When it comes to some important events before 19th century in United States, we must mention the Abolition Movement, which began in 1930s, and ended with Emancipation Proclamation. Just like our textbook---A Short History of the American Nation, ¡°No reform movement of this era was more significant, more ambiguous in character, or more provocative of later historical investigation than the drive to abolish slavery.¡±
Abolition Movement was not only meaningful to itself, that is, slavery was abolished and black slaves were freed, but also meaningful to the whole nation, because it exerted much influences on American society and economy. In this paper, I will firstly present a brief introduction about slaves in North American. Secondly, I¡¯d like to unfold a systematic picture of Abolition Movement. Finally, I will summarize this movement¡¯s influences on America from two aspects, economy and society. Then, I will come to conclusion of this paper.
Slavery in North American
The history of slavery can be traced back to a much earlier time. During the colonial period, there were a lot of Europeans in North American working as slaves. They wanted to seek better life in North American, but they were sold to colonial rulers as slaves. We all know that selling black slaves was the most vicious dealing in human history. However, the huge quantity of profits of selling black slaves became the main source of capital accumulation for Americans.
In 18th century, black slaves had decisive influences on development of south plantation. Since the products of south plantation were sold in world market, so the plantation economy was the commercial production of capitalism. Plantation owners got a lot of benefits from slavery, so they kept it and developed it.
Abolition Movement
Just as saying goes, ¡°A coin has two sides.¡± Everything has more than one aspect, and nothing can always go smoothly. It seemed that slavery developed very well in south, and southerners wanted to keep it, but it could not to say that all classes in America had the same ideas as southerners, such as blacks and northerners. Where there is disagreement, there is conflict. With the pace of history, people who fought against slavery started the Abolition Movement. First of all, let¡¯s come to social conditions.
¢ñ. Social Conditions
Every event takes place under some certain society. Abolition Movement is no exception. First, it is known that America passed the Bill of Rights in 1789, which allowed American citizens to have democratic rights, but blacks and Indians were not included. This document admitted the existence of slavery in America.
Second, with the development of both north and south, there were more and more conflicts between them, because they had different systems. North was of capitalism, and south was of plantation. Here, I¡¯d like to mention the most serious event, which sharpened the conflict between south and north, that is, the Missouri Compromise. This was a...
