Tuesday, September 17, 2013

The Anti-Slavery Crusade

In class tomorrow, we will discuss the origins of the abolition movement, which actually date much farther back that William Lloyd Garrison.  It was Garrison, however, that often earns credit for being a pioneer in the abolitionist crusade.  It is even more curious that Garrison denounced slavery in 1831--the very same year as Nat Turner's insurrection.

Is it just a coincidence that one of the leaders of the abolition movement emerges at the same year that a revolution takes place, causing more southerners to staunchly defend slavery?  Consider how social movements, even today, often stir significant reactions from opposition groups (i.e. gun control, gay marriage, etc.).

11 comments:

  1. In todays society gun control and gay marriage defiantly stir significant reactions from opposition groups. With gun control, one side says that they should be allowed to own guns so that they can "protect themselves" if needed, and the other side says that guns are unnecessary and that only trained officials need guns because mentally unstable people shouldn't be allowed to have a gun. When Sandy Hook occurred, the government thought about gun laws a lot and whether it should be still legal for people to have guns but that issue caused pro gun people to get out of control. With gay marriage, there is the side that is pro gay marriage and then there is the church with everyone else who is against it. Whether or not gay people should have the same rights as a straight person is in a way kind of like the slaves because based on the color of your skin, the slaves were deprived of the right to be a full person just like how gay people are deprived of the right to be legally married.

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  2. Gun control and gay marriage are two social movements that stir significant reactions from opposition groups. Ever since the Sandy Hook shooting and other events such as Columbine and Virginia Tech peoples views on gun control have been a popular topic. People also have different views on gay marriage. Gay marriage relates to slavery because it isn't allowing all people to be treated equally. These types of social movements stir reactions from both sides. There are always people agreeing and disagreeing with what people have to say on the topic whether it is about gun laws or gay marriage. We discussed another social movement that had two sides. When Obama got elected as the first african american president there was a lot of controversy, but there were also people who approved of him being president, of course, because they voted for him. There are different groups that each express their opinions on social movements, and these types of social movements can all relate to opinions expressed about slavery and emancipation.

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  3. I believe that it wasn't a coincidence that Garrison stepped up the same year as Nat Turner.When crisis occur, leaders begin to understand. In the case of slavery the African Americans began to stand up for their rights and rebel, showing that they were more than working pieces of meat. In current situations it is also not until some great act of violence happens for leaders to arise against something that they know is wrong. For example, you never heard of gun control as much until after the Sandy Hooke incident, but after it occurred then leaders began to arise in order to provide more strict regulations. Or in the case of gay marriage it wasn't until Mathew Shepard was beat to death in Wyoming because he was gay.

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  4. I do not think it's a coincidence that these two men appeared at the same time. As Giselle said, leaders only begin to act rigorously when something serious happens in this case when the slaves begin to revolt and kill the whites themselves. it is the same today as for example with the gun control debate because we began to hear more about it when several incidents occurred in America like the one in the Superman movie if I'm not wrong or the other one in a school in CT .. although I'm not as informed as you guys but anyways ...
    there are always two "groups" since not everyone thinks the same way: some are against and others are pro .. such as gun control or gay marriage which reminds of slavery because people who are against gay marriage such as the Catholics are not giving all the human rights to the gays.. or now also in Europe the abortion ... is very a very common debate: on whether abortion should be possible or not ... These are the kind of questions to which there is no correct answer because there are always different opinions.
    In this case, there is a group that says that abortion can not be allowed because they think an embryo is already a human and they consider it as a murder and the mother is in charge of the pregnancy because she asked for it. But, there is another group that think that a human is human when it comes to the world which is at the time of pregnancy and therefore if for whatever reason (Error etc..), women seek abortions then they are in their right .. because to leave/abandon a baby.. It's better to leave it in an embryo that does not suffer.

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  5. I don't think that it was just a coincidence that the two events happened in the same year. When one significant event occurs, it usually sets things in motion. When the slaves began to kill the white families, other slaves saw this and joined in. News got around of what was happening, and other people began to take other actions. Last winter in the Sandy Hook shooting 26 people were killed, and 20 were kids. This caused a lot of debates and arguments about gun control, and whether or not the citizens of United States should be allowed to own guns. The topic of gay marriage is popular too. Only 13 out of 50 states have legalized gay marriage, Connecticut being one of them. :) :) :) :) I believe that there is ABSOLUTELY no reason for gay marriage to be illegal. It's not dangerous, it's not wrong in any way, and it's not hurting anyone.

