The Constitution prohibited the federal government from addressing the institution of slavery until 1808.
By 1804 the nation had expanded to 17 states and the Northern states had plans to eliminate slavery.
There was unrest over the question of new states having slavery or not.
In 1793 Eli Whitney created the Cotton Gin.
The Cotton Gin caused the South to rely more heavily on slavery.
The Louisiana Purchase was in 1803 and doubled the size of the nation.
In 1787 the NOrthwest Ordinance had declared that slavery was banned in Northwest Territory and would never allow slavery. This included Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan.
The Louisiana Territory had no rules on slavery.
A lot of Americans moved to the Mexico Territory because the soil was good. Eventually they fought the Texas Revolution, where Texas became an enslaved state.
Soon a war followed against Mexico and the US gained land stretching to the Pacific Ocean.
The more land America gained the more people debated on who should be a free state and who should be slave states.
Tensions kept rising no matter how hard the government tried to keep the peace through compromises.
Eventually Congress decided to try and balance the amount of free and slave states by states Missouri would enter the state as an enslaved state, Maine would enter as a free state, and the remaining Louisiana Territories would not have slavery.This was called the Missouri Compromise.
Abolitionists in the North became more and more vocal about ending slavery everywhere.
Soon the tension became so high that the House of Representative created a gag rule that stated the House of Representative would not discuss or debate antislavery petitions.
Some people thought the gag rule impeached on the American’s rights to petition to Congress.
The Country became more and more divided on the issue.
Some historians say the reason the North didn’t care about having slavery is because they didn’t have the terrain that the South did to grow crops so they had no need to have slaves.
Slaves were forced simply to get as much cash crops harvested as possible to make more money.
A lot of slaves didn’t try to escape because they didn’t want to leave their families and they feared death.
Even in the North, after slavery was abolished, freedmen were still looked down upon.
The Constitution was very contradictory to enslaving people.
One clause said that after 1808 no more slaves could be imported but another said that one slave only counts as half a person for state representative purposes.
Lincoln heavily voiced his opinion to abolish slavery during the 1860 election, so when the South realized he was going to win they seceded in 1861.
Because Fort Sumter stationed US troops there were problems.
When federal forces refused to leave SC troops fired on them.
Lincoln had to decide if he was going to late state’s secede or if he was going to use force to make them stay.
In the end Lincoln chose to use force and this started the American Civil War.
While most African Americans were enslaved a few had bought their freedom and soon started to speak out against slavery in the South.
Denmark Vesey was a slave that won the lottery and bought back his freedom but could not buy the freedom of his wife and 3 kids and had to leave them on the Charleston plantation.
During this time SC passed a law saying the state had to approve the freeing of a slave.
Denmark Vesey was accused of trying to start a revolt. Historians do not know if that is true.
There was a planned rebelion to revolt but when shared with another slave who felt it was ungodly the slave told on them and they were all arrested.
Denmark Vesey was eventually hanged for his alleged crimes.The rest were also found guilty and sent back into slavery.
The AME Church that most of them went to was torn down.
The state then passed a law saying free black people could not enter SC.
Then the Negro Seaman Act was passed that prevented ships with free black sailors to dock at the Charleston harbor.
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