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Slavery in the United States
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Eli Whitney's Cotton 'Gin'
Whitney invented a new machine to help make Cotton Farming more efficient and easier. However one inadvertent result of the cotton gin’s success, was that it helped strengthen slavery in the South. Because slavery was the cheapest from of labor, cotton farmers simply acquired more slaves. -
The Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise drew a line from east to west along the 36th parallel, dividing the nation into competing halves–half free, half slave. Maine entered as a free state and Missouri entered as a slave state. The union did this to try and keep the free and slave states balanced. -
The New Abolitionists
The Abolitionists were an organized effort to end the practice of slavery in the United States. They mimicked some of the same tactics British abolitionists had used to end slavery in Great Britain in the 1830s. Willam Llloyd Garrison rose to prominence in 1832 when he helped organize the New England Anti-Slavery Society. These were the first organizations dedicated to promoting immediate emancipation. At the end of his life Garrison had published over 1,820 issues in a 35 year time period. -
The Wilmot Proviso
During the Mexican - American War, Representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania attempted to limit slavery in the West through an amendment to a war appropriations bill. He proposed banning slavery in any territories acquired from Mexico, passed the House but not the Senate. This lead to the idea that the states should vote to chose if they were Free or Slave states, essentially ending The Missouri Compromise. -
The Fugitive Slave Act
The act required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state. The act also made the federal government responsible for finding, returning, and trying escaped slaves. During this same time the Underground Railroad was actively helping slaves escape the South. Many in the north resented the law that forced them to help sustain a system that they opposed so allies and conductors risked their own freedom and fines to help slaves run away. -
The Kansas - Nebraska Act
The Kansas - Nebraska Act repealled the Missouri Compromise. Chief Justices ruled that Missouri Compromise was illegal because Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the territories, and slave masters were guaranteed property rights under the fifth Amendment. Both abolitionist and slave owners moved to the territory to vote for the state to be free or a slave state. This led to “Bleeding Kansas”, a series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas Territory. -
Dred Scott Case
This decision stunned the nation, the United States Supreme Court upheld slavery in United States territories, denied the legality of black citizenship in America, and declared the Missouri Compromise to be unconstitutional. Roger B Taney declared that all African Americans, enslaved or a free person, were not and could never become citizens of the United States. -
John Brown’s Raid
Brown intended to provoke a general uprising of African Americans that would lead to a war against slavery. When Brown was hanged in 1859 for his raid on Harpers Ferry, Virgina, many saw him as the harbinger of the future. For Southerners, he was the embodiment of all their fears – a white man willing to die to end slavery – and the most potent symbol yet of aggressive Northern antislavery sentiment. -
Beginning of the Civil War
The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces opened fire on the Union - held Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter is located in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. Its status had been contentious for months. This was a war being fought over whether slavery should be allowed to continue in the US and to bring the Confederacy back into the union. -
The Gettysburg Address
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free.". While it did not actually free all of the slaves immediately it was the beginning of the end of slavery.