The success of any historical and social movement should be judged by its own definitions and the extent of its accomplishments against measured against its own aims. Viewing the abolitionist movement in this way in the period 1820-1860 it is fair to say that the abolitionist movement was not an abject failure. ‘Abject’ implies ‘to the maximum degree’. Therefore, the definition, given by William Lloyd Garrison on the 1st January 1834 in his abolitionist newspaper ‘The Liberator’, states: “I am in earnest – I will not equivocate – I will not excuse – I will not retreat a single inch – AND I WILL BE HEARD”. Despite this, the Dred Scott decision in 1859 shows the limited influence of the abolitionists towards the end of this time period. One Georgia newspaper commented that “Southern opinion upon the subject of Southern slavery, is now the supreme law of the land”, and that opposition to it is “moral treason against the Government”. However, on the whole, the abolitionist movement was not an ‘abject’ failure to a certain extent because the abolitionists were certainly ‘heard’. Abolitionists brought about the Civil War, as southerners defended their ‘states’ rights’ and thus brought an end to slavery. The abolitionist leaders promoted the movement by taking advantage of the rapid development of print technology and the expansion of literacy. Additionally, the use of direct action through things similar to the Underground Railroad and slave insurrections meant that slaves were able to pursue freedom whilst also adding to the moral suasion cause, however, the consequences of these were limited to a certain extent. Mainly due to southern violence. Similar to the effects of direct action, black abolitionists were limited in their work by racism, even from white abolitionists in the North. Despite this, these black abolitionists were vital in showing the American public the atrocities committed in bondage; they also helped to demonstrate the intellectual abilities of blacks. However, the lack of organization and unity within the movement meant aims, methods, and goals were never fully decided, meaning the movement was prolonged and less efficient. Regardless, the abolitionist movement should always be remembered, despite the significant challenges it faced. The vitality of it to the southern economy and its entrenchment in the constitution meant that it would always be a momentous challenge to take down the ‘peculiar institution’. Moreover, the racist views of the US public meant that moral suasion was to play a large part in the movement. The way the abolitionists tackled these issues in the face of abuse is astonishing.
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The abolitionist movement was not an abject failure to a certain extent because it used slave literature to show the country the true horrors of slavery extremely effectively. Perhaps the most significant part of the American abolitionist movement was the use of literature. By 1820, anti-slavery societies and determined abolitionists across the country had begun making use of the improvements in the printing press to make aware to the country of the true barbarism of slavery and the need for its abolition. The flood of pamphlets, personal appeals, petitions, newspapers, and treatises had a profound effect on northern thought. The literature spread by abolitionists helped to solidify the thoughts of many wavering and unsure northerners who had not quite made up their minds on the institution of slavery. Abolitionists wrote of the severity of slavery – the whippings, the brutality of slave masters, and the parting of families. The literature defied the warm picture of slavery as depicted by southern writers such as John Pendleton Kennedy in his ‘Swallow Barn’ (1852). The importance and influence of anti-slavery writers in denouncing slavery are demonstrated by the persecution of famed abolitionist writers who suffered mockery, persecution, and financial troubles. Elijah Parish Lovejoy, born on 9th November 1802, died on 7th November 1837 in Alton, Illinois, in defense of his right to print antislavery material. In 1835, Lovejoy was forced to move his printing press across the Mississippi River to Alton, in the free state of Illinois, after extreme mob violence in his home state of Missouri. Despite its new location, his press was destroyed by mobs several times in one year. Eventually, on the night of November 7, 1837, a mob attacked a warehouse storing Lovejoy’s new printing press that was intended for the re-establishment of the Alton Observer. A statement from John M. Krum, Alton’s major in 1837, says: “The circulation of these reports (reports of the new printing press) caused no small degree of excitement among those who have taken a decided stand against the abolitionist sentiments that were understood to have been disseminated by the Observer”. Lovejoy was killed as he emerged from the burning building. A large part of the slave literature movement was the Underground Railroad, a series of interconnected escape networks, as the UGRR produced the single most effective publicity tool of the abolitionist movement: slave narratives. Despite stories of slave injustices dating from the early 1700s, an abundance of slave accounts transformed the movement during the 1840s and 1850s. In 1845, Frederick Douglass’ work became an international bestseller. It described his life, from birth in Maryland in or around 1818 to the story of his escape from slavery. After several failed attempts at escape, Douglass left the farm in 1838, aged just twenty, he boarded a train to Havre de Grace, Maryland. He then traveled through Delaware to New York, eventually taking shelter at the safe house of abolitionist David Ruggles. The work of Douglass inspired many other abolitionists to introduce themselves to Anglo-American audiences through slave narratives, such as Ellen and William Craft and William Wells Brown. In 1849, one abolitionist stated that “fugitive slave literature is destined to be a powerful level” of reform. Saying that “it goes right to the hearts” of men and women. Slave narrators helped to establish common humanity with their white readers. They described bondage in the most personal terms: what it was like to see family members sold away, what harsh punishments felt like, and how working all day and night physically and emotionally drained the body. For example, Henry Bibb recalled the heartache of standing before his family knowing he may never see them again after he escaped. He also depicts his nighttime environment whilst in bondage: “I either had to sleep with my feet in the stocks, or be chained with a large log overnight, with no bed or bedding to rest my wearied limbs on, after toiling all day in the cotton field”. Abolitionist literature was the first way that free blacks were able to express or read views that they shared, before this there was no way they could express them, most free blacks didn’t have the right to vote, let alone run for office. It is no surprise then that by the early 1830s, American abolitionists embraced immediatism through anti-slavery newspapers. In 1831, former gradualist William Lloyd Garrison began publishing ‘The Liberator’ in Boston, which became the standard bearer of immediate emancipation. Newspapers such as ‘The Liberator’ helped spread the doctrine of immediatism. By the end of the decade, nearly two thousand antislavery societies calling for immediate abolition appeared from Maine to Michigan. During the paper’s early days approximately one-fifth of the intellectual content of ‘The Liberator’ came from African Americans. Not surprisingly, free blacks compromised more than three-quarters of the paper’s initial subscribers. Abolitionist literature such as this would have been impossible without the Second Great Awakening. Nineteenth-century revivalists argued that Americans had the ability to decide their eternal fate by accepting or rejecting sin. During the 1830s, revivalists saw abolitionism as the next great moral campaign.
Therefore, the abolitionist movement was not an abject failure as abolitionist literature spread the abolitionist message and, in the words of Garrison, made sure they were ‘heard’.
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