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The expansion of voter requirements led to more people fighting for voting rights for slaves, especially as many people lived through not being able to have voter rights despite contributing to the country.

Many people who saw this increase voting for the common man, saw the power they held in government, and this created an increase in activism as people began to realize they could create changes in society. This surge in democracy also caused many people to want these freedoms and rights to be given to all people, especially those who were enslaved.

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The abolition movement, from the 1820s to the 1870s, had a huge effect on varying groups of people across the U.S., from groups directly involved in the fight to the general public.

For free black Americans, the movement gave them the opportunity to take on leadership roles and actively challenge slavery. Figures like Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman became key figures in the movement, influencing public opinion with their speeches and abolitionist works. Frederick Douglass’s 1845 autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, became crucial in expoling the realities of slavery.

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The Abolition movement is still very much alive today. The 13th Amendment banned slavery in all instances except as punishment for a crime, which allowed prison labor to continue. Incarcerated people work for dismal pay and little protection, essentially exploited by private companies who save millions annually by using incarcerated workers. Many wrongfully convicted individuals, particularly Black men, have spent years in these conditions before being found innocent.

Additionally, more than 49.6 million people live in conditions of modern slavery, where they are exploited by others for personal or commercial gain. Whether tricked, coerced, or forced, they lose their freedom. “Modern slavery” can take many forms, including human trafficking, forced labor, bonded labor, descent-based slavery, child slavery, forced/early marriage, and domestic servitude. It’s extremely difficult for victims to escape their situations, and current laws don’t protect them enough. Modern slavery is a hidden crime that often escapes law enforcement and punishment. It impacts everyone, from the food people eat to the products they buy, and it's everyone's job to stand against it.

Many people would like to believe that the issue of slavery is completely over, solved more than a century ago. However, slavery still exists in many forms today and action needs to be taken in order to abolish it forever and free current victims.

The Abolition movement in the 1800s made monumental impacts on society and paved the way for the elimination of other injustices that plague American society, but problems still exist today that the modern Abolition movement is working to end.

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Following abolition, the Freedmen’s Bureau was established in 1865 to help formerly enslaved people with education, healthcare, and employment. While these changes offered new opportunities, such as the ability to participate in politics, own land, and access education, the rise of Black Codes and Jim Crow laws continued to restrict Black rights and opportunities, forcing them to face discrimination, violence, and limited economic prospects.

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Newspaper print of the Freedmen’s Bureau in Memphis. Shows three men surrounded by African Americans waiting for assistance.

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William Lloyd Garrison, though his radical anti slavery newspaper The Liberator also played a significant role. He pushed for immediate abolition by challenging the justification that enslaved people were not ready for freedom. Garrison argued that slavery kept people ignorant and delaying emancipation only continued that. These leaders highlighted the importance of education for black people, putting emphasis on how important it is for achieving freedom.

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MHS Collections Online: The Liberator (first edition of last issue)

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Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections Online: The Liberator (first edition of last issue)

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Tubman’s Underground Railroad helped many escape to the North, and passed the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, which granted freedom, citizenship, and voting rights to black men.

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Left to right: Harriet Tubman; Gertie Davis [Tubman's adopted daughter]; Nelson Davis [Tubman's husband]; Lee Cheney; "Pop" Alexander; Walter Green; Sarah Parker ["Blind Auntie" Parker] and Dora Stewart [granddaughter of Tubman's brother, john Stewart].
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library.

In 1849 Harriet Tubman learned that she and her brothers Ben and Henry were to be sold. Financial difficulties of slave owners frequently precipitated sale of slaves and other property. The family had been broken before; three of Tubman's older sisters, Mariah Ritty, Linah, and Soph, were sold to the Deep South and lost forever to the family and to history.

Determining their own fate, Tubman and her brothers escaped, but turned back when her brothers, one of them a brand-new father, had second thoughts. A short time later, Tubman escaped alone and made her way through Maryland, Delaware, and across the line into Pennsylvania and freedom. Tubman's biographer, Sarah Bradford, quoted Tubman recalling, "When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven."

