The document summarizes political events in the United States from 1848 to 1861, as sectional tensions over the issue of slavery led the nation into crisis. It discusses the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, the Dred Scott decision of 1857, John Brown's raid in 1859, and the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. These events heightened divisions between the North and South and ultimately led 11 Southern states to secede from the Union and form the Confederate States of America in early 1861.
Chapter 12: Slavery and Sectionalism: The Political Crisis of 1848-1861
1. 1 Visions of America, A History of the United States
CHAPTER
1 Visions of America, A History of the United States
Slavery and Sectionalism
The Political Crisis of 1848–1861
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Slavery and Sectionalism
I. The Slavery Question in the Territories
II. Political Realignment
III. Two Societies
IV. A House Divided
THE POLITICAL CRISIS OF 1848–1861
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The Slavery Question in the Territories
A. The Gold Rush
B. Organizing California and New Mexico
C. The Compromise of 1850
D. Sectionalism on the Rise
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The Gold Rush
What was the fate of most fortune seekers
who headed west to mine for gold?
How did the Gold Rush affect the Native
Americans of California?
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7. 7 Visions of America, A History of the United States
Organizing California and New Mexico
Why did Southerners react so negatively to
Present Taylor’s plan?
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The Compromise of 1850
Compromise of 1850 – A congressional
attempt to resolve the slavery question by
making concessions to both the North and
South
Fugitive Slave Act – A component of the
Compromise of 1850 that increased the
federal government’s obligation to capture
and return escaped slaves to their owners
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The Compromise of 1850
What did Seward mean by a “higher law”?
How did the Congressional vote on the
Compromise of 1850 reveal growing
sectionalism?
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Sectionalism on the Rise
Why did Southerners demand a Fugitive
Slave Act?
What made Uncle Tom’s Cabin such an
influential piece of antislavery literature?
What caused the furor over the Fugitive
Slave Act to eventually subside?
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Sectionalism on the Rise
Underground Railroad – A network of safe
houses and secret hiding places along
routes leading to the North and into Canada
• Helped several thousand slaves gain their
freedom between 1830 and 1860
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Choices and Consequences
RESISTING THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT
In February 1851,
federal authorities
captured an escaped
slave, Shadrach
Minkins, in Boston.
200 white and black
abolitionists gathered
outside the jail where
he was held to protest.
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Choices and Consequences
RESISTING THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT
Choices regarding the Fugitive Slave Act
Declare the act
immoral and work
to free Minkins
Respect the laws
and work through
the courts to free
Minkins
Respect the laws
and accept
Minkins’ return to
slavery, but
organize a more
effective effort to
help fugitive slaves
leave the country
19. 19 Visions of America, A History of the United States
Choices and Consequences
RESISTING THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT
Decision and consequences
• 20 African-American men burst into the
courtroom and took Minkins to Canada.
• Similar incidents occurred elsewhere.
• Southerners were outraged and discussed
secession.
What caused the furor over the Fugitive Slave
Act to eventually subside?
20. 20 Visions of America, A History of the United States
Choices and Consequences
RESISTING THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT
Continuing Controversies
•When are acts of civil disobedience and
violence to further the cause of justice
legitimate?
21. 21 Visions of America, A History of the United States
Political Realignment
A. Young America
B. The Kansas-Nebraska Act
C. Republicans and Know-Nothings
D. Ballots and Blood
E. Deepening Controversy
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Young America
What ideals inspired Young America’s vision
of westward expansion?
Why did many Southerners support efforts
to annex Cuba and seize other Caribbean
and Latin American countries?
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Young America
Young America – The movement within the
Democratic Party that embraced Manifest
Destiny and promoted territorial expansion,
increased international trade, and the
spread of American ideals of democracy
and free enterprise abroad
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The Kansas-Nebraska Act
Why did most Northerners oppose the
repeal of the Missouri Compromise line of
36°30′?
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The Kansas-Nebraska Act
Kansas-Nebraska Act – An 1854 act
designed to resolve the controversy over
whether slavery would be permitted in the
western territories
• Repealed the ban on slavery north of 36°30′
(the Missouri Compromise)
• Created two separate territories, Kansas (west
of Missouri) and Nebraska (west of Iowa).
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30. 30 Visions of America, A History of the United States
Republicans and Know-Nothings
What events led to the formation of the
Republican Party?
