Citizenship And Whiteness

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During this time period citizenship and freedom had become completely associated with whiteness. Because of this, abolitionists tried to bring back the idea that freedom was entitled to everyone. Anti-slavery activists saw free blacks and slaves as equal members of the nation. They believed that where you were born determined who was an American, not race. This idea was later enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment. They were the first to urge the enforcement of international laws against slavery and slave trade within the nation and they debated that human rights came before national sovereignty. Some abolitionists, such as Garrison, loathed the Constitution as a compact with slave owners. Others, such as Frederick Douglass, thought that it