What is "abolitionism"

Abolitionism \Ab`o*li"tion*ism\, n. The principles or measures of abolitionists.
--Wilberforce.

1790, in the anti-slavery sense, from abolition + -ism.

n. An opinion in favor of the abolition of something; the tenets of abolitionists. (First attested in the early 19^th century.)(R:SOED5: page=6)

n. the doctrine that calls for the abolition of slavery

Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery, whether formal or informal. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism is a historical movement to end the African and Indian slave trade and set slaves free. King Charles I of Spain, usually known as Emperor Charles V, following the example of the Swedish monarch, passed a law which would have abolished colonial slavery in 1542, although this law was not passed in the largest colonial states, and so was not enforced. In the late 17th century, the Roman Catholic Church, taking up a plea by Lourenco da Silva de Mendouca, officially condemned the slave trade, which was affirmed vehemently by Pope Gregory XVI in 1839. An abolitionist movement only started in the late 18th century, however, when English and American Quakers began to question the morality of slavery. James Oglethorpe was among the first to articulate the Enlightenment case against slavery, banning it in the Province of Georgia on humanist grounds, arguing against it in Parliament, and eventually encouraging his friends Granville Sharp and Hannah More to vigorously pursue the cause. Soon after his death in 1785, they joined with William Wilberforce and others in forming the Clapham Sect. The Somersett Case in 1772, which emancipated a slave in England, helped launch the British movement to abolish slavery. Though anti-slavery sentiments were widespread by the late 18th century, the colonies and emerging nations that used slave labour continued to do so: French, English and Portuguese territories in the West Indies; South America; and the Southern United States.

After the American Revolution established the United States, northern states, beginning with Pennsylvania in 1780, passed legislation during the next two decades abolishing slavery, sometimes by gradual emancipation. Massachusetts ratified a constitution that declared all men equal; freedom suits challenging slavery based on this principle brought an end to slavery in the state. Vermont, which existed as an unrecognized state from 1777 to 1791, abolished adult slavery in 1777. In other states, such as Virginia, similar declarations of rights were interpreted by the courts as not applicable to Africans. During the following decades, the abolitionist movement grew in northern states, and Congress regulated the expansion of slavery in new states admitted to the union. David Brion Davis argues that the main driving force was a new moral consciousness, with an intellectual assist from the Enlightenment, and a powerful impulse from religious Quakers and evangelicals.

France abolished slavery within the French Kingdom in 1315. Revolutionary France abolished slavery in its colonies in 1794, before it was restored by Napoleon in 1802. Haiti achieved independence from France in 1804 and brought an end to slavery in its territory, establishing the second republic in the New World. The northern states in the U.S. all abolished slavery by 1804. The United Kingdom and the United States outlawed the international slave trade in 1807, after which Britain led efforts to block slave ships. Britain abolished slavery throughout the British Empire with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, the French colonies abolished it in 1848 and the U.S. in 1865 with the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In Eastern Europe, groups organized to abolish the enslavement of the Roma in Wallachia and Moldavia; and to emancipate the serfs in Russia ( Emancipation reform of 1861). It was declared illegal in 1948 under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The last country to abolish legal slavery was Mauritania, where it was officially abolished by presidential decree in 1981. Today, child and adult slavery and forced labour are illegal in most countries, as well as being against international law, but a high rate of human trafficking for labor and for sexual bondage continues to affect tens of millions of adults and children.

Abolitionism is the advocacy of animal rights that oppose all animal usage by humans and maintains that all sentient beings, humans or nonhumans, share a basic right: the right not to be treated as the property of others. The word relates to the historical term abolitionism—a social movement to end slavery or human ownership of other humans. Proponents believe that focusing on animal welfare reform not only fails to challenge animal suffering, but may prolong it by making the exercise of property rights over animals appear acceptable. The abolitionists' objective is to secure a moral and legal paradigm shift, whereby animals are no longer regarded as things to be owned and used. The American philosopher Tom Regan writes that abolitionists want empty cages, not bigger ones. This is contrasted with animal protectionism, the position that change can be achieved by incremental improvements in animal welfare.

Abolitionism is the movement to end human slavery.

Abolitionism may also refer to:

• Abolitionism (animal rights), the movement to end the property status of animals
• Abolitionism (copyright/patent), the movement to abolish state granted monopolies over intellectual works
• Abolitionism (prostitution), the movement to abolish state regulation of prostitution, seen as a form of slavery of women
• Abolitionism (capital punishment), the movement to abolish the death penalty within the capital punishment debate
• Gender abolitionism ( Gender studies, Radical feminism or Postgenderism), the movement to abolish gender
• Market abolitionism, a belief that the market, in the economic sense, should be completely eliminated from society
• Prison abolition, the movement to end incarceration as a means to address harm.
• Total abolition, the political philosophy of veganarchism ( veganism and anarchism)