Slavery Before the Civil War
Slavery Before the Civil War
Slavery started in the American colonies during the 1600's. Slavery was most common in the South. By the 1860's nearly a third of the south was made up of the 4 million slaves that lived there. Some planted and picked cotton. Others were house slaves, who worked as servants in the owner's home. Some slaves became blacksmiths, bricklayers, or carpenters. Slaves also worked in factories, canals, or railroads.
Total number of slaves in the Lower South:
2,312,352 (47% of total population).
Total number of slaves in the Upper South:
1,208,758 (29% of total population).
Total number of slaves in the Border States:
432,586 (13% of total population).
Almost one-third of all Southern families owned slaves. In Mississippi and South Carolina it approached one half. The total number of slave owners was 385,000 (including, in Louisiana, some free Negroes). As for the number of slaves owned by each master, 88% held fewer than twenty, and nearly 50% held fewer than five.
Not over 2 million of the 8 million whites inhabiting the slaveholding common-wealths were directly interested in slave property. In 1850 there were 325,000 slave owners--each one a head of a family of five or six. Another 6 million whites didn't have any interest in slave property. The slave traffic between 1850 and 1860 was great. The average price of slaves rose from $325 in 1840 to $360 in 1850 and to $500 in 1860. Many whites in the South shared the feeling of fear for slave insurrection.
Henry Clay, a member of the Whig Party, was opposed to the extension of slavery into territories, and he was in favor of gradual emancipation in slaveholding common-wealths. The Whig Party looked at slavery as a temporary necessity. Members were men of superior intelligence and tender hearts who ruled slaves with mercy and kindness. They felt compassion for their condition, and they were not averse to considering plans for the improvements of the slaves.
Before the Civil War began, many acts were written to try to abolish slavery:
The Missouri Compromise, in 1820, was an attempt to settle the Northern and Southern argument on whether or not the Louisiana Purchase should be a free state or a slave state. With this compromise, moderates could no longer be heard, and it set a stage for extremists, fire-eaters, and men who invited violence with violent words. The North felt the "slave power" was dangerously aggressive.
The Fugitive Slave Act caused expansion in the underground railroad, and it created anti-Southern, antislavery sentiment in the North. In 1855, proslavery clashed with antislavery. There were barn-burnings, horse-stealings, and sporadic shootings in many parts of the U.S.
In 1857, the Dred Scott case arose and caused a great controversy. His master, an army surgeon, kept him for years in Illinois and Wisconsin, which were free states. Because of this, he sued for his freedom. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney denied Scott's plea for freedom because he was an inferior sort of person who couldn't be a citizen of any state; therefore, he couldn't sue anyone. This was an act by which Congress forbid slavery in the Northern territories stating it was invalid because the constitution gave slavery ironclad protection. There was no legal way that slavery could be excluded from any territory.
On October 16, 1959, John Brown seized the Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. With the weapons he attained, he started a slave insurrection in the South. He was able to get possession of an enginehouse, which he held until the morning of the eighteenth. A detachment of marines, led by Colonel Robert E. Lee, overpowered him and forced him to surrender. Brown was quickly tried, convicted of treason, and hung in early December.
Slavery existed for many years before people began to realize it was wrong. The price many paid for slavery was high, but they stood by their beliefs. Slavery was a large issue that led up to the Civil War and continued during the Civil War. index.htm