Slavery to Civil Rights

The Roots of ConflictKing Cotton• Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin (1793)

• cotton could be very profitable with large enslaved force

• By mid 1800’s:North – economy relied mostly on

manufacturing with an immigrant workforce

South – agricultural economy reliant upon slavery

1. Who was the speaker of the House who was credited with getting the Missouri Compromise into effect?

2. According to the Missouri Compromise, above what boundary was slavery prohibited?

3. Who was Harriet Tubman and with what organization was she affiliated?

4. The North and South drifted toward _____________, or an extreme allegiance to their own local interests.

5. Why did many slave owners prevent many slaves from learning to read and write?

The Missouri Compromise - 1820• until 1818 there were an equal number of free and slave states

• Missouri petitioned to enter the Union as a slave state

• balance of power would shift to slave states

Compromise:• Maine would enter as a free state• Missouri would be a slave state• region south of 36th parallel in Louisiana territory would be open for slavery• land north of 36th (except Missouri) free• runaway slaves in free states to be returned

The Missouri Compromise

War With Mexico• Texas declared independence from Mexico in 1836

• White southerners wanted Texas to be a slave state

• Northerners worried balance of power in Congress would swing to the South

• Southern politicians won out and Texas was admitted to the Union as the 28th state in 1845

• Mexico is furious leading to border skirmishes and declaration of war against Mexico in 1846

• Northerners worried about territories to the West which were south of the line established by the Missouri Compromise

The Compromise of 1850• By 1850, 15 free states and 15 slave states

• California threatened balance when they applied for admission as a free state

Henry Clay’s Proposals (1850):• California be admitted as a free state

• people in the territories of Utah and New Mexico decide on slavery issue themselves

• slave trade (but not slavery) be prohibited in the District of Columbia

• new fugitive slave law to require federal marshals to capture runaway slaves

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

• Part of the Compromise of 1850

• All runaway slaves must be returned to their masters

• Abolitionists nicknamed it the “bloodhound law”

• law enforcement officers could be fined $1,000 for not arresting runaways

• people aiding runaways by providing food or shelter could face 6 months of $1,000 fine

The Underground Railroad• Between 1830 and 1860

• helped enslaved African Americans escape by conducting them to safe houses on their way to free territories

• runaway slaves were pursued by bounty hunters

• many continued on to Canada

The Kansas-Nebraska Act - 1854• Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas wanted territory north of Missouri line open for the people to decide for themselves whether or not they wanted slavery

• passed in 1854, it divided the Nebraska territory into two separate territories, Kansas and Nebraska

• in effect it voided the Missouri Compromise, allowing slavery to expand northward

• Republican Party formed in opposition (Free Soilers)

• violence broke out in Kansas between antislavery and proslavery groups

Growing Debate

• May, 1856 – Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina attacks Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts

Lincoln – Douglas Senatorial Debates - 1858

• Dred Scott Decision handed down by the Supreme Court

Conflict in Kansas• proslavery and antislavery fought for control of Kansas by 1855

• proslavery residents of Missouri poured into Kansas territory to help elect proslavery candidates

• laws were passed to even express opinions against slavery

• antislavery forces armed themselves, called for new elections, drafted a new state constitution

• proslavery Missourians opened cannon fire on Lawrence, Kansas burned down homes, businesses, killed several men

• John Brown and his four sons kidnapped and brutally executed five proslavery settlers

John Brown

• Abolitionist who led 21 men on an attack of a federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia in 1859

• hoped to spark a slave rebellion that would end slavery

• he and his men were quickly captured and no slaves joined him as he hoped they would

• powerful speaker who during his trial became a hero to many Northern antislavery opponents

• Sentenced to death by hanging

John Brown

The Dred Scott Case - 1857

• Dred and Harriet Scott were legally enslaved, but hoped the Supreme Court would free them since they had lived in Illinois and in the Wisconsin Territory (where Missouri Compromise prohibited slavery)

• Again living in Missouri (a slave state)

video

The Dred Scott CaseSupreme Court Decision: • enslaved African Americans were considered legal property (5th Amendment protects property)

• blacks can’t sue because they are not citizens (1787 Constitution)

• no state could deprive citizens of their property without due process of law

• ruled the Missouri Compromiseunconstitutional, declaring that Congresscould not prohibit slavery in Americanterritories (based on 5th Amendment, cannot be deprived of property without due process of law)

Lincoln Elected • When President Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860, southerners reacted by calling for secession

• By December of 1860, South Carolina seceded

• The following year Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed declaring themselves a new nation, the Confederate States of America

• War begins in 1861

• Northern African Americans tried to enlist at the start of the war but were rejected

• in 1863, and in desperate need of troops, the Union Army admitted black soldiers (After Emancipation Proclamation)

Emancipation Proclamation• Lincoln was pressured by abolitionists throughout the war to free all enslaved black Americans

• They argued, North’s two main reasons for fighting the war were to preserve the union and to end slavery

• Fugitive Slave Laws no longer applied to Southern slave owners since after secession from the Union could no longer expect to be protected by the Union’s laws

• 1862 signed preliminary version, only for enslaved persons in the parts of the South controlled by the Union Army

Lincoln’s personal views?...