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After the war Civil War Lincolns plan was to that after a state took a loyal promise to the union then it could form a new state.

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On December 8, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln offers his conciliatory plan for reunification of the United States with his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction.

By this point in the Civil War, it was clear that Lincoln needed to make some preliminary plans for postwar reconstruction. The Union armies had captured large sections of the South, and some states were ready to have their governments rebuilt. The proclamation addressed three main areas of concern. First, it allowed for a full pardon for and restoration of property to all engaged in the rebellion with the exception of the highest Confederate officials and military leaders. Second, it allowed for a new state government to be formed when 10 percent of the eligible voters had taken an oath of allegiance to the United States. Third, the Southern states admitted in this fashion were encouraged to enact plans to deal with the formerly enslaved people so long as their freedom was not compromised.

In short, the terms of the plan were easy for most Southerners to accept. Though the emancipation of enslaved people was an impossible pill for some Confederates to swallow, Lincoln's plan was charitable, considering the costliness of the war. With the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, Lincoln was seizing the initiative for reconstruction from Congress. Some Radical Republicans thought the plan was far too easy on the South, but others accepted it because of the president's prestige and leadership. Following Lincoln's assassination in April 1865, the disagreements over the postwar reconstruction policy led to a heated battle between the next president, Andrew Johnson, and Congress.

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President Lincoln issues Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction

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On December 8, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln offers his conciliatory plan for reunification of the United States with his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction. By this point in the Civil War, it was clear that Lincoln needed to make some preliminary plans for postwar reconstruction.

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At least 400 women disguised themselves and fought for Union and Confederate armies.

Women increasingly took over jobs in factories and farms as men left for war.

The war created an opportunity for women to become teachers and nurses, professions dominated by men before the war.

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Joined army in 1862 and about 10% of the Union army was native Americans which was over 200,000.

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On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation: "All persons held as slaves within any States...in rebellion against the United States," it declared, "shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." (The more than 1 million enslaved people in the loyal border states and in the Union-occupied parts of Louisiana and Virginia were not affected by this proclamation.) It also declared that "such persons [African American] of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States." For the first time, Black soldiers could fight for the U.S. Army.

A 'White Man's War'?

Black soldiers had fought in the Revolutionary War and-unofficially-in the War of 1812, but state militias had excluded African Americans since 1792. The U.S. Army had never accepted Black soldiers. The U.S. Navy, on the other hand, was more progressive: There, African Americans had been serving as shipboard firemen, stewards, coal heavers and even boat pilots since 1861.

Did you know? Sixteen Black soldiers won the Congressional Medal of Honor for their brave service in the Civil War.

After the Civil War broke out, abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass argued that the enlistment of Black soldiers would help the North win the war and would be a huge step in the fight for equal rights: "Once let the Black man get upon his person the brass letters, U.S.; let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket," Douglass said, "and there is no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship." However, this is just what President Lincoln was afraid of: He worried that arming African Americans, particularly former or escaped slaves, would push the loyal border states to secede. This, in turn, would make it almost impossible for the Union to win the war.

The Second Confiscation and Militia Act (1862)

However, after two grueling years of war, President Lincoln began to reconsider his position on Black soldiers. The war did not appear to be anywhere near an end, and the Union Army badly needed soldiers. White volunteers were dwindling in number, and African-Americans were more eager to fight than ever.

The Second Confiscation and Militia Act of July 17, 1862, was the first step toward the enlistment of African Americans in the Union Army. It did not explicitly invite Black people to join the fight, but it did authorize the president "to employ as many persons of African descent as he may deem necessary and proper for the suppression of this rebellion...in such manner as he may judge best for the public welfare."

Some Black people took this as their cue to begin forming infantry units of their own. African Americans from New Orleans formed three National Guard units: the First, Second and Third Louisiana Native Guard. (These became the 73rd, 74th and 75th United States Colored Infantry.) The First Kansas Colored Infantry (later the 79th United States Colored Infantry) fought in the October 1862 skirmish at Island Mound, Missouri. And the First South Carolina Infantry, African Descent (later the 33rd United States Colored Infantry) went on its first expedition in November 1862. These unofficial regiments were officially mustered into service in January 1863.

The 54th Massachusetts

Early in February 1863, the abolitionist Governor John A. Andrew of Massachusetts issued the Civil War's first official call for Black soldiers. More than 1,000 men responded. They formed the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, the first Black regiment to be raised in the North. Many of the 54th soldiers did not even come from Massachusetts: one-quarter came from slave states, and some came from as far away as Canada and the Caribbean. To lead the 54th Massachusetts, Governor Andrew chose a young white officer named Robert Gould Shaw.

On July 18, 1863, the 54th Massachusetts stormed Fort Wagner, which guarded the Port of Charleston, in South Carolina. It was the first time in the Civil War that Black troops led an infantry attack. Unfortunately, the 600 men of the 54th were outgunned and outnumbered: 1,700 Confederate soldiers waited inside the fort, ready for battle. Almost half of the charging Union soldiers, including Colonel Shaw, were killed.

Confederate Threats

In general, the Union army was reluctant to use African American troops in combat. This was partly due to racism: There were many Union officers who believed that Black soldiers were not as skilled or as brave as white soldiers were. By this logic, they thought that African Americans were better suited for jobs as carpenters, cooks, guards, scouts and teamsters.

Black soldiers and their officers were also in grave danger if they were captured in battle. Confederate President Jefferson Davis called the Emancipation Proclamation "the most execrable measure in the history of guilty man" and promised that Black prisoners of war would be enslaved or executed on the spot. (Their white commanders would likewise be punished-even executed-for what the Confederates called "inciting servile insurrection.") Threats of Union reprisal against Confederate prisoners forced Southern officials to treat Black soldiers who had been free before the war somewhat better than they treated Black soldiers who were formerly enslaved-but in neither case was the treatment particularly good. Union officials tried to keep their troops out of harm's way as much as possible by keeping most Black soldiers away from the front lines.

The Fight for Equal Pay

Even as they fought to end slavery in the Confederacy, African American Union soldiers were fighting against another injustice as well. The U.S. Army paid Black soldiers $10 a month (minus a clothing allowance, in some cases), while white soldiers got $3 more (plus a clothing allowance, in some cases). Congress passed a bill authorizing equal pay for Black and white soldiers in 1864.

By the time the war ended in 1865, about 180,000 Black men had served as soldiers in the U.S. Army. This was about 10 percent of the total Union fighting force. Most-about 90,000-were former (or "contraband") enslaved people from the Confederate states. About half of the rest were from the loyal border states, and the rest were free Black people from the North. Forty thousand Black soldiers died in the war: 10,000 in battle and 30,000 from illness or infection.

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Black Civil War Soldiers - Facts, Death Toll & Enlistment

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After President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Black soldiers could officially fight for the U.S. Army during the Civil War.

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North

Naval blockade of southern seaports to block import of manufactured goods and block the sale of cotton exports

Control the Miss. River to cripple southern transportation link and split the South in two

Seize Confederate capital, Richmond (100 miles from D.C.)

South

Defend until North gets tired of fighting and gives up

Get help from Britain and other European allies.

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Northern Plans to End the War [ushistory.org]

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In July, 1863, the Confederates suffered a crushing defeat at Gettysburg and, a day later, the Union captured Vicksburg. Union generals devised a strategy to bring the war to an end, starting with a navel blockade to prevent the south from receiving supplies or military support from abroad.

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Rifles and cannons had become more powerful accurate and deadly proving old fighting tactics were useless.

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The Civil War was a time of great social and political upheaval. It was also a time of great technological change. Inventors and military men devised new types of weapons, such as the repeating rifle and the submarine, that forever changed the way that wars were fought. Even more important were the technologies that did not specifically have to do with the war, like the railroad and the telegraph. Innovations like these did not just change the way people fought wars-they also changed the way people lived.

New Kinds of Weapons

Before the Civil War, infantry soldiers typically carried muskets that held just one bullet at a time. The range of these muskets was about 250 yards. However, a soldier trying to aim and shoot with any accuracy would have to stand much closer to his target, since the weapon's "effective range" was only about 80 yards. Therefore, armies typically fought battles at a relatively close range.

Did you know? The rifle-musket and the Minié bullet are thought to account for around 90 percent ofCivil Warcasualties.

Rifles, by contrast, had a much greater range than muskets did-a rifle could shoot a bullet up to 1,000 yards-and were more accurate. However, until the 1850s it was nearly impossible to use these guns in battle because, since a rifle's bullet had roughly the same diameter as its barrel, they took too long to load. (Soldiers sometimes had to pound the bullet into the barrel with a mallet.)

