Anti Slavery Movement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Anti Slavery Movement - Essay Example Anti slavery movement 1800s serves as a turning point in the history of United States, which not only paved the way towards the introduction and implication of social justice and equality in various parts of the country, but also played the powerful and most formidable role in respect of decreasing and discouraging the ethnic, racial, regional and religious inequity and discrimination that had been in vogue for the last several decades, and was responsible for creating bias and prejudice within the entire social establishment at large. Though the statutes of Declaration of Independence as well as the US constitution, as drafted in 1776 and 1787 respectively in Philadelphia, provided equal status to all American subjects without discrimination, yet the black racial group and Red Indians had to undergo prejudiced behavior and hatred from the members of White Anglo Saxon Protestants (WASP). It was particularly the case with the African Americans, who had been brought in America as capti ve to lead the life of slaves in the service of the white population. The black slave people used to be tortured, humiliated and abhorred, and were kept deprived of all civil rights and privileges attributed to the free men. Consequently, they started launching a campaign against slavery by establishing the New York City Manumission Society in 1785, and the Pennsylvania Abolition Society in 1789 in order to raise their voice from these respective platforms. Thus, the struggle for abolition of slavery had started side by side the drafting of constitution by the last two decades of eighteenth century. Somehow, the afore-mentioned societies had been working at regional scale, without the national command altogether. His being an open oppose of slavery, and supporter of freedom of the slaves, people had maintained high hopes in the person of third US President Thomas Jefferson. However, he had kept several slaves in his service, so he did not take any important step for the abolition of slavery (Applebaum 318). However, it was during his era when New Jersey state introduced abolition of slavery for the children of the slaves in 1804 (Higginbotham 309-10). Consequently, slave trade was also banned within the country in 1808 in the wake of the division of the country into slave and free states. Since such a division was extremely jeopardizing one for the national unity and harmony, the necessary steps were taken to ensure the trade and trafficking of slavery all over the USA. Moreover, Captain Cuffe also launched an unsuccessful campaign in favor of the absolute eradication of slavery in 1815, though it ended in fiasco after his death in 1817 (Thomas 19). Similarly, a dauntless American Caribbean Denmark Vesey united the African slaves under one platform, and made a revolt by raising pikes heads, bayonets, and daggers. It increased tension in South Carolina and several blacks were arrested. Somehow, the whites acknowledged that the slavery would have no space in the country anymore. Since most of the slaves states belonged to the northern part of the country, there was an urgent need for the introduction of reforms in those areas. Consequently, the northern states recommended the gradual ban on slavery by early 1830s in order to seek its complete abolition within few decades. Actually, the slaves had been deployed in cotton ginning and other agricultural fields and industrial units, their immediate freedom could create serious labor vacuum, as well as possible setback for the national economy. It is therefore some of the politicians, predominantly Henry Clay and others, advocated and launched campaign during 1830s regarding the return of the African Americans to their native lands i.e. Africa (Nye & Morpurgo 208-09). However, New York state completely banned slavery in 1828 within its jurisdiction. Another important black leader Frederick Douglas launched one of the most effective anti-slavery movement in the wake of attending a