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The Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise was an agreement passed in 1820
between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the United States
Congress. These two groups were competing for power in Congress and
for control over the new territories added by the Louisiana Purchase. The
country was equally divided between slave and free states, eleven each;
but when Missouri applied for statehood, the careful balance between
Northern and Southern power in Congress was threatened. To admit
Missouri as a slave state would tip the balance in the Senate (made up of
two senators per state) in favor of the slave states. Northerners also feared
that admitting Missouri as a slave state would mean that all the other
territory acquired in the Louisiana Purchase would eventually become slave
states as well.
The compromise reached by Congress allowed Missouri to enter the
Union as a slave state, but in order to preserve the balance of power in
Congress, Maine was also admitted as a free state. In the territories,
slavery was to be permitted South of the southern border of Missouri, but
prohibited north of the parallel 36°30′ (the southern border of Missouri).
The Missouri Compromise kept the Union together, but it pleased no
one. Northern congressmen who voted to accept Missouri as a slave state
were criticized, and Southerners deeply resented the ban on slavery in
most of the Louisiana Territory. While nothing had been settled concerning
the future of slavery in America, the issue was laid to rest, at least for a
time.
Slave Rebellions
Numerous slave rebellions and insurrections took place in North
America in the years leading up to the American Civil War.
In 1831, rebel slaves led by Nat Turner killed anywhere from 55 to
65 white people, the highest number of fatalities caused by slave uprisings
in the South. After the rebellion there was widespread fear in the South,
and militias were organized in retaliation against slaves. The state
executed 56 slaves accused of being part of the rebellion. In the frenzy,
many innocent enslaved people were punished. At least 100 blacks, and
possibly up to 200, were killed by militias and mobs. Across the South,
states passed new laws prohibiting education of slaves and free blacks,
and restricting rights of assembly and other civil rights for free blacks.
In 1859, John Brown, who had already fought against pro-slavery
forces in Kansas, led a raid on the U.S. armory (a storage place for guns
and ammunition) at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. This raid was a joint attack by
former slaves, freed blacks, and white men. Their aim was to arm slaves
and provoke a general uprising among slaves, striking terror into the
slaveholders in Virginia. Brown and his men were defeated by a
detachment of U.S. Marines, and Brown and others were executed for
treason. On the day of his execution, Brown wrote his last prophecy, which
said: “I, John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land
will never be purged away; but with blood."
John Brown was the first white man to use violence in an attempt to
end slavery. This scared many in the South, leading Southern state militias
to begin training for their defense of further raids. This militarization also
prepared the South for a possible Northern invasion.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
&
Bleeding Kansas
The United States had long struggled to balance the interests of
slaveholders and abolitionists. The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854
implemented the concept of popular sovereignty in the Kansas and
Nebraska territories. The idea of popular sovereignty stated that the people
of each territory should decide whether it would be a free or slave state.
This resulted in large amounts of people, activists from both sides, entering
Kansas in the hope of influencing the vote on whether Kansas would
become a slave state or a free state.
The results of the vote were strongly contested with each side
claiming victory. At one point Kansas had two competing governments,
one supporting slavery and one opposing it. On May 21, 1856, an army of
800 pro-slavery settlers invaded Lawrence, Kansas, the home of the antislavery government. The invaders burned a hotel, looted several homes,
and tossed the presses of two abolitionist newspapers into the Kaw River.
Revenge came quickly. Three days after, a fanatic abolitionist named John
Brown gathered up his followers and headed for the pro-slavery town of
Pottawatomie. Upon reaching Pottawatomie, he had his men hack five proslavery men to death with their sabers.
The hostilities raged for months. In all, approximately 56 people died
in Bleeding Kansas by the time the violence completely ended in 1859.
These events were a small taste of the violence to come with the Civil War.
On January 29, 1861, Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state,
less than three months before the Battle of Fort Sumter which began the
Civil War.
Charles Sumner Attacked
on the Senate Floor
For Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, the violence in
Kansas was proof of a conspiracy by Southern congressmen to make
Kansas a slave state. Sumner voiced his opinions in a speech titled "The
Crime Against Kansas," in which he singled out and insulted Senator
Andrew Butler of South Carolina who was a strong supporter of slavery.
Many Southerners were enraged at the insults, none more so than Butler's
nephew, Representative Preston Brooks. Three days after Sumner's
speech, Brooks approached him on the Senate floor, and began violently
beating Sumner with his cane. During the beating, many Southern
senators formed a ring around the fight, as to prevent the Northern
senators from saving Sumner. The attack was nearly fatal; when Brooks
was finally pulled off of Sumner, Sumner lay bleeding and unconscious.
Sumner was unable to return to the Senate for three years because of the
injuries he sustained.
Reactions to the attack showed how badly divided the country had
become. Many Southerners called Brooks a hero for defending the honor
of his family, his state, and the South. Brooks received many gifts from
Southerners of new canes to replace the one he had broken on Mr.
Sumner's head, including one with the label "Hit him again". Northerners,
on the other hand, viewed the beating as another example of Southern
brutality.
Along with showing just how tense the sectional conflicts had
become, the attack on Sumner also revealed that some were no longer
content to merely argue about slavery.
