# Abolitionists in the South **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 27, 2008, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolitionists-in-the-south/447098 "2008-04-27T15:50:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2008, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolitionists-in-the-south/447098/21 "2008-04-28T17:52:33Z")
[Here’s a lengthy piece on Tennesseean Elihu Embree and his newspaper, _The Emancipator_](http://elihusantislaverypapers.blogspot.com/). ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2008, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolitionists-in-the-south/447098/22 "2008-04-28T18:19:14Z")
[QUOTE=spoke-] [Here’s a lengthy piece on Tennesseean Elihu Embree and his newspaper, _The Emancipator_](http://elihusantislaverypapers.blogspot.com/). [/QUOTE] You’ll notice that Embree died in 1820. I point this out, because if you look at the history of southern abolition and slavery in the south, you see a growth in anti-slavery sentiment between 1790-1830, and then it just dies, and the south becomes strongly pro-slavery. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2008, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolitionists-in-the-south/447098/23 "2008-04-28T18:42:18Z")
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing] You’ll notice that Embree died in 1820. I point this out, because if you look at the history of southern abolition and slavery in the south, you see a growth in anti-slavery sentiment between 1790-1830, and then it just dies, and the south becomes strongly pro-slavery. [/QUOTE] The OP did not specify a post-1830 time period. But yeah, after [the Nat Turner Rebellion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Turner's_slave_rebellion) things took a bad turn. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2008, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolitionists-in-the-south/447098/24 "2008-04-28T19:20:55Z")
Boy, when you think of the Dixie Chicks, you realize that not much has changed. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2008, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolitionists-in-the-south/447098/25 "2008-04-28T19:22:25Z")
[QUOTE=spoke-] I note your careful caveat about living and publishing south of Kentucky, which, true enough, would have been hazardous to an abolitionist’s health. But that is not to say that there were no Southern abolitionists. They just had to go north to publish. [/QUOTE] Oh, absolutely. In fact, one of the most explosive abolitionist writers was Hinton R. Helper, a North Carolinian who moved to New York and published _The Impending Crisis in the South_ in 1857. The House of Representatives argued over the book for two months while trying to elect a speaker in 1859-60. > [@spoke-](#): > > The OP did not specify a post-1830 time period. > > But yeah, after the Nat Turner Rebellion things took a bad turn. Certainly, anti-slavery expression was much more open and more common, even in the deep South, in the pre-Nat Turner period. As late as 1832, the Virginia House of Delegates voted down a non-binding resolution in favor of gradual emancipation only by 73-58. _In general_, however, those earlier expressions were more of the form that “yes, slavery is evil, but we’re stuck with it” as opposed to _abolitionism_–abolish slavery everywhere, now. That looks like an interesting book on post-1830 abolitionism in the South. Perhaps there was more underground activity than historians have recognized. I’ll try to read it when I have time. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2008, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolitionists-in-the-south/447098/26 "2008-04-28T19:57:51Z")
I’ve always said that John Calhoun was the turning point on slavery. During the revolutionary war era, there were many southerners, including slave owners, who questioned the morality of slavery. The general consensus was that it was too big a problem to be solved (a conclusion that was undoubtedly influenced by self-interest) but at least the idea that it was a problem was floating about. But Calhoun was the main voice in changing that. In the 1830s and 1840s he was outspoken in saying that slavery was a positive good not a problem that needed a solution. His defense of slavery hardened southern attitudes on the subject and shut down the idea of abolition in the south. The price the south paid was that by refusing to accept any suggestions about a peaceful and gradual elimination of slavery, they set themselves up for the eventual sudden and violent elimination of slavery. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2008, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolitionists-in-the-south/447098/27 "2008-04-28T20:31:02Z")
Yes, Calhoun’s [1837 speech declaring slavery a “positive good”](http://www.teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=71) was another turning point. It was a sort of verbal line in the sand that probably did more than any other single event to set the nation on a course toward Civil War. He was one of American history’s biggest bastards. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolitionists-in-the-south/447098.md?page=1)