31. 31 Visions of America, A History of the United States
Republicans and Know-Nothings
Know-Nothing Party – The nickname for
the constituents of the nativist, or anti-
immigrant, American Party
• Called for legislation restricting office holding
to native-born citizens
• Wanted to raise the period of naturalization for
citizenship from five to twenty-one years
32. 32 Visions of America, A History of the United States
Ballots and Blood
What anti-immigrant laws did the American
Party propose?
Why did anti-immigrant sentiment rise in the
1850s?
How did events in Kansas expose the flaw
in the policy of popular sovereignty?
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Ballots and Blood
Bleeding Kansas – The wave of vigilante
reprisals and counter-reprisals by proslavery
and antislavery forces in Kansas in 1856
Black Republicans – A racist pejorative
used to suggest that Republicans were
dangerous radicals who favored abolition
and racial equality
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37. 37 Visions of America, A History of the United States
Images as History
THE “FOREIGN MENACE”
In the 1840s and 1850s, native-born Americans feared that
the political power, habits, and the Catholic religion of the
immigrants would undermine American democracy.
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Images as History
The barrels that the
immigrants wear suggest
that they drink too much
alcohol.
The brawl at the polls in the
background suggests that
immigrants threaten
democracy through violence.
The ballot box in the
immigrants’ hands reveals
the fear of their political
power.
THE “FOREIGN MENACE”
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Images as History
The eagle emphasizes the
importance of public schools
to American democracy.
The Pope is seated on a
throne, making him the
antithesis of American
democracy.
The Pope points to the public
school, where a priest is
organizing an attack.
The bible under the Pope’s
foot suggests that Catholics
are discouraged from reading
the Bible on their own.
THE “FOREIGN MENACE”
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Deepening Controversy
How did the Supreme Court use the Dred
Scott case to expand and protect the rights
of slaveholders?
Why did Congress reject the Lecompton
Constitution?
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Deepening Controversy
Dred Scott v. Sandford – The highly
controversial 1857 Supreme Court decision
that rejected the claim of the slave Dred
Scott
• Scott argued that time spent with his owner in
regions that barred slavery had made him a
free man.
• The decision declared that Congress lacked
the right to regulate slavery in the territories.
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43. 43 Visions of America, A History of the United States
Two Societies
A. The Industrial North
B. Cotton Is Supreme
C. The Other South
D. Divergent Visions
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The Industrial North
What developments helped spur
industrialization in the North?
How did new technology transform
American agriculture?
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46. 46 Visions of America, A History of the United States
Envisioning Evidence
Growth of the
textile industry in
the North and
Britain created
demand for
cotton.
Between 1815
and 1860, millions
of white settlers
moved south.
Settlers brought
slaves and began
to raise cotton.
THE RISE OF KING COTTON
47. 47 Visions of America, A History of the United States
Envisioning Evidence
Cotton production
grew 6,600% between
1800 and 1860.
Cotton was the most
profitable product in
the South.
Profit from cotton
allowed for the
purchase of more
slaves.
THE RISE OF KING COTTON
48. 48 Visions of America, A History of the United States
Cotton Is Supreme
What did Southerners mean by the phrase
“Cotton is King”?
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The Other South
Why did Southern whites who owned no
slaves support slavery?
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Divergent Visions
How did the Panic of 1857 strengthen the
Southern argument for secession?
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Divergent Visions
Free Labor – A pro-capitalist Northern
philosophy that presented an idealized
vision of the industrial North
• Celebrated the virtues of individualism,
independence, entrepreneurship, and upward
mobility
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53. 53 Visions of America, A History of the United States
A House Divided
A. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
B. John Brown’s Raid
C. The Election of 1860
D. Secession
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The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
How did the Lincoln-Douglas debates harm
Douglas’s presidential ambitions?
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The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
Lincoln-Douglas Debates – A series of
high-profile debates in Illinois in 1858
between Senate candidates Stephen A.
Douglas and Abraham Lincoln that focused
primarily on the slavery controversy
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John Brown’s Raid
John Brown’s Raid – A failed assault led
by radical abolitionist John Brown on the
federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, on
October 16, 1859
• Intended to seize the guns and ammunition
and then touch off a wave of slave rebellions
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John Brown’s Raid
Why did many Northerners consider John
Brown a martyr?
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The Election of 1860
What was unique about Lincoln’s victory in
the election of 1860?
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Secession
What prevented a compromise the spring of
1861?
Why did Lincoln attempt to resupply Fort
Sumter?