Tubman came from a strong community with regular connections to other places through the travelers and workers who passed through on its roads and waterways. Her father and others taught her skills about the natural world and she developed savvy that helped her navigate across landscapes and through life. Her bravery may be attributed to these skills, but most of all, Tubman had a lifelong, fierce, and unwavering faith in God. Abolitionist Thomas Garrett said of her, "I never met with any person of any color who had more confidence in the voice of God, as spoken direct to her soul."

Despite additional dangers resulting from the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Tubman risked her life and ventured back to the community where she was born to rescue family, friends, and others. The act required the reporting and arrest of anyone suspected of being a runaway slave, eliminated protections for suspected runaways, and provided economic incentives to kidnap people of African descent.

Tubman returned to Maryland's Eastern Shore to rescue members of her family; her brothers, Henry, Ben, Robert, and Moses, their wives, and several of her nieces and nephews and their children. Tubman's husband, John Tubman, a free African man, had married again after Tubman first left Maryland and declined to go north when she came to get him. The decision to self-emancipate was a difficult one with complicated considerations about family ties, children, how to make a living, and how to navigate the unknown.

Tubman rescued her elderly parents in summer 1857 when her father, Ben Ross, was warned that he would be arrested for suspicion of sheltering the Dover Eight, a group of eight freedom seekers from her home county in Maryland. Ross had been manumitted, or freed, by this owner's will in 1840 and he had purchased his wife, Harriet "Rit" Green's freedom in 1855. Freedom was always tenuous and the threat of imprisonment made them leave Maryland.

Over about a decade and in about thirteen separate trips, Tubman led approximately 70 people to freedom and provided instructions to 50-60 others to help them escape. Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison called her "Moses" for her work leading people from slavery. She was proud of her accomplishments and in 1896 spoke at a women's suffrage convention, "I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say - I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger."

Freedom was bittersweet for Harriet Tubman. Despite the separations imposed by slavery, Tubman came from a close family in a tight community and she missed them. She believed they should be free, too. She said, "I was a stranger in a strange land; and my home, after all, was down in Maryland, because my father, my mother, my brothers, and sisters, and friends were there. But I was free, and they should be free."

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Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad (U.S. National Park Service)

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In 1849 Harriet Tubman learned that she and her brothers Ben and Henry were to be sold. Financial difficulties of slave owners frequently precipitated sale of slaves and other property. The family had been broken before; three of Tubman's older sisters, Mariah Ritty, Linah, and Soph, were sold to the Deep South and lost forever to the family and to history.

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While Americans were affected in different ways by the abolition movement, economic shifts also played a role. In the North, as slavery was abolished, industries expanded and new jobs were created. This opened new opportunities for the common white man, although some feared competition from black workers. For Southern elites, however, abolition was an attack on their economy, as slavery was crucial to them, this threatened their wealth and social standing. Southern planters resisted abolition, fearing losing their power. The tensions further divided the nation, leading to the Civil War.

For white women, especially in the North, the abolition movement pushed them towards more involvement in social causes including women's rights. The Grimke sisters connected the fight against slavery to the fight for gender equality as both were rooted in oppression. Harriet Tubman became a leader of the abolition movement and a symbol of women's activism as well.

Immigrants experience some effects from abolition as well. With more jobs, many had more opportunities. German immigrants often benefited from this, with land and work being more accessible. Irish immigrants on the other hand faced more competition for jobs and were often pushed into low-paying or physically demanding jobs due to discrimination. Chinese immigrants were not directly involved in the abolition movement but were often forced into difficult and dangerous jobs while facing discrimination and restrictive laws. While abolition created some new chances for some immigrant groups, many still had to deal with unequal treatment.

