Abolitionism was an issue that the North and South were debating years before the Second Great Awakening took place in America. The Second Great Awakening inspired Northerners to take a stand on slavery and confront the south on this serious issue. In the past Northerners did not care that the South was involved with slavery because slavery was not in their region of the country. This religious revival inspired the North to take a stand on slavery even though slavery was not allowed in the North. Northerners also refused to fight in a war against Spain for land west of the south because it would expand the area where slavery was allowed. The reasoning that the Northerners had behind this was that they could not allow slavery to take part in a country that they were a part of. This is a prime example of how the Second Great Awakening inspired democratic ideas and bettered the standard of the common man. The temperance movement in the North closely followed the movement for abolitionism in the North.
The temperance movement was a movement largely inspired by women and their hate towards the effects of alcohol. The goal of the movement was to prohibit drinking and to almost ban it entirely from the country. Women throughout the country banded together to fight against alcohol because many of them were left without husbands because of alcohol. It was common to see husbands turn into alcoholics in the North and abandon their wife and children. As a result, the American Temperance Union was formed to