SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES

 

 The question of slavery is unresolved in the Constitution. In 1808 slave trade is banned in the USA, but slaves remain the property of the white owners and their economic value rises.

 

Sectionalism in the Antebellum period:

 

northern economy is based on industry and smaller agriculture.

 

southern economy is based on slavery, although rich planters constitute only about 1% and most southerners are individual farmers with no slaves.

 

The invention and implementation of COTTON GIN leads to cotton boom. By 1850 the South produces 75% of world’s cotton.

 

Slavery is a “peculiar institution” and “necessary evil” in the South

 

 

 

THE ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENT

 

MOST NOTABLE ABOLITIONISTS

 

John Quincy Adams

Nat Turner

William Lloyd Garrison – founder of The Liberator - harsh stories, often invented - radical literature all over the North.

Frederick Douglass

John Brown

Harriet Tubman

Harriet Beecher Stowe

 

The Underground Railroad - a network of secret routes and safe houses used by enslaved African Americans to escape into Northern free states and Canada.

 

 

Examples of slave rebellions in American history:

 

  • Nat Turner’s Revolt, Virginia (1831)

  • John Brown’s Harper’s Ferry Raid, Virginia (1859)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The central issue until 1860:

constant argument between the North and the South

about SLAVERY EXTENSION into newly acquired territories in the West

 

 

COMPROMISES

to maintain the BALANCE of slave states and free states in the Union

 

 

We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.

Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes (1820)

 

 

MISSOURI COMPROMISE (1820)

 

·       enacted after Louisiana Purchase and Florida Cession (valid until 1850)

·       Missouri Compromise Line - parallel 36°30′ north dividing prospective free states (north of the line) from slave states (south of the line)

·       the compromise maintained the same number of states in the Union, however, the state of Missouri (north of 36°30′) was founded as a slave state and the state of Maine as a free state

 

 

COMPROMISE OF 1850

 

·       enacted after the Mexican Cession

·       California is admitted as a free slave

·       slavery not mentioned in the organization of Utah and New Mexico territories – settlers are to decide themselves (popular sovereignty)

·       slave trade is banned in Washington, DC

·       Fugitive Slave Act (until 1864) – federal law: escaped slaves must be returned to their owners, even in the free north - penalties for assisting slaves to escape

o   'bounty hunters' sponsored by slave owners operate in the whole of US

o   many Northerners oppose the Act

 

 

KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT (1854)

 

·       recall of Missouri Compromise from 1820 – slavery is allowed north of 36°30′

·       popular sovereignty in Kansas: the citizens of each territory will determine whether slavery would be allowed

 

In consequence, a series of violent clashes erupt between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers (Free-Staters v. Border Ruffians) known as Bleeding Kansas (1854-61). John Brown, radical abolitionist, joins the conflict. In 1861 Kansas is admitted as a free state. The conflict is Kansas is commonly regarded as the tragic prelude to the American Civil War.

 

Two important developments before the outbreak of the Civil War:

 

  • Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)

 

The worst decision of the Supreme Court in history. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney’s opinion:

 

We think the Negroes are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States…

 

They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery.

                 

 

  • John Brown’s Harper’s Ferry Raid (1859)

 

John Brown’s failed raid on the federal arsenal to initiate a slave revolt in the South. The abolitionist raiders are captured and hanged.


 

THE CIVIL WAR

(1861-1865)

 

while slavery and its various and multifaceted discontents were the primary cause of disunion, it was disunion itself that sparked the war Elizabeth R. Varon

 

 

Developments leading to the outbreak of the CIVIL WAR:

 

  • SLAVERY and its extension

  • economic and social differences between the North and the South

  • conflicting views on the federal government and states’ rights

 

In 1854 the REPUBLICAN PARTY is formed in the North by the opponents of Kansas-Nebraska Act (Whigs, Free Soilers, abolitionists) in opposition to the Democratic Party. One of the founders is ABRAHAM LINCOLN – a popular lawyer from Illinois.

