To the Public

In 1830s America, the question of whether slavery should endure was prominent in national political discussions. Slavery had been contested going back to colonial times. Many religious groups, especially Quakers, had long advocated abolition, and the need for abolition was often framed as a moral and religious argument. Influential theologians, such as John Wesley, argued that slavery was incompatible with the Christian virtues of justice and charity. Despite such arguments, slavery remained firmly rooted in American culture, particularly because the plantation economies of the South relied on it.

When the newly independent North American colonies came together to form the United States, the ethical and economic considerations around slavery engendered a series of compromises that put off the question of abolition until another time. The new Constitution did not explicitly allow nor forbid slavery; similarly, prominent founders such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson at times decried slavery, even as they continued to enslave people. Some new states entering the Union allowed slavery, while others banned it outright. The result was a tenuous balance of power between slave states and free states.

By the 1830s, the compromises were growing less satisfactory to both sides. Legislation such as the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which divided the United States into a slave-holding South and a free North, could not satisfy the religious and moral criticisms of abolitionists.