The Compromise of 1850 and
The Fugitive Slave Act
In 1848, the United States ended its war with Mexico and took
possession of California, New Mexico, and Utah territory. As a result,
Congress again faced the issue of whether or not to allow slavery to
expand into new territories. While Congress was debating this, California
applied for admission to the Union as a free state. Southerners rejected
California's request, fearing that once the equal balance of power was
upset the South would never again regain equal footing with the North.
Congress, however, was eventually able to reach a compromise. California
was admitted as a free state, and the New Mexico and Utah Territories
were opened to slavery. To further appease the South, the strict Fugitive
Slave Law was enacted. While the compromise was greeted with relief,
Northerners resented the Fugitive Slave Law.
The new version of the Fugitive Slave Law required law enforcement
officials in all states to actively assist with the return of escaped slaves to
their masters. Northern officers now had a duty to arrest anyone suspected
of being a fugitive slave on no more evidence than a slaveowner's sworn
testimony of ownership. Free blacks of the North could easily be forced into
slavery, whether they had been freed earlier or had never been slaves. The
suspected slave could not ask for a jury trial or testify on his or her own
behalf, making it difficult to prove free status. In addition, any person aiding
a runaway slave by providing food or shelter was to be subject to six
months' imprisonment and a $1,000 fine.
The Fugitive Slave Act was essential to meet Southern demands.
Many Northerners deeply resented the requirement that they must
personally aid slave-catchers or face fines and imprisonment. Resentment
towards this act continued to heighten tensions between the North and
South.
The Publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin was an anti-slavery novel written in 1852 by
Harriet Beecher Stowe. Stowe was an abolitionist who wrote the book to
showcase the evils of slavery.
Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling novel of the 19th century. In
the first year after it was published, 300,000 copies of the book were sold in
the United States. In 1855, it was called "the most popular novel of our
day."
Uncle Tom's Cabin had more influence on history than almost any
other novel. Upon publication, Uncle Tom's Cabin outraged people in the
South and ignited a firestorm of protest from defenders of slavery. Some
Southerners declared the work utterly false, while others called the novel
criminal and slanderous. Southern booksellers could be forced out of town
merely for selling the novel. Some Southerners reacted by sending
threatening letters to Stowe, including one package which contained a
slave's severed ear.
While the book was hated in the South, it received immense praise
from abolitionists. Many have credited this novel with focusing Northern
anger at the injustices of slavery and the Fugitive Slave Law, and helping to
fuel the abolitionist movement. Union general and politician James
Weaver said that the book convinced him to become active in the
abolitionist movement.
The impact attributed to the book is so great that when Abraham
Lincoln met Stowe at the start of the Civil War, Lincoln (allegedly) declared,
"So this is the little lady who started this great war."
The Dred Scott Decision
In March of 1857, the United States Supreme Court, led by Chief
Justice Roger B. Taney, declared that all blacks -- slaves as well as free -were not and could never become citizens of the United States. The court
also declared the 1820 Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, thus
permitting slavery in all of the country's territories.
The case before the court was Dred Scott v. Sanford. Dred Scott, a
slave who had lived in the free state of Illinois and the free territory of
Wisconsin before moving back to the slave state of Missouri, had appealed
to the Supreme Court in hopes of being granted his freedom. Scott was
arguing that his time in free states and territories had made him a free man.
Chief Justice Taney -- a strong supporter of slavery intent on
protecting Southerners from Northern aggression -- wrote that, because
Scott was black, he was not a citizen and therefore had no right to sue. The
framers of the Constitution, he wrote, believed that blacks "had no rights
which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly
and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold
and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise."
Referring to the language in the Declaration of Independence that
includes the phrase, "all men are created equal," Taney reasoned that "it is
too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be
included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this
declaration. . . ."
Abolitionists were incredibly angry. Although disappointed, Frederick
Douglass, found a bright side to the decision and announced, "my hopes
were never brighter than now." For Douglass, the decision would bring
slavery to the attention of the nation and was a step toward slavery's
ultimate destruction.
The Election of 1860:
Abraham Lincoln Elected President
The nation had been divided throughout the 1850s on questions
surrounding the expansion of slavery and the rights of slave owners. In
1860, these issues finally came to a head.
The Republicans chose Abraham Lincoln as their presidential
candidate. The Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas, but when
Douglas refused to come out firmly in favor of slavery his party split apart
and Southern Democrats nominated John Breckinridge. To make this
election even more confusing, a group calling themselves the Constitution
Union Party nominated John Bell to run for president.
With opposition divided, Lincoln sailed to victory, but it was a strange
sort of victory. First, Lincoln won with only 40 percent of the votes cast.
Second, as the election map shows, he had absolutely no support in the
South. All of Lincoln's votes came from Northern states. In the eleven
states that would later declare their secession from the Union and become
the Confederate States of America, ballots for Lincoln were cast only in
Virginia, where he received only 1 percent of the popular vote.
For Southerners, the message of this election was unmistakable.
The South had become a minority section. It no longer had the power to
shape national policies, and sooner or later Congress would probably try to
abolish slavery. In the weeks following the election, talk of secession filled
the air. Within a few months, seven Southern states, led by South
Carolina, responded with declarations of secession.