In 1848, a French army officer named Claude Minié invented a cone-shaped lead bullet with a diameter smaller than that of the rifle barrel. Soldiers could load these "Minié balls" quickly, without the aid of ramrods or mallets. Rifles with Minié bullets were more accurate, and therefore deadlier, than muskets were, which forced infantries to change the way they fought: Even troops who were far from the line of fire had to protect themselves by building elaborate trenches and other fortifications.

"Repeaters"

Rifles with Minié bullets were easy and quick to load, but soldiers still had to pause and reload after each shot. This was inefficient and dangerous. By 1863, however, there was another option: so-called repeating rifles, or weapons that could fire more than one bullet before needing a reload. The most famous of these guns, the Spencer carbine, could fire seven shots in 30 seconds.

Like many other Civil War technologies, these weapons were available to Northern troops but not Southern ones: Southern factories had neither the equipment nor the know-how to produce them. "I think the Johnnys [Confederate soldiers] are getting rattled; they are afraid of our repeating rifles," one Union soldier wrote. "They say we are not fair, that we have guns that we load up on Sunday and shoot all the rest of the week."

Balloons and Submarines

Other newfangled weapons took to the air-for example, Union spies floated above Confederate encampments and battle lines in hydrogen-filled passenger balloons, sending reconnaissance information back to their commanders via telegraph-and to the sea. "Iron-clad" warships prowled up and down the coast, maintaining a Union blockade of Confederate ports.

For their part, Confederate sailors tried to sink these ironclads with submarines. The first of these, the Confederate C.S.S. Hunley, was a metal tube that was 40 feet long, 4 feet across, and held an 8-man crew. In 1864, the Hunley sank the Union blockade ship Housatonic off the coast of Charleston but was itself wrecked in the process.

The Railroad

More important than these advanced weapons were larger-scale technological innovations such as the railroad. Once again, the Union had the advantage. When the war began, there were 22,000 miles of railroad track in the North and just 9,000 in the South, and the North had almost all of the nation's track and locomotive factories. Furthermore, Northern tracks tended to be "standard gauge," which meant that any train car could ride on any track. Southern tracks, by contrast, were not standardized, so people and goods frequently had to switch cars as they traveled-an expensive and inefficient system.

Union officials used railroads to move troops and supplies from one place to another. They also used thousands of soldiers to keep tracks and trains safe from Confederate attack.

The Telegraph

Abraham Lincoln was the first president who was able to communicate on the spot with his officers on the battlefield. The White House telegraph office enabled him to monitor battlefield reports, lead real-time strategy meetings and deliver orders to his men. Here, as well, the Confederate army was at a disadvantage: They lacked the technological and industrial ability to conduct such a large-scale communication campaign.

In 1861, the Union Army established the U.S. Military Telegraph Corps, led by a young railroad man named Andrew Carnegie. The next year alone, the U.S.M.T.C. trained 1,200 operators, strung 4,000 miles of telegraph wire and sent more than a million messages to and from the battlefield.

Civil War Photography

The Civil War was the first war to be documented through the lens of a camera. However, the era's photographic process was far too elaborate for candid pictures. Taking and developing photos using the so-called "wet-plate" process was a meticulous, multi-step procedure that required more than one "camera operator" and lots of chemicals and equipment. As a result, the images of the Civil War are not action snapshots: They are portraits and landscapes. It was not until the 20th century that photographers were able to take non-posed pictures on the battlefield.

Technological innovation had an enormous impact on the way people fought the Civil War and on the way they remember it. Many of these inventions have played important roles in military and civilian life ever since.

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Civil War Technology - Weapons, Military, Advancements | HISTORY

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While the American Civil War saw the use of new weapons like the repeating rifle, other technological innovations from the era also impacted the fighting.

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LARGE population - 22 million

90% of industrial goods made there- munitions

Efficient railroad system

Controlled the navy

Capable military leaders- Ulysses S. Grant

BUT would have to fight an offensive war on mostly southern land (long supply lines, unfamiliar territory...)

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strengths and weaknesses: north vs. south

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Strengths and Weaknesses: North vs. South [ushistory.org]

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Strengths and Weaknesses: North vs. South

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Confederates had excellent generals too -Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jackson

Defending is always easier than attacking - (familiar w/climate and territory, possible psychological advantages)

Farmers fight better than factory workers

Profitable economy based on cotton exports

BUT a MUCH smaller population of 9 million including 3.5 million slaves and would have to import all goods including munitions

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Out of the 400 battles most of them took place in the south so that meant the Union had to camp out and survive on there own in the South while the people who lived in the South were able to go home at times during the war.

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The North and South were the rivals in the Civil War, the South were farmers and North had uniforms and had a better life.

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America was split during the Civil War.

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about 6% of African Americans were free but were not able to do anything the whites were able to do.

Still excluded from all but the most menial jobs.

Children could not attend public school.

Could not vote

Could not serve on juries

Could not testify against a white person in court.

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River travel was a big things int he south unlike the north they were developing faster by building roads and rail roads.

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Cotton production and slave labor grew a lot in the south and almost every single state in the south grew cotton.

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Mild winters and long, hot, humid summers.

Plentiful rainfall and long growing seasons

A perfect place for raising warm-weather crops that would have withered and died farther north.

An especially important feature of the South was its broad, flat rivers. Many of the South's earliest towns were built at the mouths of rivers.

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The economy was very bad but the north did grow really fast as a region. Factory working had poor lighting, no fresh air, danger, no help if injured, and really young kids would work in factories.

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Article Search (U.S. National Park Service)

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National Park Service Logo National Park Service

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Better roads in the north, transportation was faster and more efficient

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In the North, there were a variety of climates and natural features. Northerners adapted to these geographical differences by creating different industries and ways of making a living.

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The North and the South developed differently from each other in the first half of the 1800s.

The North & South differed in their geography, economies, transportation systems, and societies.

Between 1800 and 1850, these differences led to sharply conflicting views on many national issues.

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Pushed for an end to alcohol abuse and the problems created by it
- Many women took part in this social reform
- considered alcohol to be morally wrong

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The Drunkard's Progress (1846) by Nathaniel Currier warns that moderate drinking leads to total disaster step-by-step.

The temperance movement is a social movement promoting temperance or complete abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and its leaders emphasize alcohol's negative effects on people's health, personalities and family lives. Typically the movement promotes alcohol education and it also demands the passage of new laws against the sale of alcohol, either regulations on the availability of alcohol, or the complete prohibition of it. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the temperance movement became prominent in many countries, particularly in English-speaking, Scandinavian, and majority Protestant ones, and it eventually led to national prohibitions in Canada (1918 to 1920), Norway (spirits only from 1919 to 1926), Finland (1919 to 1932), and the United States (1920 to 1933), as well as provincial prohibition in India (1948 to present). A number of temperance organizations exist that promote temperance and teetotalism as a virtue.

Illustration of long-term effects of alcohol consumption on health

Attitudes toward alcohol in Great Britain became increasingly negative in the late 18th century. One of the reasons for this shift was the need for sober laborers to operate heavy machinery developed in the Industrial Revolution. Anthony Benezet suggested abstinence from alcohol in 1775. As early as the 1790s, physician Benjamin Rush envisioned a disease-like syndrome caused by excessive drinking, the "symptoms" being moral and physical decay. He cited abstinence as the only treatment option. Rush saw benefits in fermented drinks, but condemned the use of distilled spirits. As well as addiction, Rush noticed the correlation that drunkenness had with disease, death, suicide, and crime. According to "Pompili, Maurizio et al",[citation needed ] there is increasing evidence that, aside from the volume of alcohol consumed, the pattern of the drinking is relevant for health outcomes. Overall, there is a causal relationship between alcohol consumption and more than 60 types of diseases and injuries. Alcohol is estimated to cause about 20-30% of cases of esophageal cancer, liver cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, homicide, epilepsy and motor vehicle accidents. After the American Revolution, Rush called upon ministers of various churches to act in preaching the messages of temperance. However, abstinence messages were largely ignored by Americans until the 1820s.

Temperance is one of the cardinal virtues listed in Aristotle's tractate the Nicomachean Ethics.

During the 18th century, Native American cultures and societies were severely affected by alcohol, which was often given in trade for furs, leading to poverty and social disintegration. As early as 1737, Native American temperance activists began to campaign against alcohol and for legislation to restrict the sale and distribution of alcoholic drinks in indigenous communities. During the colonial era, leaders such as Peter Chartier, King Hagler and Little Turtle resisted the use of rum and brandy as trade items, in an effort to protect Native Americans from cultural changes they viewed as destructive.

