Debating
Abolition

When William Lloyd Garrison founded The Liberator in 1831 and organized the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS) two years later, he helped initiate a new phase of the abolitionist movement. As the AASS gained supporters (as well as enemies) across the North and West, a critical split among abolitionists intensified. Garrison and many AASS members argued for a more radical form of abolitionism. They demanded that slavery’s spread be halted. In their view, whites in areas where slavery existed must agitate to end it. Perhaps most controversially, the Garrisonians argued that the Constitution itself upheld the system of slavery. In their view, the compact that undergirded the United States government was morally bankrupt and therefore “true” abolitionists should not participate in that government in any form.

Many other abolitionists—often referred to as political abolitionists—disagreed with this concept of the Constitution as an illegitimate proslavery document. While political abolitionists had often begun their antislavery careers in the AASS, by 1840 they had broken with that organization, believing that moral suasion was inadequate to defeat the South’s “slavocracy.” They insisted, instead, that the best way to bring slavery to an end was to enter the political realm, where the dominant Whig and Democratic parties tried to ignore the slavery issue, particularly in national contests for the presidency. Political abolitionists formed the Liberty Party in 1840 and constituted a significant force in American politics by mid-decade. Many Garrisonians, most notably Frederick Douglass, eventually came around to the political argument. But political abolitionists still faced roadblocks, not only from radical abolitionists but also from within their own ranks. The Liberty Party itself split, with Gerrit Smith and others beginning a new organization, the Liberty League, to protest their former party’s merger into the more moderate Free Soil Party.

The following documents offer examples of both sides of the Garrisonian versus political abolitionism debate. As you read the documents, consider a question that arises in many great debates throughout American history: Can change best be effected through working within the system or through advocating its overthrow?