How Did The South Respond To The Abolitionist Movement

Blake Rose Mrs. Farkas English 8 3 May 2024 How the South Responded to the Abolitionist Movement

The abolitionist movement freed four million African Americans from slavery in the United States. People in the South opposed the abolitionists and did many things to counter the movement. Abolitionists are people who would protest the law of being able to own slaves. Most Southern people were in slavery, which set the two sides into an endless battle. The argument of slavery led to the South leaving the Union to form the Confederacy. The Union and the Confederacy disagreed on many important political topics that led to the civil war. The south countered the work of the abolitionist movement by being violent, destroying media, and justifying slavery.
Slave owners were savage to the abolitionists. The abolitionists had their books incinerated, their lives threatened, and their printing presses destroyed. The abolitionists have surged the problem of slavery to a new high. (Library of Congress) Many times across the United States people would be injured or killed by people in the south making an attempt to convey their pro slavery opinion to the rest of the country. People in the South would destroy the media showcasing abolitionism. In many pro-slavery states there would be people protesting slavery and showcasing the flaws of it. Elijiah Lovejoy began writing an anti-slavery newspaper in 1833. He then moved to Illinois. Even though it was considered a free state, most people in the state had pro-slavery opinions. When the word of his newspaper spread throughout the city, a group of people got together and formed a mob to destroy his printing press. After the event, the city replaced the printing press but gave him a very authoritarian warning to stop making his newspaper. He then ignored them and the events of his press were destroyed three more times. After that he
Local governments in pro-slavery states would attempt to suppress abolitionist media. They would do this, along with many other things, to discredit the abolitionist movement. People that agreed with slavery often justify it in many ways. One of the main ways that Christian slaveholders would justify owning slaves is that they would pick a certain bible verse or an excerpt from a bible story and say that it is okay for them to have slaves. Their main argument for it is because a character in the bible owned slaves. “The verse eventually became the foundational text for those who wanted to justify slavery” (Rae) Another way that slaveholders would justify owning slaves is by saying that without owning slaves they would go bankrupt. While in some instances this statement might be true, abolitionists argued that it was wrong to lean on the work of unpaid laborers to keep their financial state afloat. Slave-owners also argued that the slaves' payment was the food (even if it was minimal) and the shelter that they provided. People in the South would destroy the media showcasing abolitionism. People that agreed with slavery were often violent towards abolitionists and would injure or even kill abolitionists. People that agreed with slavery would often justify it by