Unit 3

The Compromise of 1850

The Compromise of 1850

the last act of Congress by Henry Clay, was seen as a vital compromise to keep the peace between the North and South

Southern Wins from the Compromise of 1850

Utah and New México Territories are given the ability to decide by popular sovereignty if their states will be slave states or not once they gain enough people to become a state, and the Fugitive Slave Act

The Fugitive Slave Act

it became a federal crime for anybody to help a fugitive slave and not help return them to their owner because of the constitutional obligation by each state to respect each other’s property, as the South was upset the Northern states weren’t following the constitutional obligation of each state’s respecting another’s property

Effects of the Fugitive Slave Act

it nationalizes slavery because the federal government forces the Northerners to help Southerners capture their slaves, and the Northerners are forced to accept slavery even in states where it is illegal, and it also terrifies all free African-Americans, escaped slaves because they could be brought back to their old owners, and freed slaves because they could be mistaken for fugitive slaves and enslaved to someone they don’t know

Northern Wins from the Compromise of 1850

California became a free state because it’s over the 36o 30 line and Gold Rush Economics. The slave trade is banned in Washington, DC, because Congress has the authority to govern DC as it’s a federal territory, and the slave trade in the district made the capital look bad

Gold Rush Economics

people didn’t want slavery in California because they wanted white people to get paid to work on fertile land

How did California become a state so quickly?

because of the `49 Gold Rush, which caused a large migration of Americans to the new territory of California from the Mexican-American War

Abolitionists

a small but vocal majority in the North who were completely against slavery and consistently advocated for a nationwide ban

William Lloyd Garrison

from Boston, a mentor to Fredrick Douglas, and a radical abolitionist who declared the Declaration of Independence was not carried out by the Constitution because the Declaration of Independence declared all people equal and the Constitution was, in his eyes, pro-slavery so he burned a copy of it publicly

The Liberator

first published in 1831 by Garrison, an anti-slavery magazine

Garrisonism

the belief that interacting at all with slave-holders is being complicit with slavery, so followers would not vote or hold public office because the Declaration of Independence was being trampled on and that its ideas would crumble and weaken the union, also accepting of disunion because they can’t support the sin of slavery, and absolutely no compromising with slaveholders because then you become a part of the problem

Fredrick Douglas

an escaped slave and radical abolitionist and prolific orator whose most known speech is What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

a best-selling novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, who, after gathering stories from former slaves, wrote a fictional story about slavery

The Effect of Uncle Tom’s Cabin

gave slaves a voice in the fight against slavery because now they were not just slaves but as real as the people who owned them and who had to endure abuse and exploitation. The North saw it as shocking, and the South tried to dismiss it as overdramatic, but the book was a big contributor to the civil war

Apple of Gold and Frame of Silver

an allegory for the two founding documents of the United States used by Abraham Lincoln

The Declaration of Independence as the Apple of Gold

the apple because it’s about ideals for an American union; equality, natural rights, liberty, and the consent of the governed

The Constitution as the Frame of Silver

the silver frame because it’s the means to go about preserving and achieving the ideals of an American union with the branches of government, separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism, and popular sovereignty

“The Ringbolt for America’s Future”

Douglas calls the Declaration of Independence the ringbolt of the chain of America, without it America would be lost, and it’s a reference to slavery

Why Douglas delivered the Fourth of July Speech

in Upstate New York but intends for the entire nation to hear what he is saying, especially Northern government officials so they would do more for the cause of slavery, and also on July 5th so to not give more importance to July 4th

What does Douglas say about the copious amounts of laws against slaves?

He says that if slaves weren’t human, there would be no slaves because they don’t make laws for cattle so they know slaves are human and therefore are guaranteed the rights in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution

Why were slaves not allowed to be able to read or write

because then they could hear about abolitionism and revolt against their owners

The Foreign Slave Trade

was outlawed in 1808 by Thomas Jefferson because the Constitutional Convention decided to wait 20 years as part of the slavery compromise

the internal slave trade

started growing when the foreign trade was outlawed and occurred between the upper South and the deep South because cotton was a rapidly growing cash crop, and it was seen as just as unethical as the foreign trade because it was still displacing people at a whim from their families, people, and places they knew to another place where they didn’t know anybody, and it also hindered escape plans since it was harder to escape in the deep South, where no states bordered free states

Mason-Dixon Line

the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland, seen as the border between free states and slave states