Abolitionism was a movement of the 18th and 19th century that sought to make slavery illegal in the United States and British West Indies.

Beginning during the Enlightenment in Europe and the United States, the movement attracted many followers and had significant political results. It succeeded in making slavery illegal in the United States, the British Empire and French colonies.

The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage was the first American abolition society, formed April 14, 1775, in Philadelphia, primarily by Quakers who had strong religious objections to slavery. The society ceased to operate during the Revolution and the British occupation of Philadelphia. After the Revolution, it was reorganized in 1784, with Benjamin Franklin as its first president. Benjamin Rush was another leader, as were many Quakers. John Woolman gave up most of his business in 1756 to devote himself to campaigning against slavery along with other Quakers. The first article published in the United States advocating the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery was written by Thomas Paine. Titled "African Slavery in America", it appeared on March 8, 1775 in the Postscript to the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser, more popularly known as The Pennsylvania Magazine, or American Museum.

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (published1852) was a novel that caught the public imagination just at a turning point in popular support for American abolition.

The Abolitionist Movement set in motion actions in every state to abolish slavery. This succeeded in every northern state by 1804; although the emancipation was so gradual that there were still a dozen "permanent apprentices" in the 1860 census.

The principal organized bodies to advocate this reform were the Society of Friends, the Pennsylvania Antislavery Society, and the New York Manumission Society. The latter was headed by powerful Federalist politicians, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and republican Aaron Burr. Thanks to the considerable efforts of the NYMS, New York abolished slavery (gradually) in 1799. In terms of numbers of slaves, this was the largest emancipation in American history (before 1863). New Jersey in 1804 was the last northern state to abolish slavery (again in gradual fashion). At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, agreement was reached that allowed the Federal government to abolish the international slave trade. By that time, all the states had passed individual laws abolishing or severely limiting the trade, all but Georgia by 1798.

After the Revolutionary War, Quaker and Moravian advocates helped persuade slaveholders in the Upper South to free their slaves. Many individual acts of manumission freed thousands of slaves. People were also moved by their own struggles in the Revolution; wills and deeds cited language about the equality of men in decisions to free slaves. Slaveholders were also encouraged to do so because the economics of the area was changing. They were shifting from labor-intensive tobacco culture to mixed crop cultivation and did not need as many slaves. After the Revolution, the percentage of free Negroes in the Upper South increased sharply from one to ten percent, with most of that increase in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. By 1810 three-quarters of blacks in Delaware were free. By 1860 91.7 percent of Delaware's blacks were free, and 49.7 percent of those in Maryland.

The importation of slaves into the United States was officially banned on January 1, 1808.

Beginning in the 1830s, the U.S. Postmaster General refused to allow the mails to carry abolition pamphlets to the South. Northern teachers suspected of any tinge of abolitionism were expelled from the South, and abolitionist literature was banned. Southerners rejected the denials of Northerners that they were abolitionists, and pointed to John Brown's attempt in 1859 to start a slave uprising as proof that multiple Northern conspiracies were afoot to ignite bloody slave rebellions. Although some abolitionists did call for slave revolts, no evidence of any other Brown-like conspiracy has been discovered. Many conservative Northerners were uneasy at the prospect of the sudden addition to the labor pool of a huge number of freed laborers who were used to working for very little, and thus seen as being willing to undercut prevailing wages.

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