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n the first day of January, 1831, William Lloyd
Garrison began publishing The Liberator, the country's first publication to
demand an immediate end to slavery without compensation to their owners. Within
four years, 200 abolition societies had sprouted up in the North and had
mounted a massive propaganda campaign to proclaim the sinfulness of slavery.
The initial weapon abolitionists used against
slavery was moral suasion. They believed that direct appeals to conscience
would convince slaveholders that slavery was a moral evil. To spread their
ideas, they distributed newspapers and tracts and circulated petitions. They
avoided concrete proposals for emancipation for fear of becoming embroiled in
debates over the details of specific plans.
Abolitionists denounced slavery as illegal,
immoral, and economically backward. Slavery was illegal because it violated the
right to liberty enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. Slavery was
sinful because it reduced a "God-like being" to a manipulable
"THING" and encouraged slave breeding, sexual exploitation, and the
breakup of marriages and families.
Slavery was economically backward because slaves
were barred from acquiring productive skills and were deprived of any incentive
to perform careful and diligent work. Abolitionists also charged that slavery
impeded the development of towns, canals, railroads, and schools.