Essay #1
Chapter 9: Politics, Morality, and Race in The Abolitionist Crusade
Michaela Duvall
Hist. 221, section 3

William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass were close friends for over a decade and co-workers in the American Anti-Slavery Society. As abolitionists, their views on slavery were close and each defended the other from attacks by critics. They focused on the superiority of “moral suasion” over “political agitation.”
Yet, their friendship ended and the two became distant towards each other. Garrison and Douglass split in 1848 when Douglass started his own newspaper, The North Star. Douglass then changed his mind over political activity, giving the two men opposing views. Frederick Douglass’s way of promoting the abolitionist cause was the most effective in that it took less time to bring upon emancipation. It only took three years until it was confirmed that “moral suasion” and nonviolence were inadequate to destroy slavery. William Lloyd Garrison believed that people would be willing to change their acceptance of slavery if they could see the morality of enslaved people. Though, towards the end of the 1830’s many abolitionists were moving away from the philosophy of moral suasion and onto political action. Political agitation was not only the faster way to abolish slavery; it was the more overpowering and everlasting way to abolitionism. After The Liberator came out with news articles on slavery, the Northern states began to pass laws doing away with slavery and Southern Slaveholders freed thousands of slaves. However, after the founding of The American Colonization Society in 1817, people went back to supporting slavery when cotton production expanded. Moral Suasion does not always last and people do have the tendency to reconsider their thoughts and feelings about a certain issue. Most people do not change their political status from