Antebellum Period: Abolitionists versus Slavery

Antebellum Period: Abolitionists versus Slavery -  social studies skills studied in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th grades.

Everyone knows that the Civil War was fought partly over the idea of slavery. What a lot of people don’t know is the fact that slavery wasn’t really a massive part of it, and almost even a side objective for the North sometime after the war has started. But even so, slavery was a major issue during this time period, and it was indeed one of the reasons the Civil War was started and fought. The time leading up the Civil War was known as the Antebellum Period. It was during this period that abolitionism became a major part of what the Northern United States believed to be right, and it put them at odds with the pro slavery South.
The views of abolitionists and pro slavers were drastically different in many regards. For the most part, the abolitionist view was simple and straightforward. They believed that owning other men, women, and children as if they were property was morally wrong, and that it went against the very core of the American nation, freedom and liberty. While most Americans would agree with this sentiment in a heartbeat today, at the time such a notion was mostly idealistic, and a lot of people thought it was ridiculous.
This included the people that were pro slavery. Before we continue, it’s important to understand that the lines between abolition and pro slavery were not strictly the same line between the North and the South. There were a lot of people that believed in slavery in the North, and a lot of people that believed in abolition in the South. It was not one hundred percent black and white. Continue reading below>>>

Even so, pro slavery held onto a belief that was both an ideal and practical in nature. Unlike their abolitionist counterparts, they didn’t think that all humans were equal. They believed that most other races were inferior, and therefore, they weren’t doing anything wrong by treating them as property. But the belief in slavery extended past that as well. The large plantations of the South needed a lot of workers to keep running, and there were not many American citizens willing to work on such farms. Because of that, many plantation owners had to use slaves to produce their goods. While this didn’t make their belief any more morally right, it did at least show that they had some practical reason for believing in it.
In the end, the fight between abolition and pro slavery is not what started the Civil War. But it was a big part of it, and one of the major reasons and final objectives by the time the end of the war was in sight. Thankfully, the side that ended up supporting abolition emerged victorious, and today our nation believes in freedom and liberty for everyone regardless of skin color or beliefs. But even though we don’t accept slavery as just, we would do well to remember how it affected our history in a time when we did.