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What was the debate surrounding abolition vs. equality and how did it lead to the Civil War? Why were there significant fears about the impact of...

Abolitionists, or people who supported the emancipation of slaves, were divided into different camps, from radicals or "immediatists" who espoused immediate abolition in the years before the Civil War to "gradualists," who supported the gradual emancipation of the slaves. Some gradualists belonged to the Free Soil party, which only wanted to stop the spread of slavery but did not want its immediate end in the areas where it already existed. The Free Soil adherents believed that slavery would end if its spread were stopped. In addition, some abolitionists supported full social and political equality for former slaves, while other abolitionists did not. These forces were able to join forces in the years before the Civil War. Agreements such as the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which gave the people in those territories the right to decide if they wanted slavery or not, made the Free Soil party join forces with more radical abolitionists, as the Free Soil people feared that slavery was spreading.


However, many people in the north feared the abolition of the slaves. Many people who worked in factories in industrial cities such as New York and Boston were members of the Democratic party, not the Republicans (which was then the party of Lincoln). These working people, many of them union members, feared that freed slaves would threaten their livelihoods if freed slaves went north after the Civil War. Working people felt as though they had a great deal to lose. In general, wealthy northerners supported abolitionism, in part because of civic and religious convictions that convinced them that slavery was wrong but also because the freed slaves would not threaten their position or livelihoods. 

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