which became very useful in forming women's rights groups. Some of the most famous women's rights leaders (Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, among others) were heavily involved in abolition work prior to becoming women's movement organizers.

       Since it was not illegal, it was difficult for those who opposed it to find a means of stopping slavery.
Until it was abolished at the end of the Civil War, slavery provoked angry words among Americans. What could justify the practice of capturing black people, removing them forcibly from their native lands, selling them into a life of hardship and misery among strangers, and forbidding anyone to try to make their lives more endurable?

       Yet there were many whites in the United States who argued that slavery was practiced among the black tribes themselves, and that the lives of slaves, who were fed, clothed and housed at their owners' expense, was better than their lives in their own countries. Slave owners saw themselves as conducting business in a reasonable manner, by using this cheap labor source. And since it was not illegal, it was difficult for those who opposed it to find a means of stopping slavery.
      
       Once slavery was in place in a country's economy, how could it be ended? Getting rid of slavery was could very well cause economic hardship to the slave holders, to the nation at large, and perhaps to the slaves themselves.

       Especially after cotton farming became the "king" of American agriculture, the economic incentives to keep on with slavery appeared strong. After all, if the laborers (in this case, slaves) were free to work where they wished, it wasn't likely that they would stay in the backbreaking fieldwork of cotton picking and other agricultural labor. Instead, like the young women who crowded the textile mills, freed slaves would want at least a chance to work their way to better circumstances.

       Southern slaveholders were anxious to keep slaves ignorant of basic educational skills such as reading and writing, which might permit them to understand newspapers and write letters urging the abolition of slavery. Slave owners were afraid of uprisings if blacks could organize effectively.

       They also feared the reformers, usually Northerners, who published abolitionist newspapers and traveled through the South speaking out against slavery. Most of these abolitionists were NOT preaching equality of the races. Instead, they advocated freeing the slaves because it was ungodly and immoral to keep other humans in bondage.
    
       There was no general agreement about what to do with freed slaves; sending them to a free colony in Africa was one popular idea. Those who were willing to educate or train blacks, and work and live peaceably beside them, were a tiny minority of those who preached against slavery.