In the 18th century, there was a gin craze in Great Britain. The middle classes became increasingly critical of the widespread drunkenness among the lower classes. Motivated by the middle-class desire for order, and amplified by the population growth in the cities, the drinking of gin became the subject of critical national debate. In 1743, John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Churches, proclaimed "that buying, selling, and drinking of liquor, unless absolutely necessary, were evils to be avoided".

In the early 19th-century United States, alcohol was still regarded as a necessary part of the American diet for both practical and social reasons. On one hand, water supplies were often polluted, milk was not always available, and coffee and tea were expensive. On the other hand, social constructs of the time made it impolite for people (particularly men) to refuse alcohol. Drunkenness was not a problem, because people would only drink small amounts of alcohol throughout the day; at the turn of the 19th century, however, overindulgence and subsequent intoxication became problems that often led to the disintegration of the family. Early temperance societies, often associated with churches, were located in upstate New York and New England, but only lasted a few years. These early temperance societies called for moderate drinking (hence the name " temperance"), but had little influence outside of their geographical areas.

In 1810, Calvinist ministers met in a seminary in Massachusetts to write articles about abstinence from alcohol to use in preaching to their congregations. The Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance (MSSI) was formed in 1813. The organization only accepted men of high social standing and encouraged moderation in alcohol consumption. Its peak of influence was in 1818, and it ended in 1820, having made no significant mark on the future of the temperance movement. Other small temperance societies appeared in the 1810s, but had little impact outside their immediate regions and they disbanded soon after. Their methods had little effect in implementing temperance, and drinking actually increased until after 1830; however, their methods of public abstinence pledges and meetings, as well as handing out pamphlets, were implemented by more lasting temperance societies such as the American Temperance Society.

The first temperance society in Pennsylvania, of which a record has been found was that of "Darby Association for Discouraging the Unnecessary Use of Spirituous Liquors" organized in Delaware County in 1819, at the Darby Friends Meetinghouse.

Songbook used at the Women's Temperance Organization from Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania.

The temperance movement in the United States began at a national level in the 1820s, having been popularized by evangelical temperance reformers and among the middle classes. There was a concentration on advice against hard spirits rather than on abstinence from all alcohol, and on moral reform rather than legal measures against alcohol. An earlier temperance movement had begun during the American Revolution in Connecticut, Virginia and New York state, with farmers forming associations to ban whiskey distilling. The movement spread to eight states, advocating temperance rather than abstinence and taking positions on religious issues such as observance of the Sabbath.

After the American Revolution there was a new emphasis on good citizenship for the new republic. With the Evangelical Protestant religious revival of the 1820s and 1830s, called the Second Great Awakening, social movements began aiming for a perfect society. This included abolitionism and temperance. The Awakening brought with it an optimism about moral reform, achieved through volunteer organizations. Although the temperance movement was nonsectarian in principle, the movement consisted mostly of church-goers.

The temperance movement promoted temperance and emphasized the moral, economical and medical effects of overindulgence. Connecticut-born minister Lyman Beecher published a book in 1826 called Six Sermons on...Intemperance. Beecher described inebriation as a "national sin" and suggested legislation to prohibit the sales of alcohol. He believed that it was only possible for drinkers to reform in the early stages of addiction, because anyone in advanced stages of addiction, according to Beecher, had damaged their morality and could not be saved. Early temperance reformers often viewed drunkards as warnings rather than as victims of a disease, leaving the state to take care of them and their conduct. In the same year, the American Temperance Society (ATS) was formed in Boston, Massachusetts, within 12 years claiming more than 8,000 local groups and over 1,250,000 members. Presbyterian preacher Charles Grandison Finney taught abstinence from ardent spirits. In the Rochester, New York revival of 1831, individuals were required to sign a temperance pledge in order to receive salvation. Finney believed and taught that the body represented the "temple of God" and anything that harmed the "temple", including alcohol, must be avoided. By 1833, several thousand groups similar to the ATS had been formed in most states. In some of these large communities, temperance almanacs were released which gave information about planting and harvesting as well as current information about temperance-related issues.

Temperance societies were being organized in England about the same time, many inspired by a Belfast professor of theology, and Presbyterian Church of Ireland minister John Edgar, who poured his stock of whiskey out of his window in 1829.Was this in England or Ireland? [clarification needed ] He mainly concentrated on the elimination of spirits rather than wine and beer. On August 14, 1829, he wrote a letter in the Belfast Telegraph publicizing his views on temperance. He also formed the Ulster Temperance Movement with other Presbyterian clergy, initially enduring ridicule from members of his community.

The 1830s saw a tremendous growth in temperance groups, not just in England and the United States, but also in British colonies, especially New Zealand and Australia. The Pequot writer and minister William Apess (1798-1839) established the first formal Native American temperance society among the Maspee Indians on 11 October 1833.

Out of the religious revival and reform appeared the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Seventh-day Adventism, new Christian denominations that established criteria for healthy living as a part of their religious teachings, namely temperance.

The Word of Wisdom is a health code followed by the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other Latter Day Saint denominations which advises how to maintain good health: what one should do and what one should abstain from. One of the most prominent items in the Word of Wisdom is the complete abstinence from alcohol. When the Word of Wisdom was written, the Latter Day Saints were residing in Kirtland, Ohio and the Kirtland Temperance Society was organized on October 6, 1830, with 239 members. According to some scholars, the Word of Wisdom was influenced by the temperance movement. In June 1830, the Millennial Harbinger quoted from a book "The Simplicity of Health", which strongly condemned the use of alcohol and tobacco, and the untempered consumption of meat, similar to the provisions in the Word of Wisdom revealed three years later. This gave publicity to the movement and Temperance Societies began to form. On February 1, 1833, a few weeks before the Word of Wisdom was published, all distilleries in the Kirtland area were shut down. During the early history of the Word of Wisdom, temperance and other items in the health code were seen more as wise recommendations than as commandments.

Although he advocated temperance, Joseph Smith did not preach complete abstinence from alcohol. According to Paul H. Peterson and Ronald W. Walker, Smith did not enforce abstinence from alcohol because he believed that it threatened individual choice and agency and that a requirement for the Latter Day Saints to comply would cause division in the church. In Harry M. Beardsley's book Joseph Smith and his Mormon Empire, Beardsley argues that some Mormon historians attempted to portray Smith as a teetotaler, but according to the testimonies of his contemporaries, he often drank alcohol in his own home or the homes of his friends in Kirtland. In Nauvoo, Illinois, Smith was far less discreet with his drinking habits. However, at the end of the 19th century, second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Brigham Young said that the Saints could no longer justify disobeying the Word of Wisdom because of the way that it originally was presented. In 1921, Heber J. Grant, then president of the LDS church, officially called on the Latter-day Saints to strictly adhere to the Word of Wisdom, including complete abstinence from alcohol.

Cold Water Army poster (1843)

William Miller, the founder of the Millerites, claimed that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ would be in 1843 and that anyone who drank alcohol would be unprepared for the Second Coming. After the Great Disappointment in 1843, the Seventh-day Adventist denomination adopted health reforms inspired by influential church pioneers Ellen G. White and her husband, a preacher, James Springer White, who did not use alcohol or tobacco. Ellen preached healthful living to her followers, without specifying abstinence from alcohol, as most of her followers were temperance followers, and abstinence would have been implied.

As a response to rising social problems in urbanized areas, a stricter form of temperance emerged called teetotalism, which promoted the complete abstinence from alcoholic beverages, this time including wine and beer, not just ardent spirits. The term teetotaler came from the capital "T"s that were written next to the names of people who pledged complete abstinence from alcohol. People were instructed to only drink pure water and the teetotalists were known as the "pure-water army". In the US, the American Temperance Union advocated total abstinence from distilled and fermented liquors. By 1835, they had gained 1.5million members. This created conflict between the teetotalists and the more moderate members of the ATS. Although there were temperance societies in the South, as the movement became more closely tied with the abolitionist movement, people in the South created their own teetotal societies. Considering drinking to be an important part of their cultures, German and Irish immigrants resisted the movement. In the UK, teetotalism originated in Preston, Lancashire in 1833. The Catholic temperance movement started in 1838 when the Irish priest Theobald Mathew established the Teetotal Abstinence Society in 1838. In 1838, the mass working class movement for universal suffrage for men, Chartism, included a current called "temperance chartism". Faced with the refusal of the Parliament of the time to give the right to vote to working people, the temperance chartists saw the campaign against alcohol as a way of proving to the elites that working-class people were responsible enough to be granted the vote. In short, the 1830s was mostly characterized by moral persuasion of workers.

