People and Communities: Diversity, Divisions and Tensions 18301861

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People and Communities Diversity, Divisions and
Tensions1830-1861

• Political developments
• Compromise of 1850
• Fugitive Slave Act
• Social Developments
• Uncle Toms Cabin
• Underground Railroad
• On the path to war? Inevitable?

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Tensions

• Tensions may be a constant force in society
• However, tensions certainly more predominant at
  some times rather than other times
• 1840s-1860 is one of those times

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North and West and South

• All affected by same events in society and in
  politics
• Yet, effects from these events differed
• Complexity of situation
• Examine some events to see how various groups
  understood them and reacted to them

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Political Developments

• War with Mexico
• Mr. Polks War
• Wanted California
• Negotiations to buy California failed and Polk
  waited for war
• Negotiations in French because Americans didnt
  speak Spanish and Mexicans didnt speak English
• Standoff
• 1846 Mexican cavalry ambushed US cavalry
• Polk declared that war exists by the act of
  Mexico itself and summoned nation to war
• Congress voted for war (House 174-14 Senate
  40-2)
• Full reality of events in Rio Grande not known
• First major war on foreign territory
• Fueled by idea of manifest destiny

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War with Mexico

• Foreign War in the Popular Imagination
• Idea of war is celebrated
• High level of volunteers
• Adventurous war of conquest in far-off land
• Fulfillment of manifest destiny and expanding
  civilization
• Racism fueled war celebrations
• Racism and expansionist spirit
• Fusion of popular culture and war
• Newspapers first war that became national event
  that could be experienced with immediacy
• Poetry, songs, drama, travel literature
• Glorified conflict
• Role of popular culture in history
• War was a social as well as a political movement
• This also occurs in the Spanish-American War in
  1898

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War and Popular Imagination

• Idea of conquest
• By end of 1846, American soldiers had captured
  California
• Mexico resisting so American forces attacked at
  Veracruz and captured capital
• Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 1848
• US gained California and New Mexico (Nevada,
  Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming)
• Recognition of Rio Grande as southern boundary of
  Texas
• Paid Mexico a mere 15 million

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Impact of War with Mexico

• Impact of War
• European countries saw this as American seizure
  of an empire
• Was this an attempt to build an empire?
• 13,000 Americans died mostly from Disease
  50,000 Mexicans died
• Public opinion sharply divided about the war
  (even though hostility toward Mexico seemed to be
  widespread) still many did not support war

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Slave Power Conspiracy

• Abolitionists feared that the war was a plot to
  extend slavery throughout the West
• Northern fear of Slave Power
• Slaveholding oligarchy to dominate nation
• Northern abolitionists and non-abolitionists
  started to fear southern control of federal power
• David Wilmot of PA proposed amendment
• Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall
  ever exist in territory gained from Mexico
• Never passed
• Did have strong impact
• Repeatedly introduced by Northerners
• Rallying cry for abolitionists
• Transformed debate over expansion of slavery
• Solidified Southern support for slave society

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Slave Power Conspiracy

• Wilmot was not abolitionist
• Racist and opponent of slavery
• Majority of white northerners were not active
  abolitionists
• Desire to keep West free from slavery had to do
  with keeping blacks from settling there- wanted
  West free from blacks
• Antislavery movements united abolitionists and
  anti-black voters

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Keep American Dream Alive

• AMERICAN DREAM ideology
• Threat to American dream if slavery entered the
  West
• Ideal of free labor
• Access to social mobility through land and jobs
  in the West
• Must be kept open to whites
• What is power of idea of American Dream? What
  impact has it had on American society and
  politics?

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Political Developments

• Election of 1848
• Popular Sovereignty
• Idea of Popular Sovereignty and Slavery
• Slavery left to states to decide
• What about balance?

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Compromise of 1850

• Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas drafted list of
  compromises in winter of 1850
• Difficult discussions in Congress
• Douglas finally got different groups of senators
  to vote on different aspects of bill so
  Compromise of 1850 would go into effect

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Compromise of 1850

• Five measures of Compromise
• 1- California would become free state
• 2- Texas boundary set at present limits and US to
  pay Texas 10 million in compensation for loss of
  New Mexico
• 3- territories of New Mexico and Utah were
  organized on basis of popular sovereignty
• 4- Fugitive slave law was strengthened
• 5- Slave trade abolished in District of Columbia

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Compromise of 1850

• Was there reason to celebrate?
• Long-lasting compromise or artful evasion for a
  short time?
• Two major flaws
• Ambiguity of popular sovereignty
• Fugitive Slave Act
• Handout primary document Fugitive Slave Act
• Group discussions what do you think?

