Slavery and the Prelude to War

Slavery and the Prelude to War

• Railroads• Geography• tobacco• Textile• Europe• Farms• Factories• slave• Harbors• Banks• Tools

• Slavery• cotton• Philadelphia• Tools• Cash crops• Manufacturing• Eli Whitney• Plantations• Forests• Coal

Slavery and Sectional Interests

• Southern plantations need the cheap labor– After Revolutionary War, slavery declined in the

North because it was not profitable– N.W. Ordinance of 1787 prohibited

slavery in the Northwest Territory

Slavery Ownership

• 75% of Southerners did not own slaves

• Of the remaining 25%, only ½ owned 5 or fewer slaves

• 2% owned 50 or more slaves• Of the original 13 colonies, 6 were

slaveholding and 7 were free

Nativism• Belief that Native Born are better• Formed the Know-Nothing Party• Feared the immigrant

workers--Catholic, Irish, Blacks

Laws to Keep the Balance

• Missouri Compromise (1820)– Maine/Missouri--36'30" dividing line

• Compromise of 1850--Henry Clay– California--free state– Territories of Utah and New Mexico have popular

sovereignty (choose for yourself)– Slave trade to be prohibited in District of Columbia– New law to help slave owners regain their

runaway slaves – Fugitive Slave Law (next slide)

Fugitive Slave Law

• Agents hired to seize slaves with help from federal officials

• Judge would rule if slaves could be taken back– Judge paid $10 if taken back, $5 if slave went free

• $1000 fine for helping slaves escape

Kansas Nebraska Act –Stephen Douglas

• Created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska– Popular sovereignty to decide slavery issue in each state– Unpopular in the North because they didn’t want slavery to expand to

the territories• Kansas becomes “Bleeding Kansas”

– Voting became a free for all--people out of state voted– Beecher’s Bibles-- rifles and ammunition– Sack of Lawrence

• A posse of 750 southerners entered Lawrence, disarmed the citizens, wrecked the town's antislavery presses, and destroyed the Free State Hotel

• Raid on Pottawatomie Creek by John Brown when he heard about the Sack of Lawrence

Henry Ward Beecher and family

John Brown’s Raid

• Attacked a gov’t arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia

• Tried to obtain a supply of weapons to arm slaves and lead them to revolt

• Captured by Col. Robert E. Lee and hanged*

John Brown Pictures

Harper’s Ferry

Before

After

More Issues

• Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)--Harriet Beecher Stowe

• Formation of the Republican Party (1854)--Anti-Slavery– Northern Whigs, Free Soilers, Democrats

• Dred Scott Decision (1859)– Scott sued for his freedom on the basis

that he had been a resident in a free state– Judge Taney ruled that Scott was a slave

(property) and could not bring a suit in a federal court

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Dred Scott

Journal Entry

• Today, Americans believe that slavery is morally wrong because it robs people of their liberty. Calhoun and other white southern planters believed that stopping slavery was morally wrong, because it interfered with their liberty to own enslaved people as property. Government they believed, should protect this liberty. Do you think Calhoun’s argument was valid?