William Lloyd Garrison in the context of "The Nation"

The New England Anti-Slavery Society (1831–1837) was formed by William Lloyd Garrison, editor of The Liberator, in 1831. The Liberator was its official publication.

Based in Boston, Massachusetts, members of the New England Anti-slavery Society supported immediate abolition and viewed slavery as immoral and non-Christian (sinful). It was particularly opposed to the American Colonization Society, which proposed sending African Americans to Africa.

The American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS) was an abolitionist society in the United States. AASS formed in 1833 in response to the nullification crisis and the failures of existing anti-slavery organizations, such as the American Colonization Society. AASS formally dissolved in 1870.

AASS was founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, had become a prominent abolitionist and was a key leader in AASS, who often spoke at its meetings. William Wells Brown, also a freedman, also often spoke at meetings. By 1838, AASS had 1,346 local chapters. In 1840, AASS claimed about 200,000 members.

The American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society split off from the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1840. The key issue was whether women could participate in abolitionist organizations; this Society was opposed.

The origin of the split, according to Lewis Tappan, was William Lloyd Garrison's goals of "'making an experiment upon the public' by foisting a host of radical issues upon the society." Lewis Tappan and his brother, Arthur, aimed to create "a new organization that, in his draft, would foreswear any effort 'to break up existing organizations in church or state' and would only 'give impetus to the usual forms of social action.'" Tappan renounced Garrisonian efforts to reveal the federal Constitution as a "slave compact" that should be replaced.

Moral suasion is an appeal to morality, in order to influence or change behavior. A famous example is the attempt by William Lloyd Garrison and his American Anti-Slavery Society to end slavery in the United States by arguing that the practice was morally wrong. In economics, moral suasion is more specifically defined as "the attempt to coerce private economic activity via governmental exhortation in directions not already defined or dictated by existing statute law." The "moral" aspect comes from the pressure for "moral responsibility" to operate in a way that is consistent with furthering the good of the economy. Moral suasion in this narrower sense is also sometimes known as jawboning. In rhetoric, moral suasion is closely aligned with Aristotle's concept of pathos, which is one of the three modes of persuasion and describes an appeal to the moral principles of the audience.

The Unconstitutionality of Slavery is an 1845 abolitionist essay written by the American abolitionist Lysander Spooner. In it, Spooner responds to Garrisonian abolitionists and proslavery theorists who argued that slavery was supported by the United States Constitution. Spooner claims that slavery is unconstitutional and cites natural law, colonial charters, and American founding documents to argue that there is no legal basis for the existence of slavery in the United States and that Congress is obligated to prohibit it.

Spooner was an anarchist who argued that the authority of the courts was derived from fundamental principles of justice and universal human rights. He cites the precedent established in Somerset v Stewart that slavery is incompatible with liberty and cannot exist absent positive legal sanction. Spooner notes that contrary to this principle, the Articles of Confederation, the several state constitutions, and the 1787 federal constitution do not refer to slavery directly; the Declaration of Independence, meanwhile, implicitly proscribes slavery by recognizing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as self-evident natural rights. Spooner rejects appeals to original intent concerning the historical context for constitutional provisions generally understood to address slavery, arguing that laws must be interpreted according to the ordinary meaning of the text. He concludes that there is no legal basis for slavery in the United States and that the Guarantee Clause requires Congress to enforce emancipation.

Wendell Phillips (November 29, 1811 – February 2, 1884) was an American abolitionist, labor reformer, temperance activist, advocate for Native Americans, orator, and attorney.

According to George Lewis Ruffin, a black attorney, Phillips was seen by many black people as "the one White American wholly color-blind and free from race prejudice". Another black attorney, Archibald Grimké, saw him as ahead of William Lloyd Garrison and Charles Sumner as an abolitionist leader. From 1850 to 1865 he was the "preeminent figure" in American abolitionism.