1850 and Bleeding Kansas

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1850 and Bleeding Kansas
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Compromise of 1850

• Henry Clay Great Compromiser
• Resolutions
• California became a free state
• Territorial governments to be established in New
  Mexico and Utah. Border with Texas settled.
• Popular Sovereignty
• Revision of the Fugitive Slave Act

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An Act to amend, and supplementary to, the Act
entitled 'An Act respecting Fugitives from
Justice, and Persons escaping from the Service of
their Masters,' approved February twelfth, one
thousand seven hundred and ninety-three.

• Section 5 specifies the penalties for failure to
  comply with warrants issued under the provisions
  of the actShould any marshal or deputy marshal
  refuse to serve such warrant, or other process,
  when tendered, or to use all proper means
  diligently to execute the same, he shall, on
  conviction thereof, be fined in the sum of one
  thousand dollars.Furthermore, should an arrested
  fugitive manage to escape from custody, the
  marshal or deputy would be liable to prosecution,
  and could be sued for 'the full value of the
  service or labor of said fugitive in the State,
  Territory or District whence he escaped.'
  Commissioners were also empowered 'to summon and
  call to their aid the bystanders,' and any
  failure to co-operate with such a summons would
  be a violation of the lawAll good citizens are
  hereby commanded to aid and assist in the prompt
  and efficient execution of this law, whenever
  their services may be required.
• Section 6And be it further enacted, That when a
  person held to service or labor in any State or
  Territory of the United States, has heretofore or
  shall hereafter escape into another State or
  Territory of the United States, the person or
  persons to whom such labor or service may be due
  ... may pursue and reclaim such fugitive person,
  either by procuring a warrant from some one of
  the courts, judges or commissioners aforesaid,
  ... or by seizing and arresting such fugitive,
  where the same can be done without process, and
  by taking, or causing such person to be taken,
  forthwith before such court, judge, or
  commissioner... and upon satisfactory proof
  being made, ... to use such reasonable force and
  restraint as may be necessary, under the
  circumstances of the case, to take and remove
  such fugitive person back to the State or
  Territory whence he or she may have escaped as
  aforesaid. In no trial or hearing under this act
  shall the testimony of such alleged fugitive be
  admitted in evidence ...
• Section 7And be it further enacted, That any
  person who shall knowingly and willingly
  obstruct, hinder, or prevent such claimant ...
  from arresting such a fugitive from service or
  labor, either with or without process as
  aforesaid, or shall rescue, or attempt to rescue,
  such fugitive from service or labor, from the
  custody of such claimant ... or shall aid, abet,
  or assist such person ... to escape from such
  claimant ... or shall harbor or conceal such
  fugitive, so as to prevent the discovery and
  arrest of such person, after notice or knowledge
  of the fact that such person was a fugitive from
  service or labor as aforesaid, shall, for either
  of said offences, be subject to a fine not
  exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisonment
  not exceeding six months ... and shall moreover
  forfeit and pay, by way of civil damages to the
  party injured by such illegal conduct, the sum of
  one thousand dollars for each fugitive so lost as
  aforesaid, to be recovered by action of debt ...
• Section 8 deals with the payments to be made to
  various officials for their part in the arrest,
  custody and delivery of a fugitive to his or her
  claimant. In effect, the financial incentives
  authorized under this clause turned the pursuit
  of escaped slaves into a species of
  bounty-huntingThe marshals, their deputies, and
  the clerks of the said District and Territorial
  courts, shall be paid for their services ... and
  in all cases where the proceedings are before a
  commissioner, he shall be entitled to a fee of
  ten dollars ... The person or persons authorized
  to execute the process ... shall also be entitled
  to a fee of five dollars each for each person he
  or they may arrest and take before any such
  commissioner.

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Results of the Compromise

• Uncle Toms Cabin
• Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Northern hostility!

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Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

• Repealed Missouri Compromise
• Stephen Douglas
• Popular Sovereignty
• 2 Kansas legislatures
• Topeka (Free Soil)
• Lecompton (Pro-Slavery)

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Bleeding Kansas 1856

• Border Ruffians (pro-slavery from Missouri)
• "Beecher's Bibles"
• President Franklin Pierce made anti-slavery
  illegal
• Sack of Lawrence

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John BrownPottawatomie Creek
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Sumner-Brooks Affair (Bleeding Sumner)

• Charles Sumner, Senator Mass.
• The Crime Against Kansas
• Andrew Butler of South Carolina
• Preston Brooks

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Dred Scott v. Sanford

• 1857
• Chief Justice Roger Taney
• African Americans had no legal rights because
  they were not citizens.
• Congress has no authority to restrict slavery in
  U.S. territories.
• Politics over jurisprudence

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• http//www.nps.gov/archive/hafe/jbrown/oates.htm

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Raid on Harpers Ferry

• John Brown, his daughters, and 22 men

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Oops.
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• John Brown's body lies a-mold'ring in the
  graveJohn Brown's body lies a-mold'ring in the
  graveJohn Brown's body lies a-mold'ring in the
  grave His soul goes marching on Glory, Glory!
  Hallelujah!Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!Glory,
  Glory! Hallelujah! His soul is marching on He
  captured Harper's Ferry with his nineteen men so
  true He frightened old Virginia till she
  trembled through and through They hung him for a
  traitor, themselves the traitor crew His soul is
  marching on Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!Glory,
  Glory! Hallelujah!Glory, Glory! Hallelujah! His
  soul is marching on
• John Brown died that the slave might be
  free,John Brown died that the slave might be
  free,John Brown died that the slave might be
  free,But his soul is marching on!Glory, Glory!
  Hallelujah!Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!Glory,
  Glory! Hallelujah! His soul is marching on The
  stars above in Heaven are looking kindly downThe
  stars above in Heaven are looking kindly downThe
  stars above in Heaven are looking kindly down On
  the grave of old John Brown

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• The tune was originally a camp-meeting hymn Oh
  brothers, will you meet us on Canaan's happy
  shore? It evolved into this tune. In 1861 Julia
  Ward Howe wife of a government official, wrote a
  poem for Atlantic Monthly for five dollars. The
  magazine called it, Battle Hymn of the Republic.
  The music may be by William Steffe.

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Consequences

• Evidence of the weakness of compromise
• Fears of Republican conspiracy
• Brown the martyr and rabid slave lover