The Abolition Movement was established in the nineteenth century. It aimed at liberating the enslaved people in America. The movement was made up of religious people and those who had escaped and survived slavery. It was ideally founded on the Christian faith, with abolitionists embracing the concept of morality. They believed that all people were created equally in the eyes of God (Griere-Frye, 2014). Prominent abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison not only found slavery immoral but also hypocritical of a country like the United States, whose foundation is the promise of freedom.
The movement's journey to success was not smooth as many challenges characterized it. In 1850 the Fugitive Slave Act that required slaves to be returned to their masters was enacted. In 1857, the Supreme Court in Dredd Scott stripped the enslaved people of citizenship rights (Griere-Frye, 2014). As the movement experienced these setbacks, it continued to gain momentum, causing a rift between the northern and the southern states of America. In 1861, this rift reached its peak, occasioning the civil war. Protraction of this war prompted the then president, Abraham Lincoln, to make the Emancipation Proclamation calling for the freedom of enslaved people in the rebellion areas (Griere-Frye, 2014). In 1865, the American constitution was amended to incorporate the 13 th Amendment, which formally and entirely obliterated all forms of slavery in the United States.
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Christianity played a crucial role in the abolition and promotion of slavery. Although the abolition movement was founded on Christianity, not all Christians promoted abolition (Ganaah, 2017). This is because their different interpretations of the scriptures gave them different views on slavery. Those who supported slavery, like Jefferson Davis, argued that the scriptures allowed the holding of slaves both by law and example (Ganaah, 2017). The abolitionists held on to the concept of equality of all men in God's eyes and morality. It is because of this disparity that the movement cannot be described as a religious movement. Slavery officially and finally ended, with many proponents like Susan B. Anthony and Sojourner Truth turning their focus to women's rights.
References
Ganaah, M. A. (2017). Themes of Slavery, Christianity & Descriptions of Paradox in the Practice of Christianity in Two Slave Narratives- Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Lives of a Slave Girl and Harriet Wilson OUR NIG Sketches from the Life of a Free Black [Master's thesis]. https://ntnuopen.ntnu.no/ntnu-xmlui/handle/11250/2460260
Giere-Frye, W. L. (2014). Emancipation for Slaves or Emancipation for All: Women, Free Speech and the Abolition Movement. Papers & Publications: Interdisciplinary Journal of Undergraduate Research , 3 (1), 12. https://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1099&context=papersandpubs
