The years between America's founding and the cusp of the Civil War are often overlooked in discussions of America's struggle over slavery. The conflagration that nearly destroyed the country did not ignite quickly, but was the culmination of a long-smoldering debate that saw significant developments in those intervening decades. This examination of the Abolitionist movement presents a year-by-year outline of the period from 1829 to 1838, chronicling the growth of the Abolitionists as a social and political group. By giving an overview of other important occurrences each year, it depicts the movement in a broader context, cementing relationships between seemingly disparate elements of American history and giving the movement its full due in the struggle to end slavery.