CHAPTER 13 PRESENTATION

Jonathan Vial

Slavery Background

By the time that the Atlantic slave trade ended, nearly ten million Africans had been enslaved in the Americas. Out of these ten million, only about 6% came to the United States.

By 1836 the slaves in the United States accounted for 36% of the slaves in the Americas, which made it the country with the most slaves.

By 1863 there were more than 4 million slaves in the United States.

Finally, in 1865, slavery was abolished in the U.S. as a result of the thirteenth amendment. By then, most other countries in the Americas had already done this except for Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Brazil.

Early Restriction on Slavery

About sixty years before the thirteenth amendment was passed, 8 northeastern states individually passed measures to provide for the emancipation of their slave populations.

Northwest Land Ordinance of 1787.

Northwest Land Ordinance of 1787

Nation’s forefathers agreed to end importation of slaves in by 1807.

Outlawed slavery in lands that became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

This set the stage for controlling the expansion of slavery.

Missouri Compromise

In 1819 the Senate was balanced; 11 free states and 11 slave states.

In 1820 Missouri was admitted as a slave state and Maine as a free state on the condition that slavery should thereafter be prohibited in the territory of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36x30’ line.

For the next 30 years states were admitted to the Union in pairs, one slave and one free.

By 1850 there were 15 free and 15 slave states.

Southwestern States

Violent controversy arose over the basis of admission for prospective states in the area ceded to the United States by Mexico.

The terms of the Mexican Cession required that the territory remain permanently free, yet Congress in 1848 had rejected the Wilmont Proviso, which would have prohibited slavery in the Southwest.

In the end, California was admitted as a free state in 1850, which angered Southerners even though in the territories of Utah and New Mexico slave-holding could be permitted.

Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854

This repealed the Missouri compromise, making the South seem victorious because popular sovereignty was now what decided whether the unsettled portions of the Louisiana Purchase.

Resulted in bloodshed in Kansas. Led to the Dred Scott Decision in 1857,

where the Supreme Court declared that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories.

Tables Turn

By the end of the 1850s the antislavery movement in the North became irresistible. In the large part, the movement was led by those who opposed slavery on ethical grounds, but altruistic motives were reinforced by economic interests.

Farmers in the Northwest resisted the extension of the plantation system because they feared the competition of large units, with small ones.

Tables Turn (Continued)

As transportation to eastern centers improved, the products of the Northwest increasingly flowed into the Middle Atlantic states and Europe. In this way the people of the Northwest found their economic interests more closely tied to the eastern industrialists rather than to the southern planters.

Tables Turn (continued 2)

The republican party gained strength quickly at this time, mainly from those who opposed the extension of slavery.

This is where Abraham Lincoln emerged, with the idea that slavery should be fenced in. So, when Lincoln was finally elected in 1860, the South had two choices: submission or secession.

To people as wealthy and proud as the people in the South, submission was unthinkable