Abolitionists were people who wanted to abolish slavery and the most heroic of the abolitionists were African Americans some who were former slaves such as Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass - who helped slaves escape to freedom along the Underground Railroad. They also helped to educate white Americans about the injustices of slavery. So, by the mid-1800s, slavery has become a very contentious issue in the U.S. We also discussed slavery and the West, sectionalism - why the Missouri Compromise of 1820 will no longer be effective in the mid-1800s. What was the Wilmot Proviso, the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act, the Kansas Nebraska Act, Bleeding Kansas? (All causes of the Civil War.) Who were John Brown and Charles Sumner?