The Great Impact of David Walker, Nat Turner and other abolitionists on the Virginia Debates



The Great Impact of David Walker, Nat Turner and other abolitionists on the Virginia Debates

Introduction

In the history of America, the antebellum era's abolitionist movement produced some of the most devoted reformers, comprised of men as well as women who did shake the nation to its base and threatened its primary assumptions related to equality, human rights, and race. A product of massive, broader campaign for reforming the society of America, the movement emphasized on slavery as the eventual offense and called on America for living up to it ideology of Revolution. Supporting their demands on sacred pleas of evangelical Christianity and the Enlightenment philosophy's secularism, a significant heritage was established by the abolitionists inclusive of David Walker and Nat Turner for upcoming generations of activists, upward methods and tactics, and also principles for potential campaigns for human's dignity.

Image - A Child's Appeal (Firdous, 1992)

In this paper, there will be a discussion about the impact of David Walker, Nat Turner and other abolitionists on the Virginian debates, as these individuals caused remarkable problems for southerners who assumed that they had a right to southern manners of life. In addition to it, there will be a deep exploration that how the slavery supporters were frightened by abolitionist movement.

Discussion

Throughout the colonial era, the sect of radical Protestant well-known as Quakers, issued the foremost challenge to slavery comprised on religious and moral grounds. Threatening conventional assumptions of the evil nature of mankind, the Quakers focused the inherent human dignity, human equality, and the capacity of goodness of each individual. The quintessence of Quaker theology was the Dogma of Inner Light, the conviction that every individual was endowed by God with the tendency for knowing Him without any intervention of church power. As, no individual had the right for exercising complete authority over another, they opposed physical coercion and violence and believed in universal love of God and universal brotherhood. The teachings of their religions developed the foundations for afterward defenses of equality and human rights.

The Slavery and American Revolution

By challenging the conventional beliefs regarding social hierarchy and political power, the movement of American Revolution let inexorably to questioning the necessity of slavery and justice. When the question was asked to the Englishman Dr. Samuel Johnson that “How about hearing the loudest yaps for freedom amongst ...