Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Abolitionism: Disrupter of the Democratic System or Agent of Progress?
Just about A century ago -. IN 1865 TO BE precise - the thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolished the institution of American Negro slavery. That amendment was the culmination Of _a struggle which had its roots deep in the American past, but which had only entered an intense phase some thirty -five years before. The full scale assault on slavery was the work of one generation. It was successful but not until the nation paid the price of civil war. Almost immediately after the American Revolution there were a few men who sensed the deep contradiction between our professed belief in the equal rights Of all men and the practice of holding certain Africans and their descendants in perpetual bondage. Local antislavery sggelies were formed throughout the 'nation; the territory north of the Ohio River was reserved for' freedom by the enactment of the Confed -cration Congress in 1781; _slavery gradually disappeared in the states north Of Maryland. In 1816 the tendency of humanitarian causes to be organized along national lines was made evident in the founding Of the American Colonization Society. The Society aimed to raise funds to assist free Negroes, and slaves who might in the future be freed by their masters, in voluntarily settling in what became Liberia. Unfortu nately that same year marked the beginning of a vast extension of cotton culture which, aided by the invention Of the cotton. Gin in 1793 and a growing market for machine-made textiles, gave slavery a new economic lease on life. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
