Stepping Stones to the Civil War Responses

Stepping Stones to the Civil War Responses

Responding to Classmate 1

Hello,

Thank you for sharing your post. I agree that the Fugitive Slave Law was critical in gearing the nation toward the Civil War. The biggest issue between the Southerners and the Northerners was the slave trade. The Southerners were pro-slavery and expected the Northerners to comply with their demands for slave retrieval. Additionally, the Northerners believed that all people had a right to liberty and equality, Blacks included. That said, the Northerners frustrated the Southerners’ efforts and refused to return the escaped enslaved people and instead gave them the right to citizenship. The situation was made worse by the Compromise of 1850, which aggravated the slave ownership issue. These two were pointers to an imminent divide in America and, therefore, the Civil War.

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Reference

Blackett, R. J. (2018). The Captive’s Quest for Freedom: Fugitive Slaves, the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, and the Politics of Slavery. Cambridge University Press.

Responding to Classmate 2

Hello,

Thank you for sharing your post. The novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin was an inciter to the Civil War. In those days, it was common for families to gather around the fire in the evening, and one person would read a story to the rest. There were no T.Vs or cable news to entertain. So when one author (Stowe) dared to write a controversial novel, it was bound to stir the hornet’s nest. For every book purchased, at least ten other people would access its contents from these family-gathering readings. In addition, the manuscript was published weekly on The National Era, making it easy to access. I imagine it was more like a suspense story where people had to wait a week to get to the next ‘episode.’ The novel’s weekly’ dose’ only fueled people’s discontent. Information and discussions were standard regarding disagreements between the North and the South. Not long before the Civil War erupted (Morgan, 2007).

Reference

Morgan, J. A. (2007). Uncle Tom’s Cabin as Visual Culture. University of Missouri Press.

Responding to Professor’s Comment

Hello Professor,

The resentment that people had over the Compromise of 1850 was bound to reach the breaking point and cause a Civil War. Henry Clay, the Kentucky Senator, had already earned the name ‘The Great Compromiser’ following his negotiation of the Missouri Compromise. Henry feared the divide growing between the Northerners and Southerners and felt a compromise would work. In his speech to the Senate in 1850, South Carolina Senator John Calhoun predicted that ‘the agitation of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by some timely and effective measure, end in disunion.” As it turned out, the Compromise did not avert the war (Rhodes, 2009).

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Reference

Rhodes, J. F. (2009). History of the United States: From the Compromise of 1850 to the Mckinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Cosimo, Inc.

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Stepping Stones to the Civil War Responses

Classmate 1 Post

Professor and class,

The American Civil War was brought about due to disputes over moral issues of slavery and long-standing political tensions between the North and the South.  Three events that were leading causes of the Civil War were The Compromise of 1850, The Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, and The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. For the North, The Compromise of 1850 admitted California to the Union as a “free state,” the slave trade was prohibited in Washington, D.C. It also did not regulate slavery in the remainder of the Mexican cession. In exchange, the South was guaranteed that no federal restrictions on slavery would be placed on Utah or New Mexico. Under a new fugitive slave law, those who helped runaway slaves or refused to assist in their return would be fined and possibly imprisoned. The Compromise was only a temporary relief for relieving tensions between North and South. Unfortunately, The Compromise worsened things by reinforcing structural disparities that divided the United States. Corbett et al. (2014), “Although the Compromise of 1850 resolved whether slavery would be allowed in the new territories, the solution pleased no one. The peace brought by the Compromise was short-lived, and the debate over slavery continued”.

The Compromise strengthened the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850. This law compelled Northerners to seize, and return escaped enslaved people to the South. In addition, this law forced the non-slaveholders to participate in the institution, thus leading to increased divisions and conflicts between citizens. As part of the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was “a significant concession to slaveholders in an attempt to quiet the sectional crisis over the expansion of slavery” (King, 2012). The Fugitive Slave Law failed to achieve true Compromise. Abolitionists opposed the law because it weakened the individual states’ liberties.

On the other hand, slaveholders argued that the law placed unnecessary restrictions on their ability to reclaim fugitive slaves. The Fugitive Slave Act affected enslaved people and free blacks, who were deprived of legal protection. The efforts by slaveholders to recapture escaped enslaved people led to several confrontations in the 1850s, leading to increased tensions in the United States.

The Kansas and Nebraska Act of 1854 was also very controversial. The act created two territories: Kansas, directly west of Missouri, and Nebraska, west of Iowa. Corbett et al. (2014) state, “The act also applied the principle of popular sovereignty, dictating that the people of these territories would decide for themselves whether to adopt slavery.” The Northerners were upset that the institution of slavery potentially would be expanded. The Southerners were more concerned that pro-slavery states could become a vulnerable minority. In Kansas, “settlers and pro-slavery advocates clashed violently in confrontations that gave the territory the name, Bleeding Kansas” (Riggs, 2015). The Kansas-Nebraska Act was impactful and can be considered the critical legislative cause of the Civil War.

Although slavery was considered legal back then does not mean it did not exist without controversy. The events mentioned above had many contributing factors leading up to the civil war and exacerbating the underlying differences between the North and the South. Due to such controversy and building tensions over slavery, The American Civil War was inevitable.

References

Corbett, P. S., Volker, J., Lund, J. M., Phannestiel, T., Waskiewicz, S., & Vickery, P. (2014). U.S. history. Houston, TX: OpenStax. Retrieved from https://openstax.org/books/us-history/pages/8-3-partisan-politics (Links to an external site.)

