Abolitionism Within the Context of American History,

Abolitionism

Within the context of American history, abolitionism refers to the movement to end slavery. Slavery persisted until 1864, when the Civil War ended and President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation was followed by a series of Constitutional Amendments, revealing the extensive impact the movement had on contemporary American life (Walters, 1984). Brown (2006) notes that the American abolitionist movement had an even broader and more global effect because it influenced British domestic policy regarding the morality of slavery. Whereas slavery was primarily viewed for its economic benefits in the United States, slavery lacked this core dimension in the Old World and thus it became easier to promote abolitionism there from a purely moral standpoint (Brown, 2006). In the United States, it would require a bloody Civil War and the imposition of enlightened moral values on the bigoted South. Although abolitionism did make substantial and measurable progress in the United States, it did take decades and did not have as rapid an effect as it should have. Even after slavery was abolished, racism continued to infect the American consciousness and prevent the upward social mobility of African-Americans, the freed slaves.