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.Soon, however, Africans wereten, the U.S.Constitution protectedbeing treated differently, and slave the individual s property.Slaves wereships began regular deliveries to the considered property and not countedBritish colonies in North America.as citizens.A compromise allowed aIn 1641, Massachusetts became the slave to be counted as three-fifths of afirst colony to legalize African slavery, white person for purposes of state80 Slavery*'representation in the House of Rep- ensuring that when new states wereresentatives.The Constitution also admitted to the Union, there wouldincluded a clause that said the impor- be an equal number of slave and freestates.tation of slaves from outside theUnited States would be prohibitedABOLITIONISM AND EXPANSIONafter 1808.As Northern states freed their slaves,The Northwest Ordinance ofan abolition movement began.Abo-1787 prohibited slavery in the terri-litionists hoped to completely endtory from which the states of Ohio,slavery in the United States.QuakersMichigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wiscon-were early leaders in this movement,sin, and part of Minnesota were cre-as were social reformers, free blacks,ated.Most Americans were racistsand escaped slaves.Many abolition-who believed that African Americansists wished to free the slaves and sendwere inferior human beings.Thethem back to Africa.Some truly1787 law was simply meant to pro-believed in the equality of the races,tect white laborers from unfair com-but most were united in their beliefpetition from slaves.that slavery was incompatible withthe ideals upon which America wasSLAVERY AND U.S.EXPANSIONfounded.Most slaves in the early years of theDozens of antislavery societiesUnited States lived in the Southernwere founded across the North.Instates.By the early 1800s, Northern1833, the first national society, thestates had begun to emancipateAmerican Anti-Slavery Society, wastheir slaves when it became apparentestablished in Philadelphia.By thethat slavery was not economically1850s, an active organization knownsound.In the South, though, slaveryas the Underground Railroad a sys-suddenly expanded thanks to Elitem of secret hiding places and safeWhitney, whose invention of thehouses to protect runaway slavescotton gin in 1793 allowed a slavewas in place across the North as sym-picking cotton to separate seedspathetic people aided and hid escapedwith ease.slaves from their owners.The amount of cotton grownby the South made it one of theSLAVERY AND THE TERRITORIESworld s major cotton producers.TheThe question of how far slaverydesire to expand the cotton cropwould be allowed to expand reachedacross the lower South helped fuelnational attention in 1819, when thethe drive to remove Native AmericanMissouri Territory legislature peti-tribes from their lands and forcetioned Congress for admission as athem to move west across the Missis- state that included slavery.Heatedsippi River, allowing American civili- debates in Congress centered onzation and slavery to expand.As the whether or not slavery would be al-United States