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Fugitive Slave Act

• Strengthened under Compromise
• Given new and controversial protection to slavery
• Empowered slaveowners to go into court in their
  own states to present evidence that a slave who
  owed them service had escaped
• Transcript would serve as legal proof of persons
  slave status, even in free states
• Did not have to prove that he or she was indeed a
  slave
• Also, law stated northern citizens could be
  summoned to hunt fugitives

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Fugitive Slave Act

• Abolitionist response
• Violation of rights
• Alleged fugitives denied trial, no chance to
  present evidence
• All free blacks vulnerable to kidnapping and
  enslavement
• Violated free states right to be free
• Abolitionists and non-abolitionists to protest in
  the North
• Challenging the authority of northern states

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Fugitive Slave Act

• 1850-1854
• Many protests and resistance to slave catchers
• Captured fugitives often broken out of jail by
  abolitionist mobs
• 1851- Lancaster, PA a slaveowner is killed a
  newspaper proclaims this Civil War First Blow
  Struck!

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Runaway Slave Advertisement
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Fugitive Slave Act

• This legislation enabled a slave owner to pursue
  his runaway slaves into other states, empowering
  the owner to seize the slave.
• Even though the law required proof that the
  person was, in fact, a fugitive slave, many free
  blacks were captured and pressed into slavery.
• Abolitionists succeeded in passing "personal
  liberty laws" in some states, forbidding northern
  officials to aid slave owners.
• The slave depicted here is being deported back to
  a plantation. The angry faces of his white
  captors express the fury with which plantation
  owners reacted to runaways and free blacks alike.

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Effect of Fugitive Slave Act

• Increased hostility and tension as well as
  violence between north and south
• New element of violence
• Abolitionists convinced that violence as
  legitimate means of opposing slavery
• Frederick Douglass declared that the only way to
  stop the fugitive slave law was to make a few
  dead slave catchers
• What do you think?
• Could diplomacy have worked?
• Was violence the only way to end the violence of
  slavery?

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Social Developments

• Uncle Toms Cabin
• What is the power of one book?
• Why did this book have such a significant impact
  on the abolitionist movement?
• Race, gender, class issues

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Uncle Toms Cabin

• In 1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe, daughter of
  well-known abolitionist Lyman Beecher, published
  a novel entitled Uncle Tom's Cabin or, Life
  Among the Lowly, which had already been
  serialized in the abolitionist journal New Era.
• As a novel, and later in an adaptation for the
  stage, Uncle Tom's Cabin was both a wildly
  popular best-seller and a political sensation.
• A tale of slavery drawn partly from Stowe's
  travels in the South, the book fueled antislavery
  feeling in the North with its depiction of the
  horrors of slavery, including cruel overseers and
  slave families torn apart at auctions.
• The novel was so influential that some credit it
  with a major role in setting the stage for the
  war.

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Uncle Toms Cabin

• Showed agonies faced by slave families and
  described a mothers dash to freedom with her
  child
• Showed slaverys evil effects on slaveholders
• Indicted institution itself more than individual
  southerners
• Why was this important?
• Exposed northern racism and complicity
• 300,000 copies sold in 9 months
• by 1853, over 1 million copies sold
• Power of popular culture

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Social Developments Underground Railroad

• Underground Railroad
• Network of escaped slaves, black abolitionists,
  and white abolitionists that worked to help
  slaves escape to the north
• Never very organized
• Largely worked in secret since it was illegal
• Thousands did escape by these routes
• Many slaves escaped because of their own courage
  and ingenuity

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Underground Railroad

• Despite lack of strong organization, there was a
  definite network that historians have showed to
  be the Underground Railroad
• Text claims that the Underground Railroad has
  been greatly exaggerated
• Symbolic meaning is just as important as sheer
  numbers
• Flow of humanity
• Cause of concern and worry for slaveholders
• Pressure to end slavery
• Abolitionists black and white
• Quakers played a large role in liberating slaves
• Harriet Tubman
• Returned to Maryland and Virginia about 20 times
• Helped 300 slaves escape

