Abolitionism
Etymology
From Latin “abolere” (“to destroy, efface”), via “abolition.” The “-ism” marks it as an organized cause, and its adherents were “abolitionists.” Today the word is also claimed by movements to abolish prisons or police, deliberately borrowing the moral authority of the original anti-slavery struggle.
noun · /ab-uh-LISH-uh-nizm/
The organized movement to end slavery, especially the 18th- and 19th-century campaigns against the Atlantic slave trade and enslavement.
What it names
The model of a moral cause pursued against entrenched interests — a template later reform movements consciously borrow.
Example
The pamphlet became a cornerstone of transatlantic abolitionism.
Related idea
Distinguish it from emancipation, the act of freeing enslaved people — abolitionism is the movement and its argument, while emancipation is the legal result it fought to achieve.