How did the slavery issue factor into
Mississippi’s decision to secede?
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Secession
Crittenden Compromise – An
unsuccessful proposal by Kentucky senator
John J. Crittenden to resolve the secession
crisis with constitutional amendments to
protect slavery
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66. 66 Visions of America, A History of the United States
Competing Visions
SECESSION OR UNION?
Both Mississippi’s declaration of secession and Lincoln’s
inaugural address from March 1861 invoke the Constitution and
other American traditions to justify their positions on secession.
Mississippi’s
declaration of
secession argues
that the North
attacked slavery,
which violated rights
granted by the
Constitution.
Lincoln asserted
that he was not
hostile to Southern
interests, and that
the Constitution did
not give states the
right to secede.
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Competing Visions
Mississippi argued that
staying in the Union would
mean subjugation.
Lincoln argued that any
conflicts would be the result
of Southern aggression.
SECESSION OR UNION?
Editor's Notes
Chapter Opener: Theodor Kaufmann, “Effects of the Fugitive-Slave Law” (page 341)
Text Excerpt: Drawn by an abolitionist in the midst of this controversy, this image seeks to humanize the plight of escaped slaves while at the same time dramatizing the inhumanity of the slave catchers and slaveholders. The quotations from the Bible (“Thou shalt not deliver unto the master his servant which has escaped from his master unto thee…”) and the Declaration of Independence (“We hold that all men are created equal…”) highlight the fundamental claim of abolitionists that slavery violated both Judeo-Christian morality and republican principles. Southern slaveholders, of course, rejected these claims and asserted their inalienable right to property in all things, including slaves.
Background: This image was drawn by Theodor Kaufmann. Born in Germany in 1814, Kaufmann became a painter and a participant in a progressive movement that sought to bring political reforms such as democracy, freedom of speech, and policies designed to benefit the poor. Kaufmann’s participation in a failed uprising in 1848 by this movement very likely led to immigration to the United States in 1850. His arrival in New York coincided with Congress’s approval of the Compromise of 1850, the set of laws that included the Fugitive Slave Act. Like many German refugees from the failed uprising of 1848, he sympathized with many of the radical political ideas then being debated in American politics, especially abolitionism.
The idea behind the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850—that the individual states of the Union had an obligation to return escaped slaves to their owners—originated in the early colonial period. For example, in 1643, several colonies formed the New England Confederation, and one of the confederation’s provisions included an agreement to return escaped servants and slaves. But the first such law passed by Congress was in 1787 with the passage of the Northwest Ordinance, a law that organized into the Northwest Territory the region that later became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The Northwest Ordinance banned slavery from the territory, but also declared, “That any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid.”
One year later when political leaders drafted the Constitution, they included a provision (Article IV) requiring the federal government to facilitate the return of slaves who escaped across state lines. In 1793, Congress passed a Fugitive Slave Act that set out the mechanism by which the federal government was to carry out this obligation. The key parts read:
SEC. 3. “...That when a person held to labor in any of the United States, or in either of the Territories on the Northwest or South of the river Ohio … shall escape into any other part of the said States or Territory, the person to whom such labor or service may be due … is hereby empowered to seize or arrest such fugitive from labor … and upon proof … before any Judge … it shall be the duty of such Judge … [to return] the said fugitive from labor to the State or Territory from which he or she fled.”
SEC. 4. “...That any person who shall knowingly and willingly obstruct or hinder such claimant … in so seizing or arresting such fugitive from labor, or shall rescue such fugitive … shall … forfeit and pay the sum of five hundred dollars.”
For the next fifty years, the Fugitive Slave Act drew little attention. But as the chapter text excerpt above makes clear, that changed in the 1840s with the rise of a vigorous abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad. The ensuing controversy led Southerners to demand that the Compromise of 1850 include a new, more comprehensive Fugitive Slave Act.
Chapter Connections:
Competing Visions over states’ rights versus the authority of the federal government
Competing Visions over whether the United States could endure as a nation committed to both liberty and slavery
Competing Visions over whether the enslaved were human beings or property
Discussion Questions:
Why did Southerners insist that the Compromise of 1850 include a new Fugitive Slave Act?
Why did many Northerners criticize the Fugitive Slave Act as a violation of both Christian and republican principles?
What impact did the Fugitive Slave Act have on the public opinion in both the North and the South?
