Talk:Abolitionism in the United States

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 4 external links on Abolitionism in the United States. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071106090007/http://www.npg.si.edu:80/col/amistad/index.htm to http://www.npg.si.edu/col/amistad/index.htm
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090111111630/http://www.rihs.org:80/faqatt.htm to http://www.rihs.org/faqatt.htm
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070703222035/http://www.realnews-online.com/rn0112.htm to http://www.realnews-online.com/rn0112.htm
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20051029170656/http://americanabolitionist.liberalarts.iupui.edu:80/ to http://americanabolitionist.liberalarts.iupui.edu/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}).

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 20:27, 2 October 2016 (UTC) the prohibition act sent hundreds of thousands of people to jail because alcohol was such a addictive and commonly used substance — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.146.31.34 (talk) 19:32, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 6 external links on Abolitionism in the United States. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20151222073819/http://www.ushistory.org//presidentshouse/history/gradual.htm to http://www.ushistory.org/presidentshouse/history/gradual.htm
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070714073725/http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/manassas/social/introsoc.htm to http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/manassas/social/introsoc.htm
• Corrected formatting/usage for http://files.blog-city.com/files/M06/158072/b/chowder.pdf
• Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.nps.gov/archive/hafe/jbrown/oates-text.htm
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060618001421/http://www.kshs.org/places/johnbrown/index.htm to http://www.kshs.org/places/johnbrown/index.htm
• Corrected formatting/usage for http://americanabolitionist.liberalarts.iupui.edu/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 11:23, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Definitions of abolition

Section is poorly written. I think the quote should be smaller. The source is also not that good looking. I think the content could be interesting and valid, though.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 18.20.205.3 (talk) 01:00, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Abolitionism in the United States

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Abolitionism in the United States's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Williams":

• From Mormonism and slavery: Don B. Williams. Slavery in Utah Territory: 1847–1865.
• From Charles Sumner: Williams (December 1958), Investigation: 1862
• From Freedom suit: Heather Andrea Williams, American Slavery: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2014
• From Booker T. Washington: Williams, Juan (Spring 2012). "Educating a Nation". Philanthropy. Retrieved June 6, 2012.
• From Christian views on slavery: Don B. Williams (December 2004). Slavery in Utah Territory: 1847-1865. ISBN 9780974607627.
• From Canterbury Female Boarding School: Williams, Jr., Donald E (2014). Prudence Crandall's legacy : the fight for equality in the 1830s, Dred Scott, and Brown v. Board of Education. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 9780819574701.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 02:31, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Organization is atrocious

This article is in some ways a textbook example of a bad Wikipedia article. The story has no sequence, facts come up here and there, the same things are said twice. And some things aren't said, like there's not even a brief section on the American Anti-slavery Society, which was sending out waves of anti-slavery lecturers, up to 70 at once. The article doesn't have someone like a traditional encyclopedia editor, to take the whole and put it in shape (and sign it). I've taken some steps to clean it up. But it would be a big task to do this, and I'm not going to do it, because I can't sign it, and I wouldn't even get any thanks (and I might piss some people off). I've got more enjoyable things to do with my finite time. But the article is an embarassment. I've demoted it to C class because it needs so much cleanup. deisenbe (talk) 18:57, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree and one of the worst sections is thus one without any reliable secondary sources that states:

There was first the question of what was meant by abolitionism, and what conditions would be attached to it. Would it be immediate, or gradual? What would become of the freed slaves? Were they or could they become citizens, with the right to vote? Would they be invited, or forced, to leave the United States, or set free on condition that they emigrate? (This was the policy in some Southern states; newly freed slaves had to leave the state.) Should they go "back to Africa"? Would slave owners be compensated for the loss of their investment in slaves? Would the slaves be paid for their forced labor by receiving their former owners' lands? Did the federal government have the authority to mandate its end? In the District of Columbia? And was the abolition of slavery a religious obligation, what Christ mandated the faithful work toward, or was it a secular, ethical, and economic matter? Was slavery a positive good, which should be expanded into the new western territories and reintroduced to the Northern states, or was it an evil, sin, or crime to be eliminated as quickly and completely as possible?. This original undergraduate stream of thought is followed by an outrageous self=published quote that is unsourced and written by a person unknown to google scholar There was a racist anti-black anti-slavery movement, primarily made up of white persons, which sought to do away with slavery in order to benefit the soul of the white owner, and destroy the economic basis of the black life of the time, and these people basically believed that black people should not exist, or at least, they should not exist here where we white people exist, and white slaveholders should not exist, or at least, they should not be a part of the society which we decent white folks inhabit.... These mystery anti-slavery people have no names, no organizations, no location, no publication, and no RS is cited. Rjensen (talk) 14:37, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

@Rjensen: It's pretty discourteous of you not to even give me time to post something explaining what I did. deisenbe (talk) 14:43, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Junk is junk--especially when it comes to historiography like 'what are the main qujestions scholars ask about XYZ." who made up those questions??? what RS were used?? answer--none at all. The long quote is about the worst I have ever seen in Wikipedia--and in this case signed by a totally unknown non-scholar with no publications os any sort to his credit anywhere. I totally agree the entire article is terrible. Rjensen (talk) 15:01, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Parsgraphs that would improve the article

(@CaroleHenson:)

The talk page is where you discuss how to improve the article. I think the article would be better if these beautifully-written, well-organized, and seemingly well-thought-out sections were restored. (I'm a sucker for good writing.) I did not write them. A definition at the beginning of such a complicated topic I found very helpful. If you know something better add it, but I think the article has been made poorer and less useful by the deletion of the following. I know what the policy is, but following the policy has made the article poorer, in my judgment. Isn't there something about being bold and breaking rules?

_____________________

Definitions of abolitionism

Under the general heading of abolitionism were a number of sub-movements which did not get on particularly well. There was first the question of what was meant by abolitionism, and what conditions would be attached to it. Would it be immediate, or gradual? What would become of the freed slaves? Were they or could they become citizens, with the right to vote? Would they be invited, or forced, to leave the United States, or set free oncondition that they emigrate? (This was the policy in some Southern states; newly freed slaves had to leave the state.) Should they go "back to Africa"? Would slave owners be compensated for the loss of their investment in slaves? Would the slaves be paid for their forced labor by receiving their former owners' lands? Did the federal government have the authority to mandate its end? In the District of Columbia? And was the abolition of slavery a religious obligation, what Christ mandated the faithful work toward, or was it a secular, ethical, and economic matter? Was slavery a positive good, which should be expanded into the new western territories and reintroduced to the Northern states, or was it an evil, sin, or crime to be eliminated as quickly and completely as possible?

“
The guilt of American slaveholding exceeds the guilt of slaveholding in any other age or country. ” — Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1838

There were a number of antislavery movements, which at times made for strange bedfellows. There was a racist anti-black anti-slavery movement, primarily made up of white persons, which sought to do away with slavery in order to benefit the soul of the white owner, and destroy the economic basis of the black life of the time, and these people basically believed that black people should not exist, or at least, they should not exist here where we white people exist, and white slaveholders should not exist, or at least, they should not be a part of the society which we decent white folks inhabit. In distinct opposition to these folks, there was an anti-slavery movement, primarily made up of persons of color, which sought improved conditions of life for persons of color, ameliorations both material and spiritual. To cut across the division that was created by two such contrasting motivational patterns, there was an anti-slavery movement made up of persons who sought gradual, step-by-step, piecemeal practical improvements, new good amelioration following new good amelioration, a building process, and there was an anti-slavery movement made up of persons like William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Dwight Weld, Arthur Tappan, and Lewis Tappan who demanded immediate utter freedom and emancipation regardless of the personal or social cost, a tear-it-all-down-and-start-over project[,] and they were willing to see great harm done to real people if only the result would be some change in the wording of a law, written on paper somewhere. There was an Old Abolitionism which was racist, and an Old Abolitionism which was paternalist. There was a New Abolitionism which was Evangelical and millenialist and sought total top-down changes in society, and there was a New Abolitionism which was immanentist and demanded total bottom-up personal transformation, within each individual's soul.

