Unit 3

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

Why did Fredrick Douglas believe slavery was doomed to end?

Because it was becoming more and more divisive, so either the country would split apart or the abolitionists would win

“Glorious Liberty Document”

Douglas believes that the Constitution is anti-slavery, deviating from his mentor William Lloyd Garrison’s philosophy that the Constitution condoned slavery by not outright outlawing it, citing the Founding Fathers intended to create a “more Perfect Union”

Payment for Judges

For every trial after the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act, judges were paid $5 if a person was not deemed a fugitive slave and $10 if a person was determined to be, so defendants were more likely to be found guilty. This caused many people to be accused of being slaves just for the judges to earn money, and they didn’t even get the opportunity to defend themselves

Personal Liberty Laws

some Northern states tried to pass laws to help people being accused of being fugitive slaves, but it was hard to override national law

Conflict in Religion

Churches throughout the nation started splitting up based on whether they interpreted the scripture to condone or condemn slavery. Southern churches believed the scripture justified slavery, and the Northern churches believed slavery was the exact opposite of Christianity

Abolitionists vs. Slave Owners

abolitionists advocated for a nationwide ban on slavery on moral grounds, while slave owners wanted each state to determine whether or not they would allow slavery because slavery was seen as allocated for the states by the Founding Fathers

Brooks-Sumner Affair

an abolitionist senator from Massachusetts, Charles Sumner, slanders several Southern politicians in 1856, including South Carolinian Andrew Butler, so Butler’s nephew, Preston Brooks, a South Carolinian Representative, brutally assaults him with a cane

What was the response to the Brooks-Sumner Affair?

Instead of condemning the violence, South Carolinians celebrated Brooks and sent him replacement canes, telling him to do it again, while Sumner took a long time to recover from the assault

Stephen Douglas

a Democratic senator from Illinois who wanted a railroad from Illinois to the Pacific and proposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act to support possible construction

The Kansas-Nebraska Act

Proposed by Douglas and passed under President Pierce to separate the remaining Louisiana Territory into Kansas and Nebraska and let popular sovereignty decide if the states would allow slavery, overturning the old Missouri Compromise. This led many pro-slavery groups and abolitionists to flood the territories to make the future states align with their beliefs

Why was Lincoln against the Kansas-Nebraska Act?

because when someone governs themselves, that is self-government, but if they are allowed to govern another, that is more than self-government - that is despotism

Bleeding Kansas

slavery was becoming so divisive that violence was breaking out in the territories, showing that tensions were going to boil over soon

Lorens, Kansas

an anti-slavery town burned down by pro-slavery forces, so John Brown and his sons kidnap a pro-slavery family in the middle of the night and brutally murder them in a field

Two Governments of Kansas

for the vote on whether or not Kansas should be a slave state, anti-slavery groups boycotted the vote, creating a pro-slavery government so the anti-slavery groups created their own government

Republican Party

founded in response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act and aimed to prevent the spread of slavery to the federal territories

Dred Scott vs. Sanford

a supreme court case brought by former slave Dred Scott, suing for his freedom based on the fact he traveled to several free states with his master, before he died, and said that because he entered the state, he was free

Roger Taney

the chief justice during the Dred Scott case who wrote the majority opinion

Dred Scott

a slave owned by an army surgeon who died, so Scott sued for his freedom and the case made it up to the Supreme Court

Benjamin Curtis

one of two dissenters on the Supreme Court for Scott vs. Sanford, later resigned in protest of the majority opinion

The Majority Opinion for Scott vs. Sanford

Taney was trying to end the slavery debate and said that the Constitution excludes Black people because they’re “naturally inferior,” so they aren’t citizens and aren’t owed any rights of the United States, including the right to sue in court. Additionally, the Missouri Compromise is declared unconstitutional because, according to the Fifth Amendment, the federal government cannot restrict somebody’s property, trying to declare the principles of the Republican Party unconstitutional

Dissenting Opinion

Benjamin Curtis brings up the fact that in five out of the thirteen original states, free blacks could participate in their state conventions for ratifying the US Constitution, meaning they never were written out of the Constitution and are therefore owed rights given to them by the constitution because they were born in America and should be treated like any other natural born citizen or immigrant from Europe

1858 Senate Election in Illinois

between Democrat Stephen Douglas, the current Senator, and Republican Abraham Lincoln, who had served as a one-time representative and was called out of his private practice by the Kansas-Nebraska Act

Debates of 1858

Douglas and Lincoln agreed to seven 3 hour debates across the state of Illinois to gain people’s votes

The Southern State in the North

Illinois could be considered the most conservative of the Northern states, having outlawed slavery but a lot of citizens from slave states, especially in the south of the state

current perception about secession

some people wanted the South to secede from the Union but others still wanted to negotiate with the South because the only way the slaves could be freed was under the Union

Who won the 1858 Senate Election?

Douglas won the Senate seat again, but the election made Lincoln more popular across the nation, especially the East Coast

Douglas’ opinion on “a house divided”

he believes the country was meant to be divided into free states and slave states by the founders because it has already survived so long as a divided nation

Douglas’ opinion on popular sovereignty

he saw it as a Union-saving measure and a way to promote democracy throughout the nation

Why could Douglas be considered hypocritical

he was arguing that the Union was both stable and unstable and was more interested in getting votes than having a strong argument

democrat’s perception of the founding fathers

they believed, like Roger Taney, that white men created the nation for white men, and what they meant to say with “all men are created equal” was “all white men are created equal”. Additionally, they thought each state had the right to decide on slavery because, throughout the nation, each region was so diverse and suited for different things.

Douglas’ opinion of the founding documents

he supports the Constitution but doesn’t like the Declaration of Independence, so he’s for the laws but not what the laws were based on, which is hypocritical

“a house divided against itself cannot stand”

Lincoln says this while accepting the Republican nomination to be a senator from Illinois, meaning that slavery was either going to go away completely or every state would have to legalize slavery

What was Lincoln’s opinion on popular soverignty?

was against popular sovereignty because white men had the power to make decisions for their black slaves without their consent, which violated the idea of the consent of the governed, and it could become tyranny if the majority believed in something wrong

“Black Republican”

Douglas says Lincoln is a radical and wants complete racial equality, which is considered radical abolitionism at the time, but in reality, Lincoln is more moderate at this time

What was Lincoln’s opinion on racial equality?

he says he’s not for equal rights for Black people so white citizens and immigrants could have a chance at the American Dream, which appeals to the conservative audience

What was Lincoln’s opinion on slavery?

he’s okay with slavery in the states, but his main point is it spreading to the federal territories like a disease because of how much it was already dividing the nation, and he cited the Northwest Ordinance as the founding fathers not wanting to spread slavery

“fruits of your labor”

Lincoln is personally against slavery because it robs Black people of the chance to get rewarded for their work, instead their master gets to live comfortably while they have to labor every day

slavery as despotism

Lincoln saw slavery as despotism because it was controlling somebody without their consent, connecting to old European ways

“ancient faith”

Lincoln saw following the beliefs of the founding documents as vital to the survival of the country

"moral, political, and economic evil”

Lincoln viewed slavery as completely wrong but was willing to be moderate because of his conservative audience