Solomon Northup primarily penned his narrative as a tool for abolitionists to stoke anti-slavery sentiment. By 1853, the abolitionist movement had been in full swing for several decades. In this section, we will take a closer look at this significant antebellum reform movement.
Though the first abolitionist group dates to the late 1700s, abolitionism as a prominent movement in the North arose in the 1830s. Emboldened by Britain’s abolition of slavery in 1833, Americans began ramping up their efforts to achieve the same. Many were evangelical Protestants and saw slavery as a national sin, arguing that there was a moral obligation to abolish it. Initially, the idea of sending slaves back to Africa was popular—the American Colonization Society founded Liberia during James Monroe’s presidency—but by the 1830s, that was no longer the strategy. Rather, abolitionist groups focused on the agenda of eliminating slavery on their home soil without sending the newly liberated abroad.
Abolitionists gave public speeches, published pamphlets, disseminated posters, wrote songs and poetry, and participated in the Underground Railroad. They used a heightened tone, sensational language, vivid images, and appeals to emotion to get their message across. They endured the hostility of many Northerners; this included physical violence, and, in the case of Lewis Tappan, the burning down of a church he and his brother built.
The movement was very heterogeneous, with some figures and groups tending toward moderate views while others were decidedly radical. William Lloyd Garrison was perhaps the most famous white abolitionist—or, to the Southerners, infamous—and his newspaper, The Liberator, was a clarion call for the need to eliminate the “peculiar institution.” He burned a copy of the Constitution to demonstrate how flawed it was due to its protecting slavery. He also led the American Anti-Slavery Society and endured violence as a result of his fiery rhetoric.
Garrison and others, such as Lydia Maria Child, advocated “moral suasion” as a tactic in convincing ambivalent Northerners about the evils of slavery, focusing on its immorality and inhumanity. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), used this to great effect in a highly sentimental and melodramatic tale of the horrors of slavery.
Frederick Douglass, former slave and influential black abolitionist, also used moral suasion; he did not condemn violence, but his rhetoric was blunt and impassioned. He and other former slaves such as Northup and Sojourner Truth used their compelling personal stories to impress upon Northerners how ghastly slavery was, attempting to correct assumptions and misunderstandings. Henry Highland Garnet was even blunter; not only was he the first African American to speak before the House of Representatives, but he also became famous for his “Address to the Slaves of the United States of America,” which called for slaves to free themselves.
John Brown was most certainly the most radical abolitionist, and he was eventually viewed as a martyr by the North for his failed raid on Harper’s Ferry and attempt to incite a slave rebellion. Ralph Waldo Emerson deemed Brown, who was tried, convicted, and hanged, “The Saint whose fate yet hangs in suspense, but whose martyrdom, if it shall be perfected, will make the gallows glorious like the Cross.”
Abolitionists kept up their activity even after the war began in 1861, and they secured their greatest triumph in influencing Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation after the Battle of Antietam in 1862.
