From 1776 to 1852, the United States began to have a growth of the abolitionist movement and increasing anti-slavery notions. The reason for the growing movement that opposed slavery was mainly caused by the Second Great Awakening and religious notions that stemmed from it, the growing notions of Sectionalism and the consequences of the early abolition of slavery in most New England states, and Racial Paternalism as a justification for slavery and the consequences of such. One reason slavery began to have growing opposition to it is due to the Second Great Awakening. Historically, the increase in religious fervor from the Second Great Awakening brought about reform movements such as the women’s suffrage movement, movements for the reform …show more content…
As a result of Racial paternalism, organizations such as the American Colonization Society began to appear, which sent anti-slavery letters to the United States Congress. The purpose of these letters was to convince the United States Congress to abolish the institution of slavery, and acquire land in Africa so as to return the slaves there, as they believed that both whites and african-americans would mutually benefit from a separation between the two. These organizations had wide-spreading influence, which led to growing opposition to slavery (Doc. 3). Despite Racial Paternalism being the main reason given for continuing the institution of slavery, the stories and books of people who had witnessed slavery firsthand showed the blatant hypocrisy of this. Memoirs such as the one written by Frederick Douglass were addressed to the audience of whites living in the northern United States, as they had never seen or heard about the full horrors of slavery. The revelations made in such works of literature as Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Frederick Douglass’s autobiography shocked northern audiences, which increased opposition to slavery in the United States(Doc. …show more content…
The backlash to American Enlightenment ideals and the prevalence of the Second Great Awakening created a wave of reform movements, which included both a revitalization of the abolitionist movement and other movements that helped support it, leading to the growing opposition to slavery among the followers of these movements. These movements were centralized in the Burned-Over District in New York, and the location of this also allowed the abolition movement to correlate with the Northern United States, which generated growing opposition to slavery due to the notions of Sectionalism that had previously developed in the United States. Despite the writers of the Declaration of Independance and the United States Constitution believing the reason for not abolishing slavery was the fact that slavery was a Necessary Evil for the United States to survive, this quickly evolved into the reason for slavery being Racial Paternalism, which increased opposition to slavery due to the founding of anti-slave societies that were still heavily racist such as the American Colonization Society and the spreading of accounts from former slaves or people that had seen slavery firsthand dispelling notions of Racial Paternalism and demonstrating the full horrors of slavery, which led to the growth of the slavery opposition movement.