While Native Americans were not a primary focus of the abolition movement, William Lloyd Garrison linked the struggles of enslaved people and Native tribes. He argued that Indian removal was driven by the same ideology allowing slavery to keep growing. Though the abolition movement did not drastically improve conditions for most Native Americans, it did lead to some changes. A few tribes owned enslaved people and were forced to free them, while some tribes sided with the union and were able to negotiate better treaties or gain U.S. citizenship. Additionally, debates over slavery influenced policies towards Native lands as the same government that ended slavery continued to push for westward expansion at the expense of Native sovereignty. While abolition did not directly improve life for most Native Americans, it created some political shifts that influenced their communities, although Native communities continued facing discrimination after the abolition of slavery.

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Due to the market revolution that took place during this time, industrialization in the North led to increased labor. Those in the North saw how they didn’t need slavery to boost their economy, and were instead able to pay people wages and still continue functioning. As a result, people in the North argued that slavery was not necessary for the economy as well as being morally corrupt.

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During the end of Jackson’s presidency, a pro-slavery group killed a prominent newseditor and abolitionist in the process of destroying abolitionist press materials, leading to anger from people in the North and from anti-slavery groups towards pro-slavery groups. Abolitionists believed slavery to be immoral, and the further violence from people promoting slavery cemented their beliefs.

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Abolitionism was illegal in the South, and Jackson banned the U.S Postal Service from sending or delivering news articles that supported the movement. This led to anger from abolitionists as well as others who saw it as their First Amendment rights being obstructed. Many people deemed it to be a form of government censorship and in turn unconstitutional. More people’s attention in the North was brought to the movement as a result, leading to a trend of people joining the movement or being more willing to hear what they had to say.

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The movement addressed one of the most fundamental flaws in American society, and their activism contributed to the Civil War, and eventually the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in the United States.

The Abolition movement was extremely controversial in its time, as the modern movement is today. The issue was debated heavily in the news, in papers, and on the street. The methods of these debates set the precedent for public opposition to injustice in the future. Newspapers, such as The Liberator, argued for immediate emancipation, and the debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas were published to the public. Anti-slavery literature was prevalent and speeches, boycotts, and protests took place.

Debates over emancipation seeded intense national division, pitting citizens against each other. This national debate eventually led to some Southern states seceding from the Union and the beginning of the Civil War, during which almost 620,000 people died.

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Abolitionists sought to eradicate slavery during the nineteenth century. The movement officially emerged around 1830. Abolitionists used Revolutionary values in their fight to end slavery, tying the struggle with ideas the US had fought for since the beginning. They promoted the idea that slavery was a contradiction of American values. The movement helped create a model for organized public opposition to injustice.

The abolitionists fought for the eradication of slavery through public speaking, writing, and political activism, which helped to raise awareness for and bring attention to the cause. The abolition movement addressed one of the most fundamental flaws in American society, and their activism contributed to the Civil War, and eventually the Emancipation Proclamation and eventually, the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in the United States.

Today, the abolition movement focuses on human trafficking. Activists raise awareness about human trafficking, advocate for and strengthen anti-trafficking laws and legislation, and support survivors. The Thirteenth Amendment ended slavery, but it still allowed the practice as a punishment for a crime, and modern-day abolitionists work to end that.

The Abolition movement in the 1800s made monumental impacts on society and paved the way for the elimination of other injustices that plague American society.

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Public protests and speeches took place often during the movement, which set a precedent for how public protests are handled today.

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Images such as these were used to emphasize that slaves were human too and inspire empathy.

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White abolitionists in the North were often motivated to abolish slavery by moral and religious factors. Many, particularly in the early years of the movement, remained racially prejudiced but advocated for abolition on ethical grounds. Abraham Lincoln, often championed as a pivotal figure in the freedom of enslaved people, outwardly supported similar prejudiced ideologies to other Northern abolitionists. In his debates with Stephen A. Douglas in 1858, he explains, “[T]there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects—certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man,”(Lincoln and Douglas on Slavery: Highlights from the 1858 Debates). This stance rejects the core injustice of slavery, the idea that one person could own another’s labor and deny them autonomy. Evidently, Lincoln’s beliefs align with his vision of America as a nation where hard work would lead to prosperity. Like other abolitionists, his motives laid more in preserving American values and national interests of self-sufficiency than limiting racial injustice.