Sons of Temperance procession, Hill End, New South Wales, 1872

In 1840, a group of artisans in Baltimore, Maryland created their own temperance society that could appeal to hard-drinking men like themselves. Calling themselves the Washingtonians, they pledged complete abstinence, attempting to persuade others through their own experience with alcohol rather than relying on preaching and religious lectures. They argued that sympathy was an overlooked method for helping people with alcohol addictions, citing coercion as an ineffective method. For that reason, they did not support prohibitive legislation of alcohol. They were suspicious of the divisiveness of denominational religion and did not use religion in their discussions, emphasizing personal abstinence. They never set up national organizations, believing that concentration of power and distance from citizens causes corruption. Meetings were public and they encouraged equal participation, appealing to both men and women and northerners and southerners. Unlike early temperance reformers, the Washingtonians did not believe that intemperance destroyed a drinker's morality. They worked on the platform that abstinence communities could be created through sympathizing with drunkards rather than ostracizing them through the belief that they are sinners or diseased.

By 1845, the Washingtonian movement was no longer as prominent for three reasons. First, the evangelist reformers attacked them for refusing to admit alcoholism was a sin. Secondly, the movement was criticized as unsuccessful due to the number of men who returned to drinking. Finally, the movement was internally divided by differing views on prohibition legislation. Temperance fraternal societies such as the Sons of Temperance and the Good Samaritans took the place of the Washingtonian movement with largely similar views relating to helping alcoholics by way of sympathy and philanthropy. They, however, differed from the Washingtonians through their closed rather than public meetings, fines, and membership qualifications, believing their methods were more effective in curbing men's alcohol addictions. After the 1850s, the temperance movement was characterized more by prevention by means of prohibitions laws than remedial efforts to facilitate the recovery of alcoholics.

By the mid-1850s, the United States was divided from differing views of slavery and prohibition laws and economic depression. This influenced the Third Great Awakening in the United States. The prayer meeting largely characterized this religious revival. Prayer meetings were devotional meetings run by laypeople rather than clergy and consisted of prayer and testimony by attendees. The meetings were held frequently and pledges of temperance were confessed. Prayer meetings and pledges characterized the post-Civil war "gospel" temperance movement. This movement was similar to early temperance movements in that drunkenness was seen as a sin; however, public testimony was used to convert others and convince them to sign the pledge. New and revitalized organizations emerged including the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) and the early Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). The movement relied on the reformed individuals using local evangelical resources to create institutions to reform drunk men. Reformed men in Massachusetts and Maine formed "ribbon" clubs to support men who were interested in stopping drinking. Ribbon reformers traveled throughout the Midwest forming clubs and sharing their experiences with others. Gospel rescue missions or inebriate homes were created that allowed homeless drunkards a safe place to reform and learn to practice total abstinence while receiving food and shelter. These movements emphasized sympathy over coercion, yet unlike the Washingtonian movements, emphasized helplessness as well with relief from their addictions as a result from seeking the grace of God.

As an expression of moralism, the membership of the temperance movement overlapped with that of the abolitionist movement and women's suffrage movement.

During the Victorian period, the temperance movement became more political, advocating the legal prohibition of all alcohol, rather than only calling for moderation. Proponents of temperance, teetotalism and prohibition came to be known as the "drys".

In this period there was local success at restricting or banning the sale of alcohol in many parts of the United States. In 1838, Massachusetts banned certain sales of spirits. The law was repealed two years later, but it set a precedent. In 1845, Michigan allowed its municipalities to decide whether they were going to prohibit. In 1851, a law was passed in Maine that was a full-fledged prohibition, and this was followed by bans in several other states in the next two decades.

The movement became more effective, with alcohol consumption in the US being decreased by half between 1830 and 1840. During this time, prohibition laws came into effect in twelve US states, such as Maine. A Maine law was passed in 1851 by the efforts of Neal Dow. Organized opposition caused five of these states to eliminate or weaken the laws.

A temperance fountain in Tompkins Square Park, New York City

By the 1860s the temperance movement had become a significant mass movement and it encouraged a general abstinence from the consumption of alcohol. A general movement to build alternatives to replace the functions of public bars existed, so the Independent Order of Rechabites was formed in England, with a branch later opening in the US as a friendly society that did not hold meetings in public bars. There was also a movement to introduce temperance fountains across the United States-to provide people with reliably safe drinking water rather than saloon alcohol.

In the United States, the National Prohibition Party which was led by John Russell gradually became more popular, gaining more votes, as they felt that the existing Democrat and Republican parties did not do enough for the temperance cause. The party was associated with the Independent Order of Good Templars, which entertained a universalist orientation, being more open to blacks and repentant alcoholics than most other organizations.

Reflecting the teaching on alcohol of their founder John Wesley, Methodist churches were aligned with the temperance movement. Methodists believed that despite the supposed economic benefits of liquor traffic such as job creation and taxes, the harm that it caused society through its contribution to murder, gambling, prostitution, crime, and political corruption outweighed its economic benefits. In Great Britain, both Wesleyan Methodists and Primitive Methodists championed the cause of temperance; the Methodist Board of Temperance, Prohibition, and Public Morals was later established in the United States to advance the movement. In 1864, the Salvation Army, another denomination in the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition, was founded in London with a heavy emphasis on abstinence from alcohol and ministering to the working class, which led publicans to fund a Skeleton Army in order to disrupt their meetings. The Salvation Army quickly spread internationally, maintaining an emphasis on abstinence. Many of the most important prohibitionist groups, such as the avowedly prohibitionist United Kingdom Alliance (1853) and the US-based (but international) Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU; 1873), began in the latter half of the 19th century, the latter of which was one of the largest women's societies in the world at that time. But the largest and most radical international temperance organization was the Good Templars. In 1862, the Soldiers Total Abstinence Association was founded in British India by Joseph Gelson Gregson, a Baptist missionary. In 1898, the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association was formed by James Cullen, an Irish Catholic, which spread to other English-speaking Catholic communities.

In 1870, a group of physicians founded the American Association of the Cure of Inebrity (AACI) in order to treat alcohol addiction. The two goals of this organization were to convince skeptical members of the medical community of the existence and seriousness of the disease of alcoholism and prove the efficacy of asylum treatments for alcoholics. They argued for more genetic causes of alcohol addictions. Treatments often included restraining patients while they reformed, both physically and morally.

During the same period, there was significant pushback against the growing temperance movement, particularly in urban areas with significant European immigrant communities. Chicago political bosses A.C. Hesing and Hermann Raster forced the Republican Party to adopt an anti-temperance platform at the 1872 Republican National Convention with the threat of taking the German and European vote away from the party. The following year, Hesing formed the People's Party, a breakaway pro-liquor faction of the Republican Party, and elected Harvey Doolittle Colvin as mayor of Chicago by a wide margin.

The Anti-Saloon League was an organization that began in Ohio in 1893. Reacting to urban growth, it was driven by evangelical Protestantism. Furthermore, the League was strongly supported by the WCTU: in some US states alcoholism had become epidemic and rates of domestic violence were also high. At that time, Americans drank about three times as much alcohol as they drank in the 2010s. The League simultaneously campaigned for suffrage and temperance, with its leader Susan B. Anthony stating that "The only hope of the Anti-Saloon League's success lies in putting the ballot into the hands of women", i.e. it was expected that the first act that women were to take upon themselves after having obtained the right to vote, was to vote for an alcohol ban.

The actions of the temperance movement included organizing sobriety lectures and setting up reform clubs for men and children. Some proponents also opened special temperance hotels and lunch wagons, and they also lobbied for banning liquor during prominent events. The Scientific Temperance Instruction Movement published textbooks, promoted alcohol education and held many lectures. Political action included lobbying local legislators and creating petition campaigns.

This new trend in the history of the temperance movement was the last but it proved to be the most effective. Scholars have estimated that by 1900, one in ten Americans had signed a pledge to abstain from drinking, as the temperance movement became the most well-organized lobby group of the time. International conferences were held, in which temperance advocacy methods and policies were discussed. By the turn of the century, temperance societies became commonplace in the US.

During that time, there was also a growth in the number of non-religious temperance groups which were linked to left-wing movements, such as the Scottish Prohibition Party. Founded in 1901, it went on to defeat Winston Churchill in Dundee in the 1922 general election.

