That's not remotely true. There were several million people involved in active efforts to undermine and end slavery through direct action, including through actions like the Underground Railroad, rebellions like Stono, and of course it ultimately did lead directly to civil war.
There's been plenty of direct action by pro-life people that wasn't violent ranging from prayer vigils / sit-ins / Red Rose Rescue through to pregnancy centers and education.
The side that triggered the Civil War was the side that was in the wrong, so I'm not sure what truth you are pointing to there.
Note that I do not claim that pro-life activists have no serious moral aversion to abortion. I believe that they do. I think pro-life activists believe unborn fetuses have certain rights worthy of protection.
However, their rhetoric goes much further than that. Their rhetoric says that abortion is equivalent to murder, and thus justifies curtailing inalienable rights held by women.
The right of self-defense of others is something very close to universally accepted. If there were an equivalent number of five year old kids being aborted, we would not see milquetoast efforts like sit-ins and prayer vigils, actions with both little consequence and impact.
I believe Eric Rudolph believed abortion is murder. But all those people at prayer vigils, sit-ins, Red Rose Rescue, and pregnancy centers do not. They see it as something bad, but less than murder.
If a half million five year old kids are being murdered, you can't just go about your life and attend an annual March for Life protest. What kind of a person doesn't do more? This is systematic, legal, mass-scale child murder we're talking about.
