Slavery
Domestic Slave Trade
The USA ended its participation in the foreign slave trade in 1808
Domestic slave trade = trade in slaves throughout the United States
Two main factors in creating the domestic slave trade:
1) Availability of a ready supply of slaves
2) Insatiable demand for slaves due to expanding plantation regions in the South
US slavery was the only slave population in the New World in which the slave population naturally reproduced itself
Cotton plantations had demand for slaves that was supplied by the domestic Slave Trade
The “Second Middle Passage” fundamentally transformed black life between 1800 and 1860.
More than 2 million slaves were sold in the US between 1820-1860.
The Domestic Slave Trade became a profitable business.
In 1860, the financial investment in slaves in the United States exceeded that of all the nation’s factories, railroads, and banks combined.
Seneca Falls
Two-day gathering in 1848 on behalf of women’s rights.
Raised the issue of woman’s suffrage
300 attendees
Passed a Declaration of Rights and Sentiments
Liberia
Compromise of 1850
Designed by Henry Clay
California enters Union as a free state
New strict law allows southern slaveowners to regain their runaway slaves
Issue of slavery left up to individual territories
Gradual Emancipation
Several states in the North sought to gradually emancipate their slaves. It started in 1780
• Phase out slavery over time
1799 NY law freed all children born to slave women after July 4, 1799 (but not immediately).
1799 NY law freed all children born to slave women after July 4, 1799 (but not immediately).
Males freed at 28, females at 25.
Slaves who were born before 1799 remained slaves for all their lives.
Great Second Awakening
Series of popular religious revivals in America that peaked in the 1820s and early 1830s
It reached millions of Americans. Especially African Americans, women, and the poor
Baptist & Methodist churches grew
Mormon church founded
Because the 2GA celebrated self-improvement and self-reliance, many Americans started to believe that insufficient self-control caused the major social problems of the era.
Led to the popularity of various reform movements of the nineteenth century
Dred Scott
Mexican American War
Polk was planning for war with Mexico by early 1846
In April 1846, US and Mexican soldiers clashed in the disputed borderland between Texas and Mexico
First US war on foreign soil.
1846, American rebels in California declare independence from Mexico
1847 American troops occupy Mexico City, the capital.
Cotton Revolution
Rise of the Cotton Kingdom created a momentous transformation in the United States. Cotton became the driving force in expanding and transforming the economy not only of the south, but of the US as a whole – and even the world. While growing of cotton came to dominate economic life in the Lower South, the manufacture of cotton textiles was fueling the industrial revolution on both sides of the atlantic. Most of exported American cotton went to Britain’s textile mills. Cotton became America’s leading stale, and the product of the cotton plantations enabled the country to pay interest on its foreign debt and continue to import more capital to invest in transportation and industry.
Manifest Density
Manifest Destiny : justification for US westward expansion; the idea that Americans had a divine mission to settle the continent.
Often invoked in the 1840s.
By the 1840s, white Americans controlled almost all the lands east of the Mississippi
Democratic politicians saw westward expansion as a remedy for the nation’s problems
Meanwhile, Whig politicians worried that westward expansion would lead to sectional tensions
Especially with regard to slavery
Wilmot Proviso
In 1846, Congressman Wilmot proposed a resolution prohibiting slavery from all territories acquired from Mexico
“The Wilmot Proviso”
Northerners supported it, Southerners opposed it.
1846 newspaper said the Wilmot Proviso “as if by magic, brought to a head the great question that is about to divide the American people.”
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Introduced by Stephen Douglass – Democratic Senator for Illinois.
Abolitionism
Abolitionism = a trans-Atlantic movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free.
During the 1830s – 1850s, abolitionism gained a growing audience of sympathetic ears
Some abolitionists became more radical in their demands by the 1830s. (Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips)
Women were active in several reform movements in the nineteenth century, including abolitionism (Angelina and Sarah Grimké, Harriet Tubman)
Abolitionist parties (The American Anti-Slavery Society founded in 1833, Liberty Party)
Utopian Communities
~100 communities sprang up between 1800-1865
Wanted to re-organize society
Used small communities as models
~100 communities sprang up between 1800-1865
Wanted to re-organize society
Used small communities as models
Free Labor Ideology
Republican party
Fugitive Slave Act
1850
Required federal judicial officials (even in free states) to actively assist with return of escaped slaves
Any federal marshall or other official who didn’t arrest an alleged runaway slave was liable to a fine of $1000
Ordinary citizens of free states could be summoned to join a posse and be required to assist in the capture of an alleged escaped slave.
Fugitive Slave Act sparked a strong reaction in the North
Popular sovereignty
It means the idea that settlers in territories should decide the slavery issue for themselves.
Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 relied on popular sovereignty
It was a middle ground in the issue of slavery
The Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. It changed the federal legal status of more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the designated areas of the South from slave to free.
Election of 1860
Democratic Convention of 1860
Southerners calling for the Democratic candidate to promise to protect slavery in all remaining territories. Front-runner was Senator Stephen Douglas. During 1858 Douglas-Lincoln debates, Douglas had refused to support imposing slavery on all remaining territories. Douglas didn’t get Democratic nomination.
Ended in a schism of the Democratic party. Which also foreshadowed the schism of the Union in the next year. John C. Breckenridge promises to protect slavery in all territories; gets Southern Dem nomination.