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  6. Gun control has always been a problem ever since the first weapon ever made. It is truly a weapon of mass destruction no matter how small it is. people always believe guns are dangerous and the cause to all these problems. But what people do not get is that the person behind the gun pulling the trigger is the problem. People do not realize that guns are not the problem, but the people are. never to take the blame, always have to accuse something else. But the problem is the people, but by the way I am totally for guns and believe they are a weapon of defense. But it is to easy to get a gun these days. But all these social movements are not always successful because to people they are always right and the opposite side is always wrong. These movements just case bigger problems to be honest. Because when ever theirs a story on the news about guns people are always quick to jump to a conclusion but the problem is that people from the Sandy Hook, and the Virginia Tech and many more examples are the bad people who got there hands on weapons. The problem are the people not the weapons.

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  7. There is no way in which the abolition movement and revolution(rebellion) was a coincidence.
    Human nature is self-interested and self-centered. Therefore, when a certain group of people receive
    treatment that is unfair to themselves, revolution and rebellion always tends to occur. It is not odd at all that both the revolution and the abolition movement happened together. Because once there is a live coal, it is very easy for the fire to lit back on. Before the abolition movement, fear of unknown existed among the slaves. If they rebelled, they could've gotten their family in danger or they had no idea what the punishment could be like. However, when the Nat Turner's rebellion occured, rumors spreaded and the fact that Nat Turner succeeded in some degree encouraged others to also lead a revolution and lead an abolition movement. Plus, when black realized that whites' fear of slave rebellion, they must have gotten more confidence in themselves.

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  8. No, i do not think that it was a coincidence. There are seldom real coincidences in politics and government, most things are throughly thought out. As far as gun control goes, over a year ago now was the Aurora shooting and just under a year was the shooting at Sandy Hook. Major questions arose from these two tragedies taking place only a few months apart. The question of if the right to bear arms still realistically applies to our society today versus in the seventeen hundreds still stands. Keeping this law in place makes it a lot easier for people with bad intentions to get ahold of a weapon of potential mass destruction, and it also gives society the right to be able to protect themselves. I am a strong believer in the saying "guns don't kill people, people kill people". Problems also become more evident directly after an event; gun control was talked about on every news stations for weeks after the Sandy Hook incident but now because nothing similar has happened recently, not as many people are talking about it. The same stands true for gay marriage. There is an uprising of attention given to gay marriage after gay hate crimes occur. Gay marriage and slavery are similar in the way that having gay marriage be illegal and denying someone their right to happiness is like denying people their freedom. It is of course not quite the same scale as slavery but it is the denying of absolute freedom in the end for both cases.

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  9. It is definitely not a coincidence. Before Nat Tuner's rebellion, Southerners ignorantly thought that their slaves were happy as long as they were treated well. What the slave owners chose to overlook is that enslaving another human being is more than enough of an incentive to incite violence. This horrible tragedy in which hundreds of slaves were killed indiscriminately whether they were guilty or not spread all over the country, and taught the whites that slaves were not happy to be enslaved. This definitely helped the Abolitionist movement and help it expand. Therefore it is unsurprising that Garrison, a major Abolitionist leader emerged in the same year. This is similar to how after the Newtown massacre, politicians pushed to outlaw guns or at least put more restrictions on them.

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  10. I agree with nearly all of you who say it wasn't a coincident which these two leaders start the abolition at the same year. And I totally agree with Stefan on the idea of southerners kills slaves as an incite but the idea spread all over the country because of that. Then, a lot of American became anti-slavery. Same as gun-controls, gay marriage, I believe that gay people will not stop fighting for their rights until they have the same right as straight people on marriage. It may last a few years, or it may take decays but it will be just like slavery.

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  11. The way that america is set it up, movements start with the people. Regardless of how that actually transcends into real law making it still starts with the people. For example the marijuana and gay rights movements of right now. One the first twig is lit it's not that hard for the rest of the fire to catch on. Every big movement like civil rights has key catalytic points throughout their progression.

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