Slavery in America American Character Qualities this addresses: Freedom Conflict and Compromise Reform and Progress

First Slaves Arrive 1619 – Jamestown Dutch ship brings in 20 black indentured servants By around 1660, slavery is legalized in the colonies

Colonial Slavery Northern colonies Economy and geography did not provide the opportunity for large-scale slavery Southern colonies Increased growth of cash and labor-intensive crops (rice, tobacco, then cotton) and the decline of indentured servants created a need for slavery Then Eli Whitney’s cotton gin (1793) drastically increases the need for slave labor The “peculiar institution” is solidified and defended by all classes of southerners

Declaration of Independence Jefferson originally attacked slavery in the Declaration, but removed it because of southern colonial opposition (particularly Georgia and South Carolina), and he also received northern complaints from ship owners involved in the slave trade.

Constitution 3/5 Compromise – to settle the dispute between northern and southern states over how slaves would be counted. Three-fifths of all slaves would be counted towards the state’s population for representation and taxation. Southerners considered them property, and not persons. However, they wanted them counted as persons to increase their representation in Congress Northerners would have been more likely to consider blacks persons, but they didn’t want the south to be allowed to count them as persons for representation to Congress Congress’s power over restricting the slave trade would last 20 yrs., until 1808.

Constitution cont. Fugitive Slave Clause - No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due. ARTICLE IV, SECTION 2, CLAUSE 3

Expansion and Slavery Northwest Ordinance – 1787 (this predates the Constitution and conflicts with the Constitution's Fugitive Slave Clause!) America’s first plan to settle westward (in what is now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan) Slavery was banned - "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude" would exist in the territory

Conflict & Compromise Missouri Compromise When a state enters the Union as a free state, another state must enter as a slave state in order to balance out power in Congress. Compromise of 1850 (lots of parts, we'll study later) Fugitive Slave Clause - held that states could impose penalties on citizens for harboring fugitive slaves (Northerners felt like they legally had to support slavery)

Abolition Movement The prominent African American abolitionists disprove the Southern argument for slavery that blacks are intellectually inferior and only suited for manual labor. (Example?) The prominent white abolitionists are often religious leaders and newspaper journalists. The movement is closely tied with the women’s rights movement as well.

Southern Arguments for Slavery Slavery has always existed. It is economically entrenched in the prosperity of the South. It’s in the Bible! (religious argument) Slaves were better off than Africans, as well as blacks in northern factories. Recall some of the slave narratives we read. Slavery is beneficial to blacks because they’re “childlike” (paternalistic view). Fear of integration.

Dred Scott Decision Master had moved his slave into free territory (Illinois, then Wisconsin); when his owner returned South (Missouri, then Louisiana), Scott and his wife also went back South. The owner died, and Scott tried to buy his freedom, then sued for it, claiming he had been free as he has lived in a free state. Making its way to the Supreme Court, this case is a defining moment in the debate over slavery and the personhood of slaves.

Result of Dred Scott: Slaves are NOT citizens of the United States Therefore, they have no right to sue in federal court. Congress has no authority to abolish slavery in territories. (Missouri Compromise invalid)

Dred Scott

1860 Election Republican nominee whose party had adopted an anti- slavery stance; Lincoln himself stated he did not want slavery to expand into the territories, but he would not abolish it where it existed. However, once the war began, as we read in the Emancipation Proclamation, the conditions of the war led Lincoln to change his position.

What did Lincoln really believe?

Reasons for the Emancipation Proclamation Military: to weaken the Confederate military strength; to attract slaves to the Union forces Political/Economic: To ensure that Britain (who was anti-slavery) would not support the Confederate cause (legitimizing the South) Moral: slavery was indeed wrong! And in order to reunite the country, the question of slavery was going to have to be resolved once and for all. AND: it gave the North a rallying cause after a Union victory in battle (the war had gone very poorly for the North thus far)

proclamation proclamation