Abolitionist
Abolitionist,name applied to one who aimed at or advocated the abolition of slavery. The term may be found at least as early as 1790, during the period when Thomas Clarkson, William Wilberforce, and the younger Pitt attacked the slave trade. In 1807 the British Parliament abolished slave traffic between England and her possessions, and in 1808 the traffic was abolished in the U.S. Despite universal outlawry, the slave trade continued illegally. During the 1830s, the territorial expansion of the U.S. made slavery and its abolition a vital issue, but though the North had freed its slaves it was still economically dependent on the cotton industry of the South, to which slavery was indispensable. Out of this conflict emerged three schools of Abolitionist thought: radical Abolitionism under W.L. Garrison; the philosophical attacks of Channing and Wayland; and Free-Soilism under Lincoln. Two events in 1831 accelerated the Abolitionist movement and the hostility to...
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