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Abolitionist Movement

• By 1854, abolitionist movement gaining strength
  in numbers, in political power, in the media
• Large part due to northern newspapers, many of
  which are run by free blacks and/or white
  abolitionists
• Uncle Toms Cabin
• Underground Railroad
• Fugitive Slave Act
• Many factors interplay of social, political,
  and cultural factors all important to understand
  how the abolitionist movement progressed

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Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Stephen Douglas introduced bill
• Douglas concerned about economy of Illinois
  supposedly did not consider slavery a huge
  problem
• Wanted transcontinental railroad because it would
  stimulate economy of Illinois
• Realized that no company going to build railroad
  until land was settled
• Wanted territories settled

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Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Exposed conflicting interpretations of popular
  sovereignty
• Question of slavery left to residents of
  territories
• Constitutional issue
• Missouri compromise had prohibited slavery north
  of 3630
• This would mean that Missouri compromise no
  longer in effect and settlers could decide to
  have slavery there
• Opposition from Free Soilers and antislavery
  forces
• Intensified already tense divisions
• Lincoln proclaimed that the Act discouraged
  liberty and was a moral wrong and injustice
• Beginnings of Republican party

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Bleeding Kansas

• Rush to settle Kansas
• Abolitionists and religious groups sent in armed
  Free Soil settlers
• Southerners sent in settlers to establish slavery
• Bloodshed ensued
• Legislature legalized slavery
• Free Soilers established own government and
  constitution
• More violence and bloodshed

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Politics

• Republicans
• Formed largely in response to Kansas-Nebraska
  Act, Fugitive Slave Act and other developments
• Antislavery Whigs
• Antislavery Democrats
• Free Soilers
• Know-Nothings nativist party also incorporated
• Abolitionists
• Other reformers
• 1854 won majority of House seats in the North
• Antislavery sentiment created this new party
• Party started as party of reform, party of civil
  rights

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Politics

• Republican Ideology
• Economic development of West
• Commercial agriculture
• Homestead program
• free soil, free labor, free men
• Northern economy was prosperous
• Progress linked to free labor
• Resentment of southern political power
• moral objection to racial prejudice
• Antislavery

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Politics

• Southern Democrats
• Strong states rights positions
• Defending slavery
• Security of own communities
• Prior to 1850s, Southern democrats basically
  non-slaveholding small farmers
• Interesting change in the Democratic party

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Southern Democrats

• How to get small, non-slaveholding farmers to
  agree with plantation owners that slavery must be
  defended?
• Class strongly divided these groups
• What could be used?
• RACE and RACISM
• Wealthy leaders manipulated racial ideology to
  get small farmers to support the defense of
  slavery, although this went against their
  economic best interests
• Why?
• Power of racial ideology and power of propaganda
• Race, class, gender ideologies interplay
• Instill fear of free black men raping and
  controlling white women one of the most
  influential and effective propaganda campaigns
  WHY?

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Tensions in Society

• Political divisions
• Social divisions
• Power of the Supreme Court
• One Supreme Court Case ignited the Abolitionist
  movement
• Abolitionism had been gaining strength

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Dred Scott case

• Dred Scott was a Missouri slave who sued his
  owner for freedom
• Based claim on fact that his former owner had
  taken him into Illinois, a free state, and into
  Wisconsin Territory, a free territory
• Scott won, then lost his case
• Supreme Court had to consider numerous issues
• Was a black person a citizen of the US and
  eligible to sue in federal court?
• Had residence in a free state made him free?
• Did Congress have right to prohibit slavery in a
  territory?
• Decided to hear case, after reluctance, and had
  to consider and rule on Missouri Compromise as
  well

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Dred Scott case

• Majority opinion
• Scott was not a citizen of either the US or
  Missouri
• Residence in a free territory did not make him
  free
• Congress had no power to bar slavery from
  territories
• Invalidated Missouri compromise
• Invalidated popular sovereignty
• Impact of Dred Scott decision
• Appeared that decision made slavery the supreme
  law of the land
• Anger in North
• Republicans strengthened antislavery coalition
• Lincoln strong opponent of this decision
• Divided Court
• 5 of 9 justices were southerners
• 3 of northern justices actively disagreed