References

deisenbe (talk) 14:54, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

"beautifully-written, well-organized, and seemingly well-thought-out sections were restored. " well written unsourced (the questions) and badly written unsourced falsehood (the long quote). Bottom line: it's bad history AND violates all the RS rules and does not belong here. Rjensen (talk) 15:49, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

A paragraph I did write

"Put differently, the ending of slavery in Northern states did not always mean that slaves were freed. Some slaves were taken to Southern states and sold before the prohibitions on slavery went into effect. Enslaved people in the North might be freed as indentured servants who had to work without wages, but always with an ending date and with no more splitting of families. In New York, the remaining indentured servants were freed July 4, 1827, and there was a big celebratory parade, repeated on subsequent July 4ths. There were still hundreds of slaves in Northern states in the 1840 Census. In the South there were millions."

Again, I think the article now follows a policy and the policy makes the article less helpful. I wrote it, so I don't claim impartiality, but I think it's an important point that should be here. deisenbe (talk) 15:00, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

it's a good point BUT it lacks reliable secondary sources and is pretty vague "Some slaves were..." means 100 or 10,000 or what? from where? when? says what RS? I would add that gradualism = no sales, no inherited slavery and a requirement that ex-owners keep maintain the ex-slave regardless of disability or old age. Rjensen (talk) 15:14, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Sections

It seems as if the current sections are just a list of unrelated topics. Would anyone have a problem with me organizing the sections, and grouping related content in subsections, so that in the end the Table of contents looks like a good outline of the article?–CaroleHenson (talk) 00:47, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

For instance, some initial thoughts are:

• Move the Progress section and it's subsections to the top and rename Progress to History

Calls for abolition (perhaps integrating with "To 1804")

To 1804

South after 1804

Immediate abolition

The end

Compromise of 1850

Republican Party

John Brown

American Civil War

• Where possible, put some of the sections under History, like: (and put them in chronological or logical order)

Abolitionism's sudden emergence

Garrison and immediate emancipation

Western Reserve College

Oneida Institute for Science and Industry

Lane Theological Seminary

The colonization vs. abolition debates and the Lane Rebels

A school of abolition

Oberlin Collegiate Institute

Uncle Tom's Cabin

• Separate section for

Religion and morality

• Create a heading for Abolition by area - and put under that:

Abolition in the North

Manumission by Southern owners

Western territories

• Create a Viewpoints section

Black abolitionist rhetoric

Abolitionist women

American Catholics

German immigrants

• Create an Anti-abolitionist viewpoints section

Anti-abolitionism in the North

The pro-slavery reaction to abolitionism

Emigration

Colonization and the founding of Liberia

Perhaps there could be a grouping for colleges and institutions. How does the idea sound in general?–CaroleHenson (talk) 01:26, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

 Done - I went ahead and made the changes with some slight variations, like renaming the "To 1804 section" to "During the formation of the country". And, I put all the religion info together, which I will edit so it flows a bit better.–CaroleHenson (talk) 05:37, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

"Report" orphan citation

I am not sure how far back it occurred, but at some time a citation was orphaned with the refname=Report. I made this change, because the refname and the title of the source seemed congruent. Is that change right? Or perhaps there was once a "Report" citation that is different?

I went back about 20 versions before I started moving sections and couldn't find it.–CaroleHenson (talk) 05:24, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Citations

Most of the article is well cited, but there are areas where there are no citations. Sometimes a sentence at the end of a paragraph. Sometimes an entire paragraph. And some of it looks like commentary or original research.

