Previous
Terms
Abolitionists were people who desired and worked toward ending slavery in the United States of America prior to and during the early years of the Civil War. While an abolitionist movement existed from colonial times, abolitionist sentiment gained widespread attention and traction in the northern states beginning in the 1830s when William Lloyd Garrison began publishing the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator. The increasing political involvement and agitation of abolitionists was an important factor in the lead-up to the Civil War.
Abolitionist Quotes in Across Five Aprils
The Across Five Aprils quotes below are all either spoken by Abolitionist or refer to Abolitionist. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 2
Quotes
“Well, I’ll tell you: a half of the country has growed rich, favored by Providence, but still jealous and fearful that the other half is apt to find good fortune too. Face it, Uncle Matt; the North has become arrogant toward the South. The high-tariff industrialists would sooner hev the South starve than give an inch that might cost them a penny.
Then Ellen’s voice was heard, timid and a little tremulous; farm women didn’t enter often into man-talk of politics or national affairs.
“But what of the downtrodden people. Wilse? Ain’t slavery becomin’ more of a festern’ hurt each year? Don’t we hev to make a move against it?”
[…] Wilse brought his hand down sharply on the table. “What the South wants is the right to live as it sees fit to live without interference. And it kin live!”
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Chapter 3
Quotes
“I don’t know if anybody ever ‘wins’ a war, Jeth […] a blaze kin destroy him that makes it and him that the fire was set to hurt” […]
“But the South started it, didn’t they, Bill?”
“The South and the North and the East and the West—we all started it. The old slavers of other days and the fact’ry owners of today that need high tariffs to help ’em git rich, and the cotton growers that need slave labor to help ’em git rich and the new territories and the wild talk […] I hate slavery, Jeth, but I hate another slavery of people workin’ their lives away in dirty fact’ries for a wage that kin scarse keep life in ‘em; I hate secession, but at the same time I can’t see how a whole region kin be able to live if their way of life is all of a sudden upset.”
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Chapter 12
Quotes
“[…] Jeth, after the thirteenth amendment has become a part of our Constitution and for years afterward [...] there will be men and women with dark faces who will walk the length and width of this land in search of the bright promise the thirteenth amendment holds out to them. […] What’s going to happen to them, Jeth? What will become of men and women who have known nothing but servitude all the days of their lives? They are without experience, without education; they’ll be pawns in the hands of exploiters all over the nation. […] see if [Northern abolitionists] extend the hand of friendship to the uneducated, unskilled men who will come north looking to them as a savior. […] I tell you, all of us are getting a little quieter when the question comes up as to what we are to do about the products of slavery.
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Abolitionist Term Timeline in Across Five Aprils
The timeline below shows where the term Abolitionist appears in Across Five Aprils. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2
...leave the moral question of slavery for God to decide. And he alleges that Northern abolitionists harbor unspoken discomfort at the idea of formerly enslaved people suddenly becoming their equals.
(full context)
Chapter 12
...abolishing slavery doesn’t mean that society will welcome formerly enslaved people, no matter how fervently abolitionists have worked toward this end. Evidence abounds that these newly admitted citizens will face the...
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