An 1871 American advertisement promoting temperance, styled as a fictitious railroad advertisement

A favorite goal of the British Temperance movement was sharply to reduce heavy drinking by closing as many pubs as possible. Advocates were Protestant nonconformists who played a major role in the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party adopted temperance platforms focused on local option. In 1908, Prime Minister H.H. Asquith -although a heavy drinker himself-took the lead by proposing to close about a third of the 100,000 pubs in England and Wales, with the owners compensated through a new tax on surviving pubs. The brewers controlled the pubs and organized a stiff resistance, supported by the Conservatives, who repeatedly defeated the proposal in the House of Lords. However, the People's Tax of 1910 included a stiff tax on pubs.

The movement gained traction during the First World War, with President Wilson issuing sharp restrictions on the sale of alcohol in many combatant countries. This was done to preserve grain for food production. During this time, prohibitionists used anti-German sentiment related to the war to rally against alcohol sales, since many brewers were of German-American descent.

According to alcohol researcher Johan Edman, the first country to issue an alcohol prohibition was Russia, as part of war mobilization policies. This followed after Russia had made significant losses in the war against the sober Japanese in 1905. In the UK, the Liberal government passed the Defence of the Realm Act 1914 when pub hours were licensed, beer was watered down and was subject to a penny a pint extra tax, and in 1916 a State Management Scheme meant that breweries and pubs in certain areas of Britain were nationalized, especially in places where armaments were made.

In 1913, the ASL began its efforts for national prohibition. Wayne Wheeler, a member of the Anti-Saloon League was integral in the prohibition movement in the United States. He used hard political persuasion called "Wheelerism" in the 1920s of legislative bodies. Rather than ask directly for a vote, which Wheeler viewed as weak, Wheeler covered the desks of legislators in telegrams. He was also accomplished in rallying supporters; the Cincinnati Enquirer called Wheeler "the strongest political force of his day". His efforts specifically influenced the passing of the eighteenth-amendment. And in 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment was successfully passed in the United States, introducing prohibition of the manufacture, sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages. The amendment, also called "the noble experiment", was preceded by the National Prohibition Act, which stipulated how the federal government should enforce the amendment.

National prohibition was proposed several times in New Zealand as well, and nearly successful. On a similar note, Australian states and New Zealand introduced restrictive early closing times for bars during and immediately after the First World War. In Canada, in 1916 the Ontario Temperance Act was passed, prohibiting the sales of alcoholic beverages with more than 2.5% alcohol. In the 1920s imports of alcohol were cut off by provincial referendums.

Norway introduced partial prohibition in 1917, which became full prohibition through a referendum in 1919, but this legislation was overturned in 1926. Similarly, Finland introduced prohibition in 1919, but repealed it in 1932 after an upsurge in violent crime associated with criminal opportunism and the illegal liquor trade. Iceland introduced prohibition in 1915, but liberalized consumption of spirits in 1933, but beer was still illegal until 1989. In the 1910s, half of the countries in the world had introduced some form of alcohol control in their laws or policies.

In Pushkin, Saint Petersburg, a procession to promote temperance in front of the Tsarskoye Selo Railway station (1912)

The temperance movement started to wane in the 1930s, with prohibition being criticised as creating unhealthy drinking habits, encouraging criminals and discouraging economic activity. Prohibition would not last long: The legislative tide largely moved away from prohibition when the Twenty-first Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on December 5, 1933, repealing nationwide prohibition. The gradual relaxation of licensing laws went on throughout the 20th century, with Mississippi being the last state to end prohibition in 1966. In Australia, early hotel closing times were reverted in the 1950s and 1960s.

Initially, prohibition had some positive effects in some states, with Ford reporting that absenteeism in his companies had decreased by half. Alcohol consumption decreased dramatically. Also, statistical analysis has shown that the temperance movement during this time had a positive, but moderate, effect on later adult educational outcomes through providing a healthy pre-natal environment. However, prohibition had negative effects on the US economy, with thousands of jobs being lost, the catering and entertainment industries losing huge profits. The US and other countries with prohibition saw their tax revenues decrease dramatically, with some estimating this at a loss of 11 billion dollars for the US. Furthermore, enforcement of the alcohol ban was an expensive undertaking for the government. Because the Eighteenth Amendment did not prohibit consumption, but only manufacture, distribution and sale, illegal consumption became commonplace. Illegal production of alcohol rose, and a thousand people per year died of alcohol that was illegally produced with little quality control. Bootlegging was a profitable activity, and crime increased rather than decreased as expected and advocated by proponents.

In the United States, the temperance movement was in decline: Fundamentalist and nativist groups had become dominant in the movement, which led moderate members to leave the movement.

During this time, in former colonies (such as Gujarat in India, Sri Lanka and Egypt), the temperance movement was associated with anti-colonialism or religious revival. As such, the temperance movement in India became closely tied with the Indian independence movement as Mahatma Gandhi viewed alcohol as being a foreign importation. He viewed foreign rule as the reason that national prohibition was not yet established at his time.

The temperance movement still exists in many parts of the world, but it is generally less politically influential than it was in the early 20th century. Its efforts today include disseminating research regarding alcohol and health, in addition to its effects on society and the family unit.

Prominent temperance organizations active today include the World Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Alcohol Justice, International Blue Cross, Independent Order of Rechabites, and International Organisation of Good Templars.

The Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection, a Methodist denomination in the conservative holiness movement, as well as the Salvation Army, for example, are Christian Churches that continue to require that their members refrain from drinking alcohol as well as smoking, taking illegal drugs, and gambling.

Fitzpatrick's Herbal Health in Lancashire, England is thought to be the oldest temperance bars and other such establishments have become popular in recent times.

In various parts of the world, voters continue to advocate for alcohol prohibition. For example, in 2016, many women in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu blamed alcohol for societal ills, such as domestic violence, and thus took to the polls to elect a pro-prohibition leader. Their effort succeeded and when Jayaram Jayalalithaa was voted in, she shut down five hundred liquor shops on her first day in office. In 2017, women agitated for temperance and the prohibition of alcohol in the state of Bihar; they campaigned for the election of Nitish Kumar, who upon the request of women, pledged that he would prohibit alcohol. Since signing prohibition legislation, "Murders and gang robberies are down almost 20 percent from a year earlier, and riots by 13 percent. Fatal traffic accidents fell by 10 percent."

Beliefs, principles and culture

Temperance proponents saw the alcohol problem as the most crucial problem of Western civilization. Alcoholism was seen to cause secondary poverty, and all types of social problems: alcohol was the enemy of everything good that modernity and science had to offer. They believed that abstinence would help decrease crime, make families stronger, and improve society as a whole. Although the temperance movement was non-denominational in principle, the movement consisted mostly of church-goers. Temperance advocates used scientific arguments to back up their views, but at the core the temperance philosophy was moral-religious in nature. The alcohol problem was connected with a sense of purpose and modernity of the western nation, and was largely international in nature, in keeping with the international optimism typical for the period preceding the First World War.

Historical analysis of conference documents helps create an image of what the temperance movement represented. The movement believed that alcohol use disorder was a threat to scientific progress, as it was believed citizens had to be strong and sober to be ready for the modern age. Progressive themes and causes such as abolition, natural self-determination, worker's rights, and the importance of women in rearing children to be good citizens were key themes of this citizenship ideology. The movement put itself at service of the state, but was critical of it. In that sense, it was a radical movement with liberal and socialist aspects, but in some parts of the world, notably the US, allied with conservatism. Alcohol was often associated with oppression: not only oppression in the West, but also in colonies. Temperance advocates saw alcohol as a product that "...enables a few to become rich while it impoverishes the very many". Temperance advocates worked closely with the labor movement, as well as the women suffrage movement, partly because there was mutual support and benefit, and the causes were seen as connected.

Temperance proponents used a variety of means to prevent and treat alcohol use disorder and restrict its consumption. At the end of the 19th century, medically oriented treatment of alcohol use disorder became more common. In a trend that was preceded by Rush's writings, alcoholism came to be seen as an illness which could be medically treated. Scientists who were temperance proponents attempted to find the underlying causes of alcohol use disorder. At the same time, criticism rose toward use of alcohol in medical care. The notion of alcohol use disorder as a disease became widely accepted much later, generally after the Second World War.

Nevertheless, restriction of consumption was most emphasized in the movement, but ideas on how to accomplish this were varied and conflicting. Apart from the prohibition by law, there were also ideas to establish state monopoly on all alcohol sales, or through law reform remove profit from the alcohol industry.