Image 12.1: Racism in the Gold Fields of California
Chinese goldseekers were often confined to segregated encampments and less desirable mining sites.
Image 12.2: The Great Seal of California
The inclusion of thirty-one stars indicated the hope that California would be admitted as the thirty-first state.
Image 12.3: Tempers Flare During the Debate over Clay’s Omnibus Bill
Reflecting the rising animosity over the status of slavery in the new Western territories, fighting breaks out on the floor of the Senate.
Image 12.4: The Compromise of 1850
The Compromise attempted to quell the political storm that arose over the slavery question by making concessions to both sides. Free-Soilers gained the admission of California as a free state, while supporters of slavery won a delay in deciding the slavery question in the New Mexico and Utah territories. The Compromise also settled the dispute regarding the western border of Texas, established a stronger Fugitive Slave Act, and abolished the slave trade in Washington, D.C.
Image 12.5: Abolitionists Assist Escaped Slaves along the Underground Railroad
This page from the diary of Daniel Osborn, a Quaker living in Alum Creek, Ohio, records the assistance he offered escaped slaves heading for Canada in the spring of 1844.
Image 12.6: Southerners Refute the Antislavery Claims of Uncle Tom’s Cabin
This frontispiece from Aunt Phillis’s Cabin, or Southern Life as It Is (1852), presents slavery as a happy, carefree existence.
African Americans drive off the slave catchers in Christiana, Pennsylvania
Image 12.7: The Election of 1852
Scott’s poor performance in the South (winning only two states) indicated that the Whig Party was fast disintegrating over the slavery issue.
Image 12.8: An Enthusiastic Vision of Westward Expansion (page 351)
Caption: This 1861 painting, “Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way,” by Emmanuel Leutze, vividly expresses the expansionist spirit of the Young America movement.
Text Excerpt: Emmanuel Leutze’s “Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way” depicts pioneers peering out over a vast expanse of Western territory. Native Americans are nowhere to be seen, suggesting that the land is ripe for the taking. By including babies and children, Leutze indicates that generations of future Americans will benefit from the land’s bounty. A radiant sunset implies God’s blessing on the enterprise.
Background: The man who painted “Westward the Course of Empire Makes Its Way” was Emanuel Leutze (1816–1868). Born in Germany, he trained as an artist in the United States and Europe. He became famous in the mid-nineteenth century for his massive paintings depicting patriotic scenes of American history, especially his 1851 work, “Washington Crossing the Delaware.”
Leutze was commissioned by the United States government to paint “Westward the Course of Empire Makes Its Way” as a large mural (20x30 feet) in the rotunda of the new Capitol building being constructed in Washington, D.C.
When planning this painting celebrating American expansionism, he wrote detailed notes, excerpts of which below give us a sense of his intentions:
Design—A party of Emigrants have arrived near sunset on the divide (watershed from whence they have the first view of the pacific slope, their “promised land” “Eldorado” having passed the troubles of the plains … Emigrant Train of wagons toiling up the slope, jolting over the mountain train, scarcely a road, or diving into water worn gullies—upheld by the drivers from tilting over—On the nearest pinicale [pinnacle] of a rock, a frontiere [frontier] farmer (Tenneseeian) has carried his suffering wife with her infant in her arms, to show her the glories of the promised land … the mother has folded her hands thanking for escape from dangers past. (religious feeling indicated)…
Intention
To represent as near and truthfully as the artist was able the grand peaceful conquest of the great west …
Leutze’s painting is regarded as a superb representation of Manifest Destiny, a very popular idea that emerged in the 1840s and 1850s that argued that the republic of the United States was destined by God to spread rapidly across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. By characterizing westward expansion as natural, inevitable, and blessed by God, Manifest Destiny allowed Americans to look past and ignore several potentially troubling issues, most notably the violation of the rights of Native Americans.
Chapter Connections:
Competing Visions over whether slavery should be allowed in the western territories.
Competing Visions over the rights of white Americans seeking to settle in the West and Native Americans who inhabited the lands there.
The key role that idealized imagery, whether of slavery, industrialization, or westward expansion played in shaping public opinion in the 1850s.
Discussion Questions:
What was implied in the selection of the name “Young America” to describe the political movement that favored policies designed to promote westward expansion, democracy, and commercial development?
Why did many Americans support American expansionism both westward and southward?
What political controversies did westward expansion generate in the 1850s?
