1. The South and the Slavery Controversy
Chapter 16 APUSH

2. Early Emancipation in the North

3. Missouri Compromise, 1820

4. Antebellum
Southern
Economy

5. King Cotton Cotton Kingdom develops to huge agricultural factory
Northern shippers reaped a large part of the profits from the cotton trade
to a large degree, the prosperity of the both the North and the South rested on the bent backs of slaves
South produced more than half the world’s cotton supply-
A fact that held foreign nations in economic bondage to the
South.
-Britain was the world economic superpower and 1/5 of its population
drew its wealth from cotton cloth
- 75% of that cotton came from the South
- South knew it

6. Changes in Cotton Production
1820
1860

7. Value of Cotton Exports As % of All US Exports

8. Southern Society as an Oligarchy rather than a Democracy
Planter aristocrats had the majority of the wealth
Educated their children in private schools
These young became experts at statecraft: John C. Calhoun; Jefferson Davis - felt a keen sense to serve the public
But widened gap b/w rich and poor
No reason to favor tax-supported public education

9. Southern Population

10. The South's
"Peculiar
Institution"
The Slaves Of
The Slave System

11. The “Wasteful” Plantation System
Economic system becomes monopolistic
Small farmers must sell their landholdings and move north or west
Financial instability of the system
Led to over speculation in land and slaves
(supporting evidence) slaves fed for .10 cents a day but could cost $1,200 each; they could be injured; they could run away; they could be wiped out by disease
Agribusiness - King Cotton meant one crop economy. No diversification or industry
Southern planters resent watching North grow fat at their expense
(supporting cultural division) Southerners resent being wrapped in Northern cloth, coffins with Yankee nails
Cotton Kingdom repelled large scale European immigration
No diversity of people
Irish immigration would have to compete with slave labor

12. Southern Agriculture

13. Characteristics of the Antebellum South
Primarily agrarian.
Economic power shifted from the “upper South” to the “lower South.”
“Cotton Is King!” * 1860 5 mil. bales a yr (57% of total US exports).
Very slow development of industrialization.
Rudimentary financial system.
Inadequate transportation system.

14. The White
Majority

15. 1/4 of white southerners owned slaves
Smaller slave owners did not own a majority of the slaves but they made up the majority of the masters
Typically modest farmhouses, working with and eating with the slaves
Beneath them: 3/4 white southerners owned no slaves
Redneck farmers living on thinner soils of backcountry and mountains.
Subsistence farmers - corn and hogs. Isolated lives
Below them - “poor white trash”
All these whites without slaves had no direct stake in preservation of slavery yet they were among the stoutest defenders. Why?

16. Southern Society (1850) “Slaveocracy” [plantation owners]
6,000,000
The “Plain Folk” [white yeoman farmers]
Black Freemen
250,000
Black Slaves 3,200,000
Total US Population  23,000,000 [9,250,000 in the South = 40%]

17. Slave-Owning Families (1850)

18. Slave-Owning Population (1850)

19. All these whites without slaves had no direct stake in preservation of slavery yet they were among the stoutest defenders. Why?
Hope of American dream - one day they might own slaves
Fierce in need to proclaim racial superiority (Jerry Springer theory…?)
Always want to outrank someone else

20. NC Mountain Boys (Appalachian)
Little in common with whites of flatlands
Isolated- Elizabethan English
“rich man’s war but poor man’s fight”
when war came this group formed a vital Union peninsula jutting down into secessionist territory

21. Free blacks purchased freedom
often illegal to marry within the state of residence
Owned property
Owned other slaves
Couldn’t testify in court
Vulnerable to being kidnapped and sold into slavery
Freed blacks unpopular in North
Compete with immigrant labor
Frederick Douglas

22. Slave Life

23. Southern Slavery--> An Aberration?
1780s: 1st antislavery society created in Phila.
By 1804: slavery eliminated from last northern state.
1807: the legal termination of the slave trade, enforced by the Royal Navy.
1820s: newly independent. Republics of Central & So. America declared their slaves free.
1833: slavery abolished throughout the British Empire.
1844: slavery abolished in the Fr. colonies.
1861: the serfs of Russia were emancipated.

24. African American Culture
Deep South - relatively stable culture so more distinctive culture
Dance, religion (Israelites in Egypt - “let my people go”), “sister” and “brother”

25. The Culture of Slavery
Black Christianity [Baptists or Methodists]: * more emotional worship services. * negro spirituals.
Nuclear family with extended kin links, where possible.
Importance of music in their lives. [esp. spirituals].

26. Slave
Resistance
&
Uprisings

27. Slave Resistance Refusal to work hard. Isolated acts of sabotage.
Escape via the Underground Railroad.

28. Slave Rebellions in the Antebellum South
Gabriel Prosser 1800
Henrico, VA
1822
Charleston, S.C.
On August 30, 2007, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine informally
pardoned Gabriel and his co-conspirators

29. Slave Rebellions in the Antebellum South: Nat Turner, 1831

30. Abolitionist Movement
1816  American Colonization Society created (gradual, voluntary emancipation.)
British Colonization Society symbol

31. Abolitionist Movement
Create a free slave state in Liberia, West Africa.
No real anti-slavery sentiment in the North in the 1820s & 1830s.
Gradualists
Immediatists

32. Reformers of the Era
Theodore Dwight Weld - spiritually inspired. Rebels at Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio = “Lane Rebels”

33. William Lloyd Garrison (1801-1879)
Slavery & Masonry undermined republican values.
Immediate emancipation with NO compensation.
Slavery was a moral, not an economic issue.
R2-4

34. Premiere issue  January 1, 1831
The Liberator
Premiere issue  January 1, 1831
R2-5

35. Other White Abolitionists
Lewis Tappan
James Birney
Liberty Party.
Ran for President in & 1844.
Arthur Tappan

36. Black Abolitionists David Walker (1785-1830) -Appeal to the Colored
Citizens of the World
-Fight for freedom rather than wait to be set free by whites.

37. Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)
1845  The Narrative of the Life Of Frederick Douglass
1847 “The North Star”
R2-12

38. 1852 Speech of Frederick Douglass in honor of signing of Declaration of Independence, “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn…. Above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions”

39. Sojourner Truth (1787-1883) 1850  The Narrative of Sojourner Truth

40. Harriet Tubman (1820-1913) “Moses” Helped over 300 slaves to freedom.
$40,000 bounty on her head.
Served as a Union spy during the Civil War.
“Moses”

41. The South
Lashes
Back

42. Slave Rebellions in the Antebellum South: Nat Turner, 1831

43. 1831-1832 Turning Point: Virginia Legislature Debate
emancipation proposals
defeated
result: tightened slave codes
result: no emancipation whatsoever - voluntary or compensated! It is illegal!

44. Va Legislature Debate 1831-1832
Thomas Wright
If you wish to speak of economic advantages, I have some facts for you to consider regarding the efficiency of free labor and slave labor. The best estimates are that it takes six slaves to do the work of three free laborers. The slave receives the same support and food whether he works much or little. The slave has every inducement to spare himself as much work as possible without drawing punishment. Free laborers work hard for short periods. This gives them free time to be idle. When idle, the free laborer does not have to be paid. Therefore, free labor is cheaper than slave labor.
In 1800, field hands were selling for $400 and cotton was 36 cents per pound. Today slaves sell for $800 to $1000 and cotton is 11½ cents per pound.
One half of the slave owners have fewer than twenty slaves. The economic loss of slaves as property will be more than offset by decreased labor cost and greater productivity.
Emancipation can result in a greater supply of cheap labor that will mean profitable industrial operation. Of course, safeguards must be taken to see that laborers are not exploited or abused.

45. Va Legislature Debate 1831-1832
Amos Lovejoy
Slaves should be freed but not all at once. As a step toward complete freedom, several practices should change. The power of punishing slaves could be taken from the master and given to a magistrate. The sale of all women could be stopped at once. All slaves could be provided wages rather than using punishment as an incentive.
A second step could involve the complete release of slaves born on certain days periodically. Over a period of years, all slaves could be set free. Such a system has already worked in Mexico, Chile, and Argentina. In no case has there been insurrection and bloodshed as is feared here.
Taking steps toward freeing slaves will lessen the possibility of violence and insurrection.

46. Va Legislature Debate 1831-1832
James Hammond
In the state of Virginia, there are 470,000 slaves. The aggregate value of the slave population in Virginia in 1830 was $94,000,000. All of the land and homes were valued at $206,000,000. Slaves represent one-third of the property. Therefore, slaves should not be freed without just compensation to their owners.
I propose that those slaves normally sold outside this state be sold to the State and colonized elsewhere at the expense of the State.
This proposal will mean that 6,000 slaves would be given their freedom annually and colonized at the expense of the State. This would cost $2,400,000 annually. This is a modest investment to preserve the economy of the state. If the State cannot afford it, perhaps the federal government could be called upon to compensate owners for their slaves.

47. Va Legislature Debate 1831-1832
Samuel Holt
The idea of emancipation and relocation as proposed by some sounds good. However, further examination exposes some flaws in this plan. To ask State or Congress to purchase two million slaves at $400,000,000 is out of the question. This will place far too great a burden upon those taxpayers who have never owned to plan to own slaves. When the government begins to buy slaves, it will cause the price of slaves to go up considerably. This will cause slave owners to encourage their slaves to marry and produce more children, thus compounding the problem.
I ask those who say colonize the slaves: Where? Liberia now has a population of 2,500. At the most, Liberia could handle 500 new residents a year. If only 500 slaves were freed and located annually, in a 25-year period 41,000 more slaves would be born than relocated.

48. Va Legislature Debate 1831-1832
Thornton Ruffin
I am opposed to emancipation of the slaves until some way can be found to sustain the trade and commerce generated by the cultivation of cotton and tobacco. Two-thirds of the cotton produced in this country is exported. This greatly helps our balance of trade with Europe. Only one-forty-sixth of the remaining agricultural production is exported. At the present time, one-sixth of the blacks in the country are free. They shun the cottonfields. I will favor emancipation of slaves only when we can assure that blacks will remain in the cotton and tobacco labor market. If this cannot be assured, to give the slaves their freedom would ruin the economy of the South and seriously injure the economy of the North and England.

49. Southern Fears Nat Turner William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator
Nullification Crisis 1832

50. Southern Pro-Slavery Propaganda

51. Southern Defense of Slavery
Supported by authority of the Bible
“happy lot of servants” vs. factory life of immigrant workers
Post war - Freedom was bigger burden for African Americans?- no health care, no literacy, no knowledge of law, no knowledge of contract law (sharecropping)

52. Congress
1836 Gag Resolution (all anti-slavery appeals from citizens would be tabled without debate)
1835 Postal system can not deliver abolitionist literature

53. Abolition in the North
Extreme abolitionists (Garrison) unpopular in the North
- popularity of men like Daniel Webster stressing the Union
- Constitution is sacred and the clauses on slavery are lasting clauses
North had heavy economic stake in the South
Mobocracy due to abolitionism
Lewis Tappan’s New York house
Garrison and the Broadcloth mob
Elijah P. Lovejoy
Even Lincoln avoided extreme abolitionism
- growing number of Northerners didn’t want to abolish slavery in the South but increasingly wanted to stop its spread to Western territories