 

 

Presidency of Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865) Honest Abe

 

US presidential elections of 1860:

  •  

  • Abraham Lincoln becomes the first Republican President in US history by winning in northern states

  • Lincoln’s election is opposed strongly by the South for the fear of ending slavery

 

 

SECESSION

 

In response, South Carolina secedes from the Union followed by TEN other states forming the Confederate States of America (CSA). The President of the CSA becomes Jefferson Davis, the capital – Richmond, Virginia.

 

The slave border states (Missouri, Tennessee, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware) remain in the Union.

 

Abraham Lincoln’s primary goal is to PRERSERVE THE UNION, not to abolish slavery or secure racial equality

 

A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe that this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.

 

If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so think and feel.

 

My paramount object in the struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery.  If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union.

 

 

THE UNION (USA) – the North:

 

  • population: 22 million

  • most manufacturing, infrastructure and industry

  • three-fourths of railways

  • greater navy

  • more numerous armed forces

  • military leaders: George McClellan, Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, Philip Sheridan, Joseph Hooker, David Farragut

  • AIM: invade the South and bring the rebellious states back to the Union

 

 

THE CONFEDERACY (CSA) – the South:

 

  • population: 9 million, including 3.5 million slaves

  • better officers and army tactics: Robert E. Lee, Thomas Stonewall Jackson, P.G.T. Beauregard

  • navy ships built in Britain, e.g. CSS Alabama

  • most fighting will take place in the South

  • hopes to gain political and military support from Britain

  • AIM: hold until the North stops fighting, sign peace and recognize the CSA

 

 

 

MAIN EVENTS OF THE CIVIL WAR

 

Civil War theaters:

 

  • Virginia and other East Coast Confederate states

  • Mississippi Valley

  • the Atlantic

 

 

1861

 

·       FORT SUMTER, South Carolina, Apr 12, 1861 – Confederate attack on the federal (Union) garrison – the first shots of the war

·       sea blockade of the South

·       the Battle of Bull Run – the first battle and a defeat of the Union Army

 

1862

Confederate victories under General Robert E. Lee and discouragement in the North

 

  • Battle of Hampton Roads - the naval battle of the ironclads (first battleships) - Virginia vs. Monitor

  • Battles of Fredricksburg and Antietam - indecisive Confederate invasion of the North, huge casualties on both sides

  • Ulysses S. Grant replaces George B. McClellan as the Union commander-in-chief

  • David Farragut captures New Orleans (largest Confederate city)

 

 

1863

reversal of fortune – redefining the war: struggle to abolish slavery

 

Abraham Lincoln’s EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION

January 1, 1863

 

  • slavery is abolished in the territory of Confederacy from Jan 1, 1863

  • the proclamation is a NECESSARY WAR MEASURE but it also strengthens the MORAL CAUSE of the Union

  • African-Americans join the Union army

  • European states (Britain in particular) give up any prospects of supporting the Confederacy

 

 

  • Battle of Chancellorsville - death of Stonewall Jackson

  • Battle of Vicksburg on the Mississippi captured by Grant - the Confederacy is split in half – the Union controls the Mississippi River

  • BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG, Pennsylvania - the largest battle and turning point of the war. Lincoln's GETTYSBURG ADDRESS - one of the most famous speeches in American history:

 

...government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth.

 

 

1864

gradual defeat of the South

 

·       the Union invasion of the Confederacy and scorched earth policy of William T. Sherman – burning of Atlanta followed by the March to the Sea across Georgia towards Richmond

 

 

1865

General Robert E. Lee trapped between Union armies surrenders to General Ulysses S. Grant at APPOMATTOX, Virginia on Apr 9, 1865

 

 

THE AFTERMATH OF THE US CIVIL WAR

 

Slavery was dead; secession was dead; and six hundred thousand men were dead.

David M. Potter, The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861 (1976)

 

On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln is killed by actor John Wilkes Booth, while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.

 

 

·       about 700,000 dead on both sides - no battle was a decisive victory

·       the use of modern military technology versus 18th-century tactics

·       13th Amendment to the Constitution (1865) – ABOLITION OF SLAVERY in the USA – 4 million slaves are free but NOT equal

·       tremendous destruction and federal occupation of the South

·       The RECONSTRUCTION ERA (1865-1877)

·       The Lost Cause mythology