King, S. (2012). Fugitive slave act of 1850 (Fugitive Slave Law).  Encyclopedia of Free Blacks and People of Color in the Americas. Credo Reference: https://chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/foffree/fugitive_slave_act_of_1850_fugitive_slave_law/0?institutionId=8802 (Links to an external site.)

Riggs, T. (2015). Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854). The Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. economic history. Gale 2^nd. Ed. Credo Reference: https://chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/galegue/kansas_nebraska_act_1854/0?institutionId=8802 (Links to an external site.)

Classmate 2 Post

Hello everyone,

After the American Revolution, the United States experienced conflict within the country, between the northern and southern states, regarding how it would define itself.  Would it be a nation of autonomous states, or would they all unite in solidarity under one sovereign government? Would the country continue the practice of slavery when the Declaration of Independence contradicted it with the idea that all men are created equal concerning liberty (McPherson, n.d.)?  Southern states were against the abolition of slavery because they were so economically dependent on slave labour to produce cotton as their main cash crop (Corbett et al., 2014).  The relentless disagreement between the free northern states and the southern slave states included a series of significant events which sparked the Civil War.  Several were the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and the Dred Scott Case of 1857.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 mandated that any slave that fled from his owner, even to a jurisdiction where slavery was not accepted, must be returned to the owner, or else the person protecting the enslaved person would be held responsible to the slaveholder (Baker, n.d.).  This got northerners in an uproar because when enslaved people came into their territory seeking freedom, they could not help them, and against their will, they had to ensure that the enslaved people were returned to their owners.  This pushed the North to fight back against the South to get slavery abolished so that they would not have to take part in enforcing enslavement, going against their morals.  This is one event that led to the Civil War.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a novel written in 1852 by abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, mainly in response to the Fugitive Slave Act.  Abraham Lincoln said that the ugliness of slavery revealed in this novel played an essential role in starting the Civil War (Chamberlain University, n.d.)  Lincoln noted that “by giving the tragedy of slavery a human face, Stowe increased sectional tensions and made armed conflict inevitable” (Painter, 2000, p. 246).  Northerners were already against the institution of slavery. Still, after gaining a more detailed understanding of the horrific treatment and anguish endured by enslaved individuals and families, many people were profoundly affected and angered by the stories she shared in the novel, which further inspired northern men to go to fight against the South as Union soldiers, to take part in the elimination of the practice (Chamberlain University, n.d.).  Uncle Tom’s Cabin was so telling of the atrocities of slavery that the South went as far as to ban the book, calling it abolitionist propaganda, and attempted to discredit it (University of Alabama, 2006).

The Dred Scott Case of 1857 was particularly heartbreaking to read about.  This man, father and husband, had his freedom given to him, only to have it again taken away.  Our textbook states that this Supreme Court ruling upset Republicans, who wanted to stop the spread of slavery because the decision declared it unconstitutional to do so based on the idea that enslaved people were property. The Constitution protects personal property ownership (Corbett et al., 2014).  Scott and his family had been granted freedom, but his owner appealed and overturned the decision.  In the process, the court also broadly generalized that black people, free or not, could never be considered U.S. citizens because they come from a family line of slave property (Corbett et al., 2014).  The Dred Scott case sparked a decision by the court that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, meaning that Congress no longer had the power to stop the spread of slavery (Corbett et al., 2014).  This provoked fighting over whether or not slavery could continue, which in turn contributed to the beginning of the Civil War.

Based on the textbook reading, the lesson, and outside sources, it seems that the Civil War was inevitable.  The pro-slave and anti-slave states would never agree on whether slavery would be tolerated.  They kept finding ways to undermine the decisions of the opposite side of the argument, reversing court rulings, and the South overstepping state boundaries with their laws to return enslaved people to them even when they had entered an accessible area.  In addition, throughout our history, oppressed groups have protested against the wrongs inflicted upon them.  In the case of slavery, other people were enraged on their behalf as well.  War was bound to happen eventually, one way or another, to protect the human rights of these individuals.

References

Baker, H. R. (n.d.). Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Retrieved from https://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/fugitive-slave-act-of-1850.html

Chamberlain University. (n.d.). Week 4 Lesson: Civil War and Reconstruction. Retrieved from https://chamberlain.instructure.com/courses/66507/pages/week-4-lesson-civil-war-and-reconstruction?module_item_id=8714553

Corbett, P. S., Volker, J., Lund, J. M., Phannestiel, T., Waskiewicz, S., & Vickery, P. (2014). U.S. history. Houston, TX: OpenStax. Retrieved from https://openstax.org/books/us-history/pages/1-introduction

McPherson, J. (n.d.). A brief overview of the American Civil War. Retrieved from https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/brief-overview-american-civil-war#:~:text=The%20Civil%20War%20started%20because,had%20not%20yet%20become%20states.&text=The%20event%20that%20triggered%20war,Bay%20on%20April%2012%2C%201861.

Painter, N. (2000). Honest Abe and Uncle Tom. Canadian Review of American Studies, 30(3), 245–272. Retrieved from https://chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=4365720&site=eds-live&scope=site

The University of Alabama. (2006). Uncle Tom’s Cabin: A 19th-Century Bestseller. Retrieved from https://bindings.lib.ua.edu/gallery/uncletom.html