Slavery In The Southern States During The 19th Century

During the 19th century, the northern states were industrially and commercial advanced compared to the southern states. They had dense cities, developed technology, and steam powered factories. Most northern cities housed free blacks that could have owned a thriving and successful business, but racism was common and interracial marriage was illegal. The Southern states were more agricultural and rural than the northern states. Southern landholders had black slaves work the land. Even though the north population outnumbered the south, most firearm production was made in the south. As more people moved to colonize the western territory of the U.S, which they received from the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican War, the balance between free and slave states was tipped. The northern states opposed having the new western territory as
slave states, but southern states supported having the new western territory as slave states. This caused turmoil that split the states in to the Union and the Confederacy. (Kelly, 2011) (pg.8).
In 1820 the Missouri Compromise was an act to mandate the Missouri territory citizens to form constitution and state government and prohibit slavery in certain territories.
Eleven years later in the August of 1831, a slave named Nate Turner influenced a rebellion, which spread throughout southern Virginia. Turner, leading a small army of seventy people killed about sixty white people. After two days of the merciless killings, a militia subdued the insurgence. The Virginia lawmakers reacted by removing what few civil rights slaves and free blacks had.
In 1850, the Compromise of 1820 helped save the sudden cessation of the Union, prevent a war, and alleviate the north and south hostilities. The law prevented any territorial expansion further south of slavery and strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act, which made northerners capture and return escaped slaves. This only made the north more enraged against slavery in the south.
A few years later in 1852, an author named Harriet Beecher Stowe made a fiction book of the exploration of slave life. This only made the northern and southern hostilities greater as the propaganda became a cultural
hit.
In January 1854, Senator Douglas made a plan to decide whether slavery should be permitted in the Nebraska territory. He decided to split it into two separate states. Kansas a slave state and Nebraska a free state. If passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act would revoke the Missouri Compromise, which prohibited slavery from land north of Missouri’s southern border. Congress passed the act on May 30, 1854. The controversy of the law revoking another law threw Kansas in to anarchy, giving it the nickname Bleeding Kansas. Parts of the Missouri Compromise allowed settlers in the territories to decide whether to permit slavery or not. Pro slavery and anti slavery citizens traveled to Kansas to try and sway the vote. For five years the two types of citizens fought each other through skirmishes and conflict in towns.
In 1857 a Virginia slave named Dred Scott attempted to sue for his freedom in court. The Supreme Court made the infamous decision that slaves were pieces of property that had no legal rights or recognition as a human being and slaves were not considered as American citizens.
Later in 1859, a man named John Brown led a gang of twenty-one people to Harpers Ferry, Virginia and raided a government arsenal. They took hostages and seized part of the arsenal, but Brown was stopped and put to death for treason.
In 1860 Abraham Lincoln won the election with a forty percent popular vote and a fifty-nine percent electoral vote. He ran against Stephen A. Douglas, John Bell, and John C. Breckinridge. From January 9 to February 1, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas seceded from the Union. On February 4, 1861 the Southern Confederate States of America was formed and Jefferson Davis was admitted as president on February 18, 1861. Then on March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln became the 16th president of the United States. (Civil war trust, 2014)