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Many Northern women were motivated to support abolition due to their own struggles with suffrage. The Feminist Movement was closely tied to the Abolition Movement, leading many pivotal figures such as powerful speaker Sojourner Truth to push for both abolition and women’s rights. Many women played a critical role in organizing petitions and making their voices heard in the fight for emancipation.

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Although many northerners such as Frederick Douglass (a writer and speaker against slavery) and John Brown (a leader of anti-slavery raids) advocated for abolition, plenty also supported the institution as they maintained deep ties to the Southern agricultural economy. They feared that without its free labor, the system would collapse and they would lose profit. It is important to make the distinction that although many proponents of abolition emerged from the North, every person in the North was not opposed to the institution of slavery. Many remained slaveholders late into the 19th century. People like Stephen A. Douglas were concerned regarding the morality of the institution, but felt no need to protest the federal government for regulation as they felt the government held no right to interfere.  In his 1858 debates with Lincoln, Douglas argued, “Humanity requires, and Christianity commands, that you shall extend to every inferior being, and every dependent being, all the privileges, immunities and advantages which can be granted to them consistent with the safety of society. If you ask me the nature and extent of these privileges, I answer that that is a question which the people of each State must decide for themselves,” (Lincoln and Douglas on Slavery: Highlights from the 1858 Debates). Like other Northerners, he agreed that enslaved people deserved greater personal rights, but believed abolition to be more of a local issue than a national one. Douglas did not consider it a moral dilemma, arguing that the Constitution allowed slavery and that the decision should be left to the people under the principle of “popular sovereignty”.

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Unlike Northern abolitionists, Americans in the South often pushed for the continuation of slavery from an economic standpoint, citing the South’s reliance on slave labor to produce crops that their economy needed to remain stable. Wealthy individuals in the South were particularly supportive of this perspective as their wealth often stemmed from slave-operated plantations.

Southerners also argued in favor of slavery as they had found ways to justify it in their minds. Many argued that enslaved people were well provided for by their owners and were rarely abused or mistreated, so there was no reason to eliminate the institution. They used this position to attempt to discredit abolitionist views, arguing that slavery was more humane than their own free labor system in the north.

Southerners also advocated for slavery to protect their political power. They hoped that the institution would expand into new territories acquired by the US, expanding their power on the national level so they wouldn’t be outnumbered by the abolitionist North.

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Many members of society who had a lower socioeconomic status viewed abolition as a moral issue, supporting it as they connected it to their own struggles with social justice in the workforce. Immigrants from the first wave of immigration (Irish, Germans, etc.) supported abolition not on moral grounds but because slave labor saturated the market in the South, making it difficult for them to find occupations. Abolition would give them more expansive economic opportunities as they would have more job openings in the South.

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In Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, enslaved people are freed in Confederate States. This Proclamation only freed enslaved people from being property, giving them their natural rights as promised in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It makes no attempt to protect them from the racial discrimination and unfair biases that followed them even in legal freedom, such as being forced into lower paying jobs. This aligns closely with the opinions expressed by Lincoln in his debates with Douglas and demonstrates the beliefs of many Americans - both Northerners and Southerners - that black Americans were naturally inferior and therefore did not deserve proper citizenship.

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In this image from a Southern Plantation in the late 19th century, we see miles of fields in the background, all of which were operated entirely by unpaid and abused enslaved people. They worked tirelessly to produce cash crops such as cotton and tobacco. Before the Civil War, cotton exports alone brought the South about $200 million annually, maintaining the economy. All Southerners benefited directly or indirectly from these profits, as they were often put towards societal growth such as infrastructure and business. This created a desire to maintain slavery as they feared that their economy and way of life would collapse without such profits.