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Abolitionism and John Brown

• John Brown
• Raid on Harpers Ferry
• Significance
• Remember Samson Wheeler and his abolitionist
  friends song about John Brown
• John Brown as martyr for Abolitionist movement

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John Browns Raid on Harpers Ferry

• John Brown was an active participant in the
  Underground Railroad movement and a founder of a
  defense group for slaves.
• Brown was an abolitionist who believed that force
  was the only means to end slavery.
• Considered a radical abolitionist
• With a small guerrilla band, he killed five
  proslavery settlers at Pottawatamie, Kansas, in
  1856, but was never prosecuted for the crime.

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John Browns Raid on Harpers Ferry

• On October 16, 1859, John Brown, a white radical
  abolitionist, engineered a raid on the federal
  weapons arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia,
  hoping to establish a biracial, independent
  republic in the Appalachian mountains.
• Hoped this would spark a massive uprising of
  slaves. However, few slaves were in the area and
  none flocked to his cause.
• Word leaked out and Brown's men were surrounded
  by troops led by Colonel Robert E. Lee.
• Brown was captured and ten of his followers were
  killed.
• Brown, refusing to try a plea of insanity, was
  hanged for treason on December 2 of that year.
• Northern abolitionist support for Browns raid
  enraged southerners and helped spark louder calls
  for secession.

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Harpers Ferry Raid
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Election of 1860

• Democratic Convention
• Division within party nominate Douglas for
  northern wing and Breckinridge for southern wing
• Republican Convention
• Nominated Lincoln
• Convention in Chicago
• Growing power of Midwest
• Against extension of slavery into territories
• No intention to interfere with current slavery in
  states
• President Abraham Lincoln
• Won in electoral college
• Only had 40 of total vote

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Inevitable?

• Was Civil War inevitable?

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Secession

• December 20, 1860 South Carolina passed
  ordinance of secession
• Raised stakes in sectional confrontations
• Secession Mississippi, Florida, Alabama,
  Georgia, Louisiana, Texas
• Confederate States of America formed in Feb. 1861
  with Jefferson Davis as President
• South was not united on this
• Many stayed home and did not vote
• Conventions purposefully did not allow citizens
  to vote to ratify
• Many states flatly rejected secession until
  outbreak of war (Virginia, North Carolina,
  Tennessee, Arkansas)
• Class divisions small farmers start to question
  how far they will go to support slaveholders

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Outbreak of War

• April 12, 1861
• Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor
• Lincoln notified South Carolinians he was sending
  ship to supply the fort
• Confederate leaders met and decided choice
  between attacking fort or acquiescing to
  Lincolns authority
• Confederates ordered commanders to obtain a
  surrender or to attack Fort Sumter
• After 2 days, fort surrendered
• No one killed but Civil War had started

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Was there a way to stop the war?

• What would you have done if you were Lincoln?
• Would you have made same decision regarding Fort
  Sumter?
• Was there any opportunity for diplomacy at this
  point?
• Could outright war have been avoided?

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Discussion Questions

• In what ways was American society in the
  1830s-50s a society of equality? In what ways
  was it a society of inequality? Was it more a
  society of equality or inequality? Why?
• Discuss the similarities and differences between
  the North and South from 1830-1860.
• Examine the husband-wife relationship within the
  planter class. How did this relationship differ
  from the comparable relationship within a slave
  family? How was it similar?

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Discussion Questions

• What was the political, social and economic
  impact of slavery on southern society?
• What is the idea of popular sovereignty? What
  role did popular sovereignty play in the
  sectional crisis between 1850 and 1861? Was this
  a new idea? If not, where have we heard about
  popular sovereignty before 1850?

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Discussion Questions

• Discuss the ideology of the Republican Party and
  explain how the party managed, within a short
  period of time, to become a major political force
  in the North. How did the party react to the
  Dred Scott decision and what political effect did
  this have?
• Discuss the ideology of Southern Democrats and
  explain the appeal of this ideology to both
  non-slaveholders and former Whig slaveholders in
  the South.