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The Civil War and Reconstruction
The Origins of ‘Racial Slavery’
• Europeans had had slaves since the dawn of times • However, slaves were usually white
– An Eastern European ethnic group was used so regularly that their name (Slav) became synonymous with ‘slavery’
– Occasionally, Europeans had African slaves • More of a ‘curiosity’ before the Age of Exploration (Columbus,
etc.)
• Two factors led to a ‘racial slavery’ – Europeans’ access to white slaves was cut off when the
Ottoman Empire took over the Middle East – The discovery of the New World caused the demand for
slaves to explode• Tons of land to clear and farm • Slaves were for sale in Africa• A bonus- African slaves could survive Malaria in the New World
Slav Trading Route
Slavery in the British Colonies
• Mainly in the south– Farming – Cash crops
Slavery During the American Revolution
• Irony- All of the arguments that the colonists are making against the British could be made by … – Slaves against the Colonists
• For example… – ‘all men are created equal’ – Natural rights – ‘liberty or death’
• The British, in fact, offered freedom to any black Americans who fought on their side– Lots of slaves took them up on this offer– After the war, they were in a bit of a tough spot
• Liberia story
Slavery and the Constitution• ‘Um…how do we deal with the
massive contradiction of writing an Enlightenment document freeing ‘mankind’ without eliminating slavery?’– Jefferson, Washington, etc. all owned
slaves • Basically, the decision was made
to put the issue off– Too many other problems at the birth
of the nation- if we deal with slavery, the country will collapse.
– 3/5ths Compromise – According to the Constitution, the
slave trade can’t be abolished for 20 years
Western Expansion Repeatedly Reopened the Puss-Filled-Scab of Slavery
• Will each new state be slave or free? – Either way, the power in congress will become
unbalanced
• This leads to crazy things like ‘Bleeding Kansas’ – It is decided that the settlers of the Kansas territory
can decide whether it will be free or slave– Thus, pro-slavery people and anti-slavery people rush
in to ‘win’ the state • The result is an outbreak of violence between these two
groups
Tensions Between Pro-Anti Slavery Reached a Boiling Point
• Nat Turner’s Revolt– A group of slaves in Virginia, led by Nat Turner, massacred 60
whites before being caught and killed – Caused hysteria among southern whites
• For a period of time it became officially illegal to even talk about slavery on the floor of the senate
• In the 1850s, one senator beat another on the floor of the senate after an argument about slavery – Which side do you think the one doing the beating was on?
• Dred Scott– Supreme Court case
• Dred Scott was an escaped slave • Can northerners be forced to return runaway slaves to the south• Court says yes
The Civil War
• The south seceded– Meaning of secede? – Partially a response to the election of Abraham Lincoln,
who was seen as anti-slavery– Became a Confederacy (does this make sense?)
• War! – Long and bloody (more Americans killed than in all other
wars combined) • Lincoln’s goal?
– To preserve the union (NOT to end slavery) • “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave 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.”
Gettysburg Address Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
• The North won the war– However, in the midst of the celebration,
Lincoln was assassinated • Wilkes Booth Manhunt
• How to pick up the pieces? – Reconstruction!