Image 12.9: The Kansas-Nebraska Act
The goal of Stephen A. Douglas in gaining passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act was to open the Great Plains to settlement and facilitate the construction of a transcontinental railroad (ideally running through his home state of Illinois). His repeal of the Missouri Compromise Line and the ensuing vigilante conflict in Kansas reignited the slavery controversy.
Image 12.10: Slavery and the Republican Image
Crawford’s original design for a sculpture to top the Capitol’s dome included a hat worn by freed slaves in ancient Rome. Bowing to pro-slavery objections, Crawford redesigned “Freedom’s” hat as a helmet surrounded by stars and topped by a bald eagle, as seen in this slide.
Image 12.11: The Slavery Controversy Sparks Violence in Congress (page 356)
Caption: This lithograph depicting Representative Preston Brooks about to beat Senator Charles Sumner with a cane was circulated throughout the North, where it stoked hostility toward the South and defenders of slavery.
Text Excerpt: As the image suggests, antislavery Northerners hailed Sumner as a near martyr. The artist’s emphasis on Brooks’s brutality and Sumner’s vulnerability (he is armed with only a pen) popularized the abolitionist vision of slavery as an inherently barbarous institution and its supporters, both in Congress and on the plains of Kansas, as violent criminals who did not respect democracy or free speech.
Background: Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts was a highly regarded lawyer and legal scholar before winning election to the Senate in 1851.
Sumner delivered his “Crime against Kansas” speech on May 19 and May 20, 1856. In it he castigated the Kansas- Nebraska Act as an immoral compromise that opened the way for slavery to spread to the western territories. He filled the speech with lurid imagery that likened Southern supporters of the Act to rapists.
“Not in any common lust for power did this uncommon tragedy have its origin. It is the rape of a virgin Territory, compelling it to the hateful embrace of slavery; and it may be clearly traced to a depraved desire for a new Slave State, hideous offspring of such a crime, in the hope of adding to the power of slavery in the National Government.”
Sumner singled out Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina—one of the act’s principal sponsors—for particular scorn. Butler’s support for slavery, asserted Sumner, meant he had taken “a mistress who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight—I mean, the harlot, Slavery.” Such sexually-charged rhetoric was intended to highlight a longstanding accusation of abolitionists that slaveholders valued slavery not just for its economic benefits, but also because it allowed them to rape female slaves whenever they pleased. Sumner added to this diatribe by also ridiculing Butler, who had suffered a stroke, for his odd speaking style and awkward physical mannerisms.
Two days after Sumner concluded his speech, Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina entered the Senate chamber and confronted Sumner. Brooks did so not merely as a man from South Carolina, but also because he was the nephew of Senator Butler. “Mr. Sumner,” said Brooks, “I have read your speech twice over carefully. It is a libel on South Carolina, and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine.” He then began to savagely beat Sumner with his cane. Seated at his desk, Sumner was unable to stand and defend himself. When other senators tried to come to Sumner’s aid, they were held at bay by Brooks’s fellow South Carolina Representative, Laurence M. Keitt, who stood by with a drawn pistol. Brooks continued to beat Sumner until his cane broke whereupon he departed.
In the South, Brooks was hailed as a hero. Tributes and gifts poured in from many admirers. Southern newspapers celebrated Brooks as a righteous defender of the South and the institution of slavery. “We consider the act good in conception, better in execution, and best of all in consequences,” wrote the Richmond Enquirer. “These vulgar abolitionists in the Senate must be lashed into submission.” But in the North, Brooks was denounced as a vivid example of the violent and criminal means Southerners used to defend slavery. “The South cannot tolerate free speech anywhere,” declared an editorial in the New York Evening Post, “and would stifle it in Washington with the bludgeon and the bowie-knife, as they are now trying to stifle it in Kansas by massacre, rapine, and murder.... Are we [Northerners] to be chastised as they chastise their slaves? Are we too, slaves, slaves for life, a target for their brutal blows, when we do not comport ourselves to please them?”
The head injuries suffered in the attack by Brooks were so serious that Sumner needed three years to recover before he returned to the Senate. He then played a key role in the Lincoln administration’s war effort, in particular the vital diplomatic initiative to prevent England and France from entering the war on behalf of the Confederacy. During the period known as Reconstruction after the Civil War, in keeping with his abolitionist ideals, Sumner committed himself to establishing and protecting the full civil rights of former slaves.
