The Age Of Reform: The Second Great Awakening

The Age of Reform took place during the late 18th century and 19th century time period and consisted of a variety of reform movements mostly coming from the North such as women’s rights and the abolition of slavery.These grassroots movements were strongly influenced by the Second Great Awakening,the transformation of the American economy, industrialization and urbanization because they all changed the way society worked. These two movements tied many women together because they were involved in early abolition and also became leaders in the women's rights and suffrage movements. They were both successful in achieving their goals in multiple occassions such as in education, congressional decisions and compromises and by just being loyal to
Abolitionists either wanted gradual emancipation of slavery or wanted an immediate emancipation , either way they all had the same goal of wanting to end slavery.At separate times when California applied for statehood as a free state and Missouri applied for statehood as a slave state, they both sparked bitter national debates, ultimately congress reached a series of agreements for both events that became known as the Missouri Compromise in 1821 and the Compromise of 1850. These compromises helped abolitionists in their efforts of achieving their goals because they both limited the expansion of slavery which gave the North hopes that the country is moving more towards the side of abolishing slavery. The North was influenced by Uncle Tom’s Cabin which showed the brutal reality of a slave’s life and starting in 1877 when Vermont amended its constitution to ban slavery the states of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode island, New York, and New Jersey followed its footsteps and banned the institution, even the Northwest Ordinance banned slavery in the Northwest Territory, all of these emancipations laws created a free North. Abolitionists like Theodore Weld and James Birney were huge supporters and were a large part of the achievements of the abolitionist movement during the Age of Reform, abolitionists like them stayed on the safe path to end slavery because others like John Brown simply lead reckless revolutions and killings such as Bleeding Kansas and John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry. Weld and Birney did a lot of petitioning to Congress to end the abolition of slavery and were enormous civil rights advocates and one of their best