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Summary Of Antebellum Reform

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In completing this week’s reading, Antebellum Reform: Salvation, Self-Control, and Social Transformation by Wendy Gamber, I identified several key terms that illustrate the significance of the Antebellum Reform period. Following the Second Great Awakening, the Antebellum Reform was a time period of self-control and moral suasion. Self control refers to the ability to control oneself and supports the predestination to free will, or the idea that “one’s station in life was not fixed [...] it was your fault, not God’s will, if you failed to succeed on earth or to gain salvation in heaven” (Gamber, p. 132). Certainly, people can control their own behaviors and attitudes; however, self-control became synonymous with the ideal of the American …show more content…

Activists in support of abolition of slavery and abstinence from alcohol, seek to influence change in Americans immoral behaviors and relied heavily on moral suasion to bring Americans to salvation. Throughout the temperance movement, reformers travelled through cities and “employed aggressive techniques to convert the intemperate [...] explaining the dangers of alcoholism and extolled the virtues of sobriety” (Gamber, p. 142). Similarly, these moral suasion tactics were demonstrated by abolitionists, in which they “bombarded the nation with a steady stream of propaganda [...] graphically depicted the physical cruelty of slavery and emphasized slavery’s emotional cruelty” (Gamber, p. 148). Although moral suasion was intended to influence good behavior amongst the American people, it lost all credibility due to conflicting strategies to alleviate alcoholism and abolitionism. Furthermore, moral suasion was not enough to tackle extreme social issues and many favored “elevated organization and efficiency over benevolence” (Gamber, p. 152). In analyzing both terms self-control and moral suasion, I understand that self-control refers to the behavior of the individual; whereas moral suasion is the collective action of individuals in support of behaviors that exemplify self control. Reformers used moral suasion to influence self-discipline and used self-control as a platform to individual

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