There are very few {{cn}} tags, though. What am I missing?–CaroleHenson (talk) 05:55, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Major revisions and citation needed in Top

This paragraph at the top has some points that show the complexity of the situation but suffers from "lost cause" revisionism. - The next paragraph says the movement was motivated by moral causes but acknowledges economic issues, so this paragraph adds little. Also, is wrong to cast the abolitionist movement as non moralists, primary leaders were furiously religious. -To say that anti-black riots didn't happen in the south, is to forget lynching and state suppression against free blacks. -Lack of citations is bad - " Blacks, some of whom were eloquent, well educated, and good Christians, were not inferior human beings." - point has merit but need phrasing work to not imply most free blacks were at fault for lacking education

"It would be a great oversimplification to say that American abolitionism was a movement of the virtuous North directed against the sinful South. As we have already seen, slavery in the North was dying but not dead. Free blacks, seen as immigrants who would work for cheap, were just as unwelcome in the North as in the South, if not more so, and subject to discrimination and mistreatment almost inconceivable today (2020). It was not only legal but routine to discriminate against and mistreat blacks. (See below.) Anti-free Black riots were common in the North, not the South. The abolitionist movement, in its early years, was directed at Northerners, convincing them, by providing speakers and documentation, that slaves, frequently if not always, were horribly mistreated in the South. Incidentally, Northerners got to see first-hand that Blacks, some of whom were eloquent, well educated, and good Christians, were not inferior human beings. Northern support for ending slavery—once a radical position—grew steadily." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.116.169.104 (talk) 06:39, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Colonization society

@Anwegmann: Could you please explain your objections to the term "black American" ? Also, your addition of enslaved people to the group of people sent to Liberia is unsourced. --Rsk6400 (talk) 06:31, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

It's not that I object to the term generally, of course. It's that the term is too specific within the context. The idea of "blackness" or "Blackness" in the 1810s, 20s, and 30s was extremely fluid and multifaceted, and so were the many identities attached to it—hence the reason, for example, the American Colonization Society was founded under the name "Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America" in 1816. The term "black" most often referred to enslaved people in popular discourse, while "free people of color" or "free Negroes" were the terms most often used for freed and freeborn people of perceived African descent. So "black Americans" does two things: 1) It creates an anachronistic meaning for the ACS's intent by infusing modern language and definitions into very specific language of the period under discussion and 2) reduces the focus to the United States alone (as "American" is widely understood to mean "from the United States" today), which is technically inaccurate, as a good number of people from the Caribbean emigrated to Liberia under the auspices of the ACS. Caree Banton's book, More Auspicious Shores: Barbadian Migration to Liberia, Blackness, and the Making of the Liberian Republic, 1865-1912 (Cambridge University Press, 2019), discusses this at length. I hope this helps explain my rationale. And I will happily add this source to the article. Anwegmann (talk) 18:02, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

I shortened the whole section, one reason being the low quality of the last part, which repeated some of the content of the first part. I removed your addition of the Carribean migrants. My reason is that this article is about abolitionism in the U.S., so the ACS is only a marginal subject, of which the Carribean migrants are again a marginal point. I kept your addition of enslaved people migrating to Liberia. Regarding "free people of colour": We use modern terminology, not the historical one. In modern usage, also Indigenous Americans would be called "people of colour", so the use of that term might be confusing for our readers. --Rsk6400 (talk) 07:39, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Royal Veto

I know much of this can't be included in the main article but its still useful to provide context. In the early 1770s as the Patriots were still to some extent in their infancy and developing their identity one of the features that their identity contained was abolitionism. That portion of their views was never fully allowed to blossom because "The pillar of the slave trade"(as pointed out by the report of the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission,[1]) kept preventing their laws in many colonies from going into effect. For this reason slavery and the slave trade became its own "football" of sorts with a lot of tit-for-tat and back and forth finger pointing on part of patriot supporters and tory loyalists. Two examples of this in legislative or 'official' work are how the Continental Association placed restrictions on slave trading for economic(not humanitarian) reasons and Dunmore's Proclamation tried to recruit within slave ranks for militaristic(not humanitarian) reasons. Slavery became a way for the patriots to hurt England, and for England to hurt the patriots.

Many patriots came to view slavery as "The King's institution" with Jefferson's philippic in the Original Draft of the Declaration of Independence "he has waged cruel war against human nature itself". Jefferson is hardly the only one on either side of the Atlantic who recognized the British Empire's primary role in regards to slavery. Edmund Burke also noted how odd it was for England to have maintained slavery for so many hundreds of years but then to do an about face and all of a sudden offer freedom. He said: [2] "Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and dull as all men are from slavery, must they not a little suspect the offer of freedom from that very nation which has sold them to their present masters? From that nation, one of whose causes of quarrel with those masters, is their refusal to deal any more in that inhuman traffick? An offer of freedom from England, would come rather oddly, shipped to them in an African vessel, which is refused an entry into the ports of Virginia or Carolina, with a cargo of three hundred Angola negroes."

Even after the celebrated decision in the Somersett case, there were some abolitionists who viewed England as being stingy with abolition and keeping it for themselves instead of being generous and having abolitionism in all parts of the British Empire. It could have all ended in 1772, but it didn't. Benjamin Franklin stated it the most pointedly[3], saying: "Can sweetening our tea, &c. with sugar, be a circumstance of such absolute necessity? Can the petty pleasure thence arising to the taste, compensate for so much misery produced among our fellow creatures, and such a constant butchery of the human species by this pestilential detestable traffic in the bodies and souls of men? Pharisaical Britain! to pride thyself in setting free a single Slave that happens to land on thy coasts, while thy Merchants in all thy ports are encouraged by thy laws to continue a commerce whereby so many hundreds of thousands are dragged into a slavery that can scarce be said to end with their lives, since it is entailed on their posterity!"

George Mason, like Thomas Jefferson, recognized Royal vetos on colonial attempts to put an end to slavery. At the Constitutional Convention, Mason said: "This infernal trafic originated in the avarice of British Merchants. The British Govt. constantly checked the attempts of Virginia to put a stop to it."[4] That the Patriot leaders were out in front and ahead of the Empire in regards to abolitionist efforts makes friendships that Granville Sharp had with some of the early colonial leaders more easy to understand. Another who found favor with abolitionism and many of the Patriot leaders was Richard Price, who plainly stated it that "It is not the fault of the colonies that they have slaves among them."[5] A statement like this goes too far as plenty of people in the colonies did their part with regard to fostering slavery. However, there came a point when slavery was not just a fact of life. For centuries in every continent slavery had been around and a part of human life whether the Romans or disparate tribes and warlords. But everything changed when patriot leaders consciously decided to put abolitionist measures on the desks of colonial governors to be enacted, and even moreso everything really changed when the King consciously decided to veto abolitionist laws to prevent these laws from becoming colonial law. Progressingamerica (talk) 15:40, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

An article should be based on good (reliable) secondary sources. What you provide above and what you added to the article are primary sources. Please read WP:PSTS for the difference. For an article on a historical subject, we rely on sources by modern historians, not by 18th and 19th century politicians. --Rsk6400 (talk) 18:43, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

Sure, that is fair. I removed the link to the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission report and put four historians in place. Here is another possibility: Barack Obama, American Historian Progressingamerica (talk) 02:14, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, but I have more concerns:

The lead section defines abolitionism as a movement which sought to end slavery, not as a movement to "limit" slavery. So I think that efforts to "limit" slavery are simply irrelevant for this article.

Since WP follows academic scholarship (see WP:NOTLEAD), we should not search for facts that are not given prominence in academic works focussing on our subject, in our case, focussing on abolitionism in the United States.

According to your previous edit summary, early colonial abolitionist efforts ... were forcefully put to an end by decree. I don't think that's what mainstream historians say. As far as I know, abolitionist efforts were successful during or soon after the revolution in Vermont, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, while the Virginian élite, including Jefferson and Washington, never made any serious abolitionist effort. --Rsk6400 (talk) 16:27, 14 July 2021 (UTC)