Did extreme abolitionists do more harm than good? What suggestions would you have made to solve slavery?

Answer 1

Abolitionists did more good than harm.

The last time any state among the slaveholding states considered gradual emancipation was when Virginia took it up in the 1830s and decided no.

President Lincoln offered slaveholding states compensated, gradual emancipation during the war; no slaveholding state was interested.

Slaveholding states became more pro-slavery between 1830 and 1860.

The southern economy would have collapsed in the 1870s anyway. There was an international depression in the textile market, centralized in Great Britain, in the 1870s. Cotton prices fell 50% between 1870 and 1900 and would have if slavery had continued.

The North was prepared to let slavery exist perpetually as long as it remained in the South; even Lincoln's plan would have allowed slavery to exist until 1900.

Without constant antislavery agitation, America would have keep slavery into the 20th century.

And that's only considering realpolitick and economics.

The person who said above that nobody should condone slavery for even one second is correct. Morally, slavery was a horrible crime commited against an enslaved person. Almost five million people were held as slaves in the 1860s and only gain freedom through abolitionism and war.

Even if gradual emancipation had a chance--which it no longer had in 1860--what circumstances does it take to demand radical action?

If immediate abolition was wrong, then the American Revolution and the radicals who led to it, were a thousand times worse no crime alledged against Britain in the Declaration of Independence comes close to holding people in bondage.

Slavery wasn't just a crime. It was millions of crimes being committed every hour every day against individual slaves because nobody has the right to take away another person's freedom.

Answer 2

When you mentioned extreme abolitionists,the first thing that popped into my mind was John Brown.Yes,he was a fanatic,but he used religion as a basis for his use of force to end slavery.
At the time,the South needed slavery . It's economy depended on it. With each state worrying only about themselves,it's no wonder the North couldn't have businesses or investors to build factories to process sugar cane or pick and process cotton. With machines doing the work,slaves wouldn't be needed. But this process would take a couple of generations at best before you would see any results.

Answer 3

No doubt the actions of people like John Brown and Nat Turner are generally shocking to the senses, but even Tom Jefferson believe that," every once in a while you need to spill some blood on the ground in order to remind the people of the price of liberty."

Consider the Civil Rights Era: at the onset Martin L. King was considered an extremist and radical. It took the counter point of the truely radical people like Stokley Carmichel, H. Rap Brown, the Panther Party,Malcom X and others in conjunction with Roits to convience mainstrean America that Dr. King was in fact the great compromiser or the voice of reason.

This I mean to suggest is the nature of Left Wing politics, and why I constantly have to point out that currently there is no Left in America. The true Left is always extreme or radical. It is always a bare minority with limited reasources yet deeply compassioned insights.

And yes, the actions taken by the Left can be quite the horror, but often enough that action can prove to be the only thing that will move douugh-faced do nothing Liberals from the comfort of a don't rock the boat mentality to progressive interventions.

Answer 4

Yes they did more harm. John Brown was an extreme abolitionist and I believe he was the single biggest cause of the Civil War. Most abolitionists wanted the immediate emancipation of all slaves. That move would have destroyed the economy (as it did in the South during Reconstruction.) Gradual emancipation was a much more sensible solution to the slavery dilemma in antebellum America.

Answer 5

I could just be distant and rationally and say that yes politically it would have been easier just to slowly ween out slavery as was being done. Slavery would have been over by the next generation anyway as it was no longer possible to be born a slave or to create people as slaves who had not been born a slave. While I am being rational about it I would also have to say that slavery is horrible for any economy as it prevents working case people from having jobs that would make them money that could be spent. Why would a land owner hire a white man when he can have a slave do the same job for free. We know from the Roman Empire that this caused a lot of problems there as well. At least in Rome a slave still generally received some wage and could buy their freedom. Slaves in America were probably the worst treated group of slaves in history. They were treated as animals in many cases. Granted there were families who were good to their slaves but there was no protection for a slave who had a sadistic rapist for a master.

Now the thing it comes down to is how extreme would you get if your family were enslaved and forced to work in a field and you sister was raped by a land owner and her child taken from her. Would you wait for the slow solution? Think well at least it won't happen to her children so let her suffer. I don't think any good person could bare not to be extreme about it.

Answer 6

You have to push really hard just to gain a little bit of ground in the real world. The great thing about America, though, is that if you end up robbing an armory the army and Lee is around to stop you, so the hardcore radicals can be kept in check.

Answer 7

What fair and civilized person would think that "gradually emancipating" human beings into their God-given place as free persons is a reasonable solution?

Any society that bases itself on inhuman, oppressive cruelty is begging to collapse upon itself anyway. Since when do human rights and civil liberties come second to economic considerations?

The slaves were human beings with souls and feelings. They weren't a "resource" to be gradually phased-out with another bio-product.

It's times like these that we hear the menacing whispers of Nazis and the sons they left among us.

Civilized people must continue to think in a conciderate, fair and civilized way.

Answer 8

How do you define an "extreme" abolitionist? Harriet Tubman? Benjamin Rush?

Answer 9

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Answer 10

"If you're not ready to die for it, put the word 'freedom' out of your vocabulary."

Malcolm X.