Chapter Connections:
Competing Visions over whether slavery should be permitted in the western territories
Competing Visions over which economic and social system was superior, slave labor in the South or wage labor in the North
Competing Visions over the desirability of maintaining the Union versus secession
Discussion Questions:
Why did the events in Kansas take on national significance in 1856–1857?
How did incidents such as the caning of Senator Sumner promote sectionalism?
Why did abolitionists emphasize Brooks’—and by extension all Southerners—use of violence in response to a speech?
Image 12.12: Bleeding Kansas
With this 1856 political cartoon, “Liberty, The Fair Maid of Kansas—in the hands of the ‘Border Ruffians,’” opponents of slavery sought to dramatize the atrocities committed by proslavery “border ruffians” in Kansas. By portraying prominent Democratic politicians as “border ruffians,” the artist placed the blame for the bloodshed at the feet of the Democratic Party.
Image 12.13: The Election of 1856
The Republican Party, founded only two years earlier, earned the second-highest vote tally, but its support came almost exclusively from the North.
“Immigrants as a Threat to Democracy,” c. 1850
“Popery Undermining Free Schools, and Other American Institutions,” 1855
Image 12.14: A Sympathetic Portrayal of Dred Scott and His Family
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated, a widely-read weekly sympathetic to abolitionism, presented Dred Scott and his family on its cover to emphasize his humanity after a Supreme Court decision that declared him nothing more than property.
Image 12.15: The Crystal Palace, 1853
Hundreds of thousands of visitors flocked to New York City in 1853 to view the “Exhibition of the Industry of the World” in the Crystal Palace. The main building itself, made of cast iron and glass, was an expression of the latest industrial materials and design.
Image 12.17: Proslavery Propaganda: Slavery and Free Labor Contrasted (page 365)
Caption: This 1852 woodcut captures the argument of George Fitzhugh and other proslavery propagandists, claiming that masters care for their slaves even when sick and unable to work, whereas cold-hearted Northern factory owners simply dump their sick or injured workers at the poor house.
Text Excerpt: The most prominent defender of slavery was George Fitzhugh. “The negro slaves of the South,” he wrote, “are the happiest, and in some sense, the freest people in the world.” Moreover, argued Fitzhugh and others, such as the artist who drew this image that idealized slavery, slavery rescued Africans from the so-called barbarism of Africa and exposed them to “civilization” and Christianity.
Background: These images, “Attention Paid A Poor Sick Negro” and “Attention Paid a Poor Sick White Man,” appeared in the book The Bible Defense of Slavery. Written by Josiah Priestly and published in 1853, it was one of many books, pamphlets, and magazine articles produced in the 1830s–1850s offering a vigorous defense of slavery as a moral institution that was compatible with both Christian and republican principles. As the title suggests, the main focus of Priestly’s book was to make the case that the teachings of the Bible supported the holding of slaves. “The appointment of this race of men to servitude and slavery, wrote Priestly of Africans, “was a judicial act of God, or, in other words, was a divine judgment.” One of Priestly’s contemporaries, George W. Freeman of North Carolina, argued that because Jesus never criticized slavery —“Did he condemn it as anti-scriptural and unjust? … Not a word, disapproving the practice [of slavery], ever fell from his lips” —it could not be considered immoral or sinful.
Many other works drew upon different arguments to defend slavery. Thomas Dew, for example, summoned an argument similar to George Fitzhugh (see text excerpt), declaring that slaves were treated humanely and therefore had no desire to be free. “Every one acquainted with Southern slaves knows that the slave rejoices in the elevation and prosperity of his master .… A merrier being does not exist on the face of the globe than the Negro slave of the United States.”
Other defenders of slavery promoted the racist argument that Africans were naturally lazy and childlike. Therefore, they needed the guidance and discipline that came from slavery; otherwise they would starve. “Slavery is the negro system of labour,” declared William John Grayson in his 1855 book, The Hireling and the Slave. “He is lazy and improvident. Slavery makes all work, and it ensures homes, food and clothing for all. It permits no idleness, and it provides for sickness, infancy and old age …. I do not say that Slavery is the best system of labour, but only that it is the best, for the negro, in this country.”
Many defenders of slavery also declared that far from being at odds with republican principles, it was the foundation of a republican society. “It has been contended that slavery is unfavorable to a republican spirit,” observed Thomas Dew, “but the whole history of the world proves that this is far from being the case. In the ancient republics of Greece and Rome, where the spirit of liberty glowed with the most intensity, the slaves were more numerous than the freemen. Aristotle and the great men of antiquity believed slavery necessary to keep alive the spirit of freedom.”
Chapter Connections:
Competing Visions over which economic and social system was superior, slave labor in the South or wage labor in the North
Competing Visions over whether slavery was compatible with republican principles such as liberty and equality
The use of propaganda to sway public opinion on the controversial slavery question
Discussion Questions:
Why did Southerners deem it necessary to write so much in defense of slavery?
How might slaves or former slaves like Frederick Douglass respond to these proslavery arguments?
How did the Panic of 1857 and subsequent economic recession influence the debate over slavery?
Image 12.18: John Brown Vows to Destroy Slavery
In 1847, John Brown stood for this daguerreotype taken by African-American photographer Augustus Washington, reenacting a pledge he made to destroy slavery ten years earlier at an abolitionist meeting.
Image 12.19: The Election of 1860 and Secession
The depth of the sectional divide was revealed in the election results. Lincoln won handily in the North and West but received no support in the South. Conversely, Breckinridge won most of the South, but no states in the North.
Image 12.19, continued
Image 12.20: The Confederate Seal: Linking Secession with the Spirit of 1776 (page 369)
Caption: By placing George Washington at the center of the Confederate Seal, Southerners sought to legitimize secession by comparing it to the decision of the thirteen colonies to break away from Britain in 1776.
Text Excerpt: The Confederate States of America created a Confederate Seal that featured George Washington—not only the foremost founding father, but a Virginian and a slave owner—at the center and established his birthday, February 22, as the official birth of the Confederacy. These choices reflected the Confederates’ goal to legitimize secession by comparing it to the thirteen colonies breaking away from Britain during the American Revolution.
Background:
The decision to design a national seal that linked the Confederacy to the American Revolution and early republic reflected the desire of Confederate leaders to legitimize secession and the new nation it created. Many states, including Northern ones, had threatened to secede several times in the seven decades that followed the ratification of the Constitution. But because no state had followed through on the threat, the legitimacy of secession—the right of a state to opt out of the Union—was far from settled and in 1860–1861 it remained a controversial idea. Many Americans considered secession a selfish refusal to compromise; others considered it an act of treason because it meant the dissolution of the nation. As a result, the founders of the Confederacy went to great lengths to depict secession as both Constitutional and the equivalent to the decision of the original thirteen colonies to declare their independence from England.
The inclusion of George Washington in the Confederate Seal represented only one such attempt to cast secession as legitimate and noble. Confederates also consciously chose to draft a constitution nearly identical to the original United States Constitution of 1788. They also gave their new nation, the Confederate States of America, a name very similar to the United States of America.
Confederate leaders also decided to move their capital from Montgomery, Alabama to Richmond, Virginia. This decision carried significant risks. Most notably, it placed the Confederate capital much closer to the Union and its armies. But Confederate leaders believed this risk was offset by the symbolic value of situating the capital in Virginia, the state that played a key role in the Revolution and provided many of the most important founding fathers, including Washington, Jefferson, and Madison.
Another theme revealed in the Confederate Seal is Christianity. The Latin phrase at the bottom of the seal, Deo Vindice, means “God will vindicate,” or “God is our vindicator.” It proclaimed the faith, or at least the hope, that God looked with favor on the Confederacy and would guide it to victory and independence. In the coming Civil War, both North and South would invoke Christianity to justify their struggles to win. Consider the religious themes in the popular Union song, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
Chapter Connections:
Competing Visions over which side, the Union or the Confederacy, remained true to the principles of the American Revolution and founding of the republic.
Competing Visions over the legitimacy of secession: Southerners argued that the Union was a voluntary pact of states that retained the right to leave at any time, while Northerners asserted that the Union was permanent and indivisible.
It demonstrates the power of the Revolution and early republic on the political imaginations of Americans in the mid-nineteenth century.
Discussion Questions:
Why were Southerners so keen on linking the Confederacy to the era of the American Revolution and key leaders like Washington?
How did Northerners attempt to link the Union cause to the ideals of the American Revolution and early republic?
How might Northerners have responded to the imagery presented in the Confederate seal?
Image 12.21: The Confederate Flag Flying in Triumph over Fort Sumter
Taken the morning following the fort’s surrender, this photograph of Fort Sumter with a Confederate flag snapping defiantly in the breeze captured the exuberance of the Southern victory and grim reality of the Union defeat.