During the 1900s decade, the ideal of strong citizens was developed into the hygienism ideology. Through the influence of scientific theories on heredity, temperance proponents came to believe that alcohol problems were not just a personal concern, but caused later generations of people to "degenerate" as well. Public hygiene and improving the population through personal lifestyle were therefore promoted. A variety of temperance halls, temperance bars and coffee palaces were established as replacements for saloons. Numerous periodicals devoted to temperance were published and temperance theatre, which had started in the 1820s, became an important part of the American cultural landscape at this time. The temperance movement generated its own popular culture. Popular songwriters such as Susan McFarland Parkhurst, George Frederick Root, Henry Clay Work and Stephen C. Foster composed a number of these songs. At temperance inns puppet plays, minstrel acts, parades and other shows were held.

Role of women

"Woman's Holy War. Grand Charge on the Enemy's Works". An allegorical 1874 political cartoon print, which shows temperance campaigners as virtuous armoured women warriors, wielding axes to destroy barrels of Beer, Whisky, Gin, Rum, Brandy, Wine and Liquors, under the banners of "In the name of God and humanity" and the "Temperance League".

Much of the temperance movement was based on organized religion, which saw women as responsible for edifying their children to be abstaining citizens. Nevertheless, temperance was tied in with both religious renewal and progressive politics, particularly female suffrage. Furthermore, temperance activists were able to promote suffrage more effectively than suffrage activists were, because of their wide-ranging experiences as activists, and because they argued for a concrete desire for safety at home, rather than for an abstract desire for justice as suffragists did.

By 1831, there were over 24 women's organizations which were dedicated to the temperance movement. Women were specifically drawn to the temperance movement, because it represented a fight to end a practice that greatly affected women's quality of life. Temperance was seen as a feminine, religious and moral duty, and when it was achieved, it was also seen as a way to gain familial and domestic security as well as salvation in a religious sense. Indeed, scholar Ruth Bordin stated that the temperance movement was "the foremost example of American feminism". Prominent women such as Amelia Bloomer, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony were active in temperance and abolitionist movements in the 1840s.

A myriad of factors contributed to women's interest in the temperance movement. One of the initial contributions was the frequency in which women were the victims of those who had an alcohol use disorder. At a Chicago meeting of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Susan B. Anthony stated that women suffer the most from drunkenness. The inability of women to control wages, vote, or own property added to their vulnerability. Another contribution was related to the role of women in the home in the 19th century, which was largely to preside over the spiritual and physical needs of their homes and families. Because of this, women believed that it was their duty to protect their families from the danger of alcohol and convert their family members to the ideas of abstinence. This newfound calling to temperance, however, did not change the widely held viewpoint that women were only responsible for matters which pertained to their homes. Consequently, women had what Ruth Bordin referred to as the "maternal struggle" which women felt was the internal contradiction that came with their newly discovered power to make change, while still believing in their nurturing and domestic roles without yet understanding how to use their newly acquired power. June Sochen called women who joined movements such as women's temperance organizations "pragmatic feminists", because they took action to solve their grievances, but were not interested in altering traditional sex roles. The missionary organizations of many Protestant denominations gave women an avenue to work from; several all-female missionary societies already existed and it was easy for them to transform themselves into women's temperance organizations.

In the 1870s and 1880s, the number of women who were in the middle and upper classes was large enough to support women's participation in the temperance movement. Higher class women did not need to work because they could rely on their husbands' ability to support their families and they consequently had more leisure time to engage in organizations and associations that were affiliated with the temperance movement. The influx of Irish immigrants filled the servant jobs that freed African-Americans left after the American Civil War, leaving upper and middle-class women with even more time to participate in the community while domestic jobs were being filled. Moreover, the birth rate had fallen, leaving women with an average of four children in 1880 as compared to seven children at the beginning of the 19th century. The gathering of people in urban areas and the extra leisure time for women contributed to the mass female temperance movement.

The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) grew out of a spontaneous crusade against saloons and liquor stores that began in Ohio and spread throughout the Midwestern United States during the winter of 1873-1874. The crusade consisted of over 32,000 women who stormed into saloons and liquor stores in order to disrupt business and stop the sales of alcohol. The WCTU was officially organized in late November 1874 in Cleveland, Ohio. Frances Willard, the organization's second president, helped grow the organization into the largest women's religious organization in the 19th century. Willard was interested in suffrage and women's rights as well as temperance, believing that temperance could improve the quality of life on both the family and community level. The WCTU trained women in skills such as public speaking, leadership, and political thinking, using temperance as a springboard to achieve a higher quality of life for women on many levels. In 1881, the WCTU began lobbying for the mandation of instruction in temperance in public schools. In 1901, schools were required to instruct students on temperance ideas, but they were accused of perpetuating misinformation, fear mongering, and racist stereotypes. Carrie Nation was one of the most extreme temperance movement workers and she was arrested 30 times for destroying property at bars, saloons, and even pharmacies, believing that even alcohol which was used for medicine was unjustified. At the approach of the 20th century, the temperance movement became more interested in legislative reform as pressure from the Anti-Saloon League increased. Women, who had not yet achieved suffrage, became less central to the movement in the early 1900s.

Other causes

Prohibition agendas also became popular among factory owners, who strove for more efficiency during a period of increased industrialization. For this reason, industrial leaders such as Henry Ford and S.S. Kresge supported Prohibition. The cause of the sober factory worker was related to the cause of women temperance leaders: concerned mothers protested against the enslavement of factory workers, as well as the temptation which saloons offered to these workers. Efficiency was also an important argument for the government because it wanted its soldiers to be sober.

At the end of the 19th century, temperance movement opponents started to criticize the slave trade in Africa. This criticism came during the last period of rapid colonial expansion. Slavery and the alcohol trade in colonies were seen as two closely related problems, and they were frequently called "the twin oppressors of the people". Again, this subject tied in with the ideas of civilization and effectiveness: temperance advocates raised the issue that the "natives" could not be properly "civilized" and put to work, if they were provided with the vice of alcohol.

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37. ^ Sochen, June (1973). Movers and Shakers: American Women Thinkers and Activists 1900-1970. New York: Quadrangle/New York Times Book Co. pp. 65-66. ISBN 978-0812903607.

38. ^ Smith, Daniel Scott (1976). "Family Limitation, Sexual Control and Domestic Feminism in Victorian America". In Hartman, Mary S.; Banner, Lois W. (eds.). Clio's Consciousness Raised: New Perspectives on the History of Women. New York: Octagon Books. p. 123. ISBN 978-0374937126.

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The temperance movement is a social movement promoting temperance or complete abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and its leaders emphasize alcohol's negative effects on people's health, personalities and family lives.

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- could not vote
- could not serve on juries
- could not attend college
- could not enter professions such as medicine or law
- limited rights in land

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Abolitionists were reformers working to end slavery all over the U.S. There main plan was to end slavery completely but there next plan was to help slaves escape

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What Is an Abolitionist?

An abolitionist, as the name implies, is a person who sought to abolish slavery during the 19th century. More specifically, these individuals sought the immediate and full emancipation of all enslaved people.

Most early abolitionists were white, religious Americans, but some of the most prominent leaders of the movement were also Black men and women who had escaped from bondage.

The abolitionists saw slavery as an abomination and an affliction on the United States, making it their goal to eradicate slave ownership. They sent petitions to Congress, ran for political office and inundated people of the South with anti-slavery literature.

These staunch activists wanted to abolish slavery completely, which differed from the ideas of other groups like the Free Soil Party, which opposed the expansion of slavery into U.S. territories and newly formed states such as Kansas.

Did you know? Female abolitionists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott went on to become prominent figures in the women's rights movement.

How Did Abolitionism Start?

Opposition to slavery wasn't a new concept when abolitionism started. Since the inception of the Atlantic slave trade, which began in the 16th century, critics voiced their disapproval of the system.

In an early effort to stop slavery, the American Colonization Society, founded in 1816, proposed the idea of freeing slaves and sending them back to Africa. This solution was thought to be a compromise between antislavery activists and slavery supporters.

By 1860, nearly 12,000 African Americans had returned to Africa.

Missouri Compromise

The Missouri Compromise of 1820, which allowed Missouri to become a slave state, further provoked anti-slave sentiment in the North.

The abolitionist movement began as a more organized, radical and immediate effort to end slavery than earlier campaigns. It officially emerged around 1830.

Historians believe ideas set forth during the religious movement known as the Second Great Awakening inspired abolitionists to rise up against slavery. This Protestant revival encouraged the concept of adopting renewed morals, which centered around the idea that all men are created equal in the eyes of God.

Abolitionism started in states like New York and Massachusetts and quickly spread to other Northern states.

Laws Inflame Tensions

In 1850, Congress passed the controversial Fugitive Slave Act, which required all escaped enslaved people to be returned to their owners and American citizens to cooperate with the captures.

Seven years later, the Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott decision that Black people-free or enslaved-didn't have legal citizenship rights. Owners of enslaved people were also granted the right to take their enslaved workers to Western territories. These legal actions and court decisions sparked outrage among abolitionists.

Famous Abolitionists

Many Americans, including free and formerly enslaved people, worked tirelessly to support the abolitionist movement. Some of the most famous abolitionists included:

William Lloyd Garrison: A very influential early abolitionist, Garrison started a publication called The Liberator, which supported the immediate freeing of all enslaved men and women.

Frederick Douglass: Douglass escaped slavery himself and published a memoir titled Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. An instrumental figure in the abolitionist movement, he also supported women's suffrage.

Harriet Beecher Stowe: Stowe was an author and abolitionist who was best known for her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Susan B. Anthony: Anthony was an author, speaker and women's rights activist who also supported the abolitionist movement. She is revered for her diligent efforts in fighting for women's rights to vote.

: Brown was a radical abolitionist who organized various raids and uprisings, including an infamous raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

Harriet Tubman: Tubman was a fugitive enslaved person and abolitionist who was known for helping escaped enslaved people reach the North via the Underground Railroad network.

Sojourner Truth: Best known for her speech, "Ain't I a Woman?," Truth was both an abolitionist and a women's rights advocate.

Rift Widens Between North and South

As it gained momentum, the abolitionist movement caused increasing friction between states in the North and the slave-owning South. Critics of abolition argued that it contradicted the U.S. Constitution, which left the option of slavery up to individual states.

Abolitionism was illegal in the South, and President Andrew Jackson banned the U.S. Postal Service from delivering any publications that supported the movement.

In 1833, a white student at Lane Theological Seminary named Amos Dresser was publicly whipped in Nashville, Tennessee, for possessing abolitionist literature while traveling through the city.

Elijah Lovejoy

In 1837, a pro-slavery mob attacked a warehouse in Alton, Illinois, in an attempt to destroy abolitionist press materials. During the raid, they shot and killed newspaper editor and abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy.

After the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was passed, both pro- and anti-slavery groups inhabited the Kansas Territory. In 1856, a pro-slavery group attacked the town of Lawrence, which was founded by abolitionists from Massachusetts. In retaliation, abolitionist John Brown organized a raid that killed five pro-slavery settlers.

Then, in 1859, Brown led 21 men to capture the U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. He and his followers were seized by a group of Marines and convicted of treason. Brown was hanged for the crime.

The Civil War and Its Aftermath

President Abraham Lincoln opposed slavery but was cautious about fully supporting the more radical ideas of the abolitionists. As the power struggle between the North and the South reached its peak, the Civil War broke out in 1861.

As the bloody war waged on, Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, calling for the freeing of enslaved people in areas of the rebellion. And in 1865, the Constitution was ratified to include the Thirteenth Amendment, which officially abolished all forms of slavery in the United States.

Abolitionist Movement Ends

Though the abolitionist movement seemed to dissolve after the addition of the Thirteenth Amendment, many historians argue that the effort didn't completely cease until the 1870 passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, which extended voting rights to Black men. Meanwhile, the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, granted citizenship to all persons "born or naturalized in the United States," including former enslaved people.

When slavery officially ended, many prominent abolitionists turned their focus to women's rights issues. Historians believe that the experiences and lessons learned during the abolitionist movement paved the way for leaders who were eventually successful in the women's suffrage movements.

Abolitionist ideals and traditions also served as a model for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP), which was formed in 1909.

HISTORY Vault: Black History

Sources

Abolition and the Abolitionists. National Geographic.
Early abolition. Khan Academy.
Abolitionist Sentiment Grows. UShistory.org.

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Abolitionist Movement - Definition & Famous Abolitionists | HISTORY

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The abolitionist movement was the effort to end slavery, led by famous abolitionists like Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth and John Brown.

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Massachusetts became the first state to use taxes to build a public school for everyone, these schools only accepted wealthy kids. Horace Man created colleges to train teachers.

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Before the 1800's mentally ill people would be kept imprisoned. Prisons were poorly heated during the winter, not enough food, and had cramped conditions

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Prisons and Prison Reform

by Jack lynch

In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote, "The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue they might originally project, have invariably regarded it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison."

Prisons were among the first public buildings erected in the New World. Boston felt the need of a "house of detention" when the city consisted of a mere forty homes. But the eighteenth century transformed not only the physical form of those prisons but their function and their place in American consciousness.

Early American prisons were not conceived as houses of punishment. In English and American law, political prisoners and high-ranking prisoners of war were occasionally incarcerated, but few common criminals could expect such treatment. Almost the only time commoners were locked away was while awaiting trial-once a verdict was delivered, they were punished on the spot or released. This place of confinement, then, was properly speaking not a prison but a jail-often spelled "gaol" or "goal" in the eighteenth century.

The only offense for which long-term imprisonment was common was debt, though this presented a paradox. Wealthy debtors who had money but refused to pay might be persuaded by the prospect of imprisonment to settle their obligations.

Locking up the poor, though, guaranteed they could never earn the money they owed, and this struck many as absurd. The New York legislature said in 1732 that "many poor persons may be imprisoned a long time for very small sums of money ... to the ruin of their families, great damage to the public who are in Christian charity obliged to provide for them and their families ... and without any real benefit to their creditors." Yet only in the 1830s did the United States begin to abolish debtors' prisons.

For other offenses there were four broad classes of punishment: fines, public shame, physical chastisement, and death. Most misdemeanors were punished with fines, as is the case today. Some more serious crimes were punished with public shame, whether with a demand for a public confession, a term in the stocks, or a mark to identify the malefactor's offense. Hester Prynne's scarlet A for "adulterer" is the most famous mark of this kind, but, points out Scott Christianson-a journalist specializing in prisons and the death penalty-others were marked with "'B' (blasphemer), 'D' (drunk), 'F' (fighter), 'M' (manslaughterer), 'R' (rogue), and 'T' (thief)." Shaming had largely fallen from use by 1700, as cities grew larger and public disgrace no longer had its desired effect. A step up from public shame, then, was physical chastisement-convicts might suffer flogging, branding with a hot iron, or the loss of their ears.

The eighteenth century is a fascinating period in the history of capital punishment, for crime was much on eighteenth-century minds. The rise of trade, the development of early capitalism, and the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution transformed the economy, and all of these made crime more prevalent, or at least more obvious to the public. Fears of pervasive criminality provoked a get-tough-on-crime frenzy, and more and more crimes were designated capital. In England, the legal system became known as "the Bloody Code": between 1688 and 1815, the number of capital crimes rose from about fifty to more than two hundred. The theft of a silk handkerchief or a pocket watch might lead to execution.

The death penalty loomed large in eighteenth-century statutes, but there were ways to escape a sentence to the gallows. English courts could show mercy by transporting convicts first to North America, then, after independence, to Australia, for sale as servants. Jonathan Boucher, a friend of the Washington family, reported that young George's education came from "a convict servant whom his father had bought for a schoolmaster."

The medieval "benefit of clergy" allowed priests to avoid the harsh penalties associated with the secular courts; eventually anyone who could read a Bible verse, or recite one from memory, could avoid the harshest penalties. Thomas Jefferson found it risible: "This privilege, originally allowed to the clergy, is now extended to every man, and even to women. It is a right of exemption from capital punishment, for the first offence." Parliament did away with the much-abused literacy test in 1706. Pregnant women convicts might "plead their bellies" and avoid, or at least postpone, execution. Criminals might also hope for pardons from a king or governor. There were instances of jury nullification-juries ignoring the facts of a case to avoid the necessity of imposing what struck them as unduly harsh punishment.

Still the harsh punishments remained on the books, and this led some American theorists to rethink the role of the prison. In an age of unprecedented social theorizing, many called for a thorough revision of the penal system, and suggested that jails might be useful for something other than holding suspects until trial.

As early as the 1680s, Pennsylvania Quakers were campaigning against the death penalty, urging incarceration as a humane alternative. They may have been thinking back to Tudor England's workhouses. Starting in the 1550s, persons convicted of leading a "Rogishe or Vagabonds Trade of Lyef" were sent to Bridewell, a former royal palace converted into a workhouse. By the 1570s, similar buildings were constructed around England, and "bridewell" became a common noun for a workhouse. In the 1780s and '90s, a group of Quakers known as the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons began advocating for something similar in their new nation. Others took up their cause in what historian Blake McKelvey calls "one of the products of the social and humanitarian revolution that contributed so generously to the founding of the American nation."

In the years after the Revolution, Americans were reconsidering the function of punishment on practical, political, theological, and philosophical grounds.

Reformers approached the question pragmatically, asking whether harsh penalties really deterred crime. Some said that an indiscriminate system of punishment encouraged criminals to be similarly indiscriminate in their offenses. When the penalty for theft, for example, is the same as the penalty for murder, rational thieves will realize that it makes no sense to leave witnesses to their crimes. As Samuel Johnson noted in England in the 1750s, "If only murder were punished with death, very few robbers would stain their hands in blood; but when by the last act of cruelty no new danger is incurred and greater security may be obtained, upon what principle shall we bid them forbear?"

There was similar thinking in North America, and in the years after the Revolution, it began to show up in the statutes. State after state began reducing the number of death-penalty offenses: in 1786, for instance, Pennsylvania eliminated the death penalty for robbery, burglary, and sodomy. In a few years, only murderers were eligible for capital punishment. The United States Congress established an investigative committee to consider "milder punishments for certain crimes for which infamous and capital punishments are now inflicted." It was largely on pragmatic grounds that Jefferson, helping to revise Virginia's statutes in 1776, proposed a bill to eliminate the death penalty for many crimes. "On the subject of the Criminal law," he wrote of the legislative debates, "all were agreed, that the punishment of death should be abolished, except for treason and murder; and that, for other felonies, should be substituted hard labor in the public works." His measure lost by a single vote.

Others had at least as much concern for principle as for practice. The death penalty, they said, was a distinctly monarchical punishment; reformation, on the contrary, was compatible with republican ideals. To resist the death penalty, then, was a political gesture. Having seen fellow patriots risk execution for their principled political stand, they viewed it as an obligation not to reproduce the tyranny of British justice in their own legal system.

Others took a theological view. Historian David Rothman wrote in 1971 that Calvinist notions of original sin led the early colonists to believe that some human beings were destined to wickedness. The purpose of punishment, the Puritans said, was retribution-a debased criminal soul could not be reformed. After the Revolution, though, as Calvinist doctrine began to give way to more liberal theologies, a kind of optimism began to take over, according to which a merciful and forgiving God might welcome reformation. Religious language figured large in discussions of the penitentiary-an institution whose name suggests the Christian practice of penitence. Solitude, in the words of eighteenth-century social theorist Jonas Hanway, was "the most humane and effectual means of bringing malefactors ... to a right sense of their condition." Another contemporary, John Brewster, said, "It has been recommended, both by the practice and precept of holy men, in all ages, sometimes to retire from scenes of public concourse, for the purpose of communing with our own hearts, and meditating on heaven." Louis P. Masur, a Trinity College professor in American institutions and values, summarizes the attitude: "Solitary confinement served as the operating principle of the institution. In solitude, it was believed, criminals would discover true penitence-considered the crux of Christian selfhood."

The final justification for incarceration rather than execution was related to the theological debates: many citizens of the Early Republic shared a new philosophical conception of human nature. One of the central premises of Enlightenment thought was that social institutions formed character. This model saw human beings not as fundamentally flawed wretches who needed chastisement, but as rational beings, shaped by their environments, and capable of reformation. The right social institutions would produce virtuous citizens; the enlightened leader was therefore obliged to promote virtue, not to admit failure by executing those who strayed from the paths of virtue.

All of these developments in America were informed by theorists working on the same problems in Europe, including Jeremy Bentham and John Howard. The most influential was Cesare Beccaria, an Italian philosopher whose most important work, Dei delitti e delle pene-On Crimes and Punishment-appeared in 1764. The English translation was well known in America. Jefferson recommended it to John Norvell in 1807 as one of the essential works on "the organization of society into civil government." Jefferson several times praised the Italian: "Beccaria and other writers on crimes and punishments, had satisfied the reasonable world of the unrightfulness and inefficacy of the punishment of crimes by death." Legal historian Adam Jay Hirsch summarizes Beccaria's central thesis: "Whereas criminologists had traditionally assumed that deterrence hinged on the severity of the punishment, Beccaria postulated that the certainty of punishment contributed far more to the inhibition of crime." Jefferson said: "The principle of Beccaria is sound. Let the legislators be merciful, but the executors of the law inexorable."

Some continued to believe in the efficacy of the death penalty, and viewed incarceration as coddling criminals: during the debates over execution, the number of hangings increased dramatically. The most substantial problem with locking people up, though, was that early American prisons could be less humane than the death and torture they were meant to replace. Being incarcerated even briefly could be tantamount to execution.

Corruption was rampant; prisoners were expected to bribe their keepers for minimally adequate treatment, and those without money were often allowed to die of neglect. The buildings, too, could prove fatal. Few were purpose-built facilities; many were dilapidated residences that had been quickly fitted with bars and padlocks. Hygiene was appalling-open sewers often ran through the facilities-and rarely were there fresh provisions or clean water. Benjamin Franklin's brother James was imprisoned for concealing the author of a seditious article published in his newspaper, but after a month a doctor persuaded the authorities that his detention had damaged his health. He was released on the condition that he give up publishing his newspaper.

Dangerous settings like these led to calls for more humane houses of detention. Reformer Richard Mead wrote in the 1720s that "Our common Prisons" were afflicted by "the Goal Fever, which is always attended with a Degree of Malignity in proportion to the Closeness and Stench of the Place." He advised the government "to take Care, that all Houses of Confinement should be kept as Airy and Clean, as is consistent with the Use, to which they are designed."

In his State of the Prisons of England and Wales, former sheriff John Howard, offended by the ubiquity of bribery, wrote in 1777, "No Prisoner should be subject to any demand of Fees. The Gaoler should have a salary in lieu of them; and so should the Turnkeys." He was also disturbed by "the gaol-fever, and the small-pox, which I saw prevailing to the destruction of multitudes, not only of felons in their dungeons, but of debtors also."

These calls for decency echoed in the early Republic. Quakers were especially active in ensuring prisoners were kept healthy and treated with dignity. We can see the concern with the humane treatment of malefactors even in our Bill of Rights: the Eighth Amendment stipulates that "excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

The penitentiary marks progress from the barbaric executions of the earlier eighteenth century, but its story does not have an unambiguously happy ending. What seemed straightforward in the optimistic 1780s proved increasingly complicated as the decades passed. As Jefferson wrote to William Roscoe in 1820, "Beccaria had demonstrated general principles, but practical applications were difficult. Our States are trying them with more or less success." He might have put the emphasis on "less." Prisons quickly became overcrowded, expenses mounted, and taxpayers were unwilling to make convicts' lives more comfortable. High recidivism led many to question whether reformation was possible after all. Worse still, many of the lessons learned in developing an efficient system of incarceration were applied to chattel slaves in the South, who were subjected to the same kind of surveillance and control that jailers had learned to use on criminals: the two systems reinforced each other.

The story of the penitentiary is not over. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, wrote in 1787 that "The design of punishment is said to be,-1st, to reform the person who suffers it,-2dly, to prevent the perpetration of crimes, by exciting terror in the minds of spectators; and,-3dly, to remove those persons from society, who have manifested, by their tempers and crimes, that they are unfit to live in it." Achieving any one of these ends is difficult enough, but achieving all three can seem impossible. Balancing these competing interests-the reformation of the criminal, the prevention of crimes, and the protection of the public-was a challenge facing the founding generation, and vexes us still.

Jack Lynch, author of Becoming Shakespeare: The Unlikely Afterlife That Turned a Provincial Playwright into the Bard (Walker & Co., 2007) is professor of English at Rutgers University. He contributed to the Winter 2011 issue an article on literacy in early America.
Suggestions for further reading:

Scott Christianson, With Liberty for Some: 500 Years of Imprisonment in America (Boston, 1998).

H. Bruce Franklin, Prison Literature in America: The Victim as Criminal and Artist, rev. ed. (New York, 1989).

Adam Jay Hirsch, The Rise of the Penitentiary: Prisons and Punishment in Early America (New Haven and London, 1992).

Louis P. Masur, "The Revision of the Criminal Law in Post-Revolutionary America." Criminal Justice History 8 (January 1987): 21-36.

Blake McKelvey, American Prisons: A Study in American Social History prior to 1915 (Montclair, NJ, 1936).

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Cruel and Unusual: Prisons and Prison Reform

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by Jack lynch In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote, "The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue they might originally project, have invariably regarded it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison."

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The second great awakening was a religious movement that started in America which showed that you didn't have to be religious but you can choose your own path.

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19th Century Reforms: Crash Course US History #15

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Political and religion inspired Americans to improve life

Social reform included the fight against alcohol abuse, prisoner abuse, and improvement in schools

Abolitionists fight against slavery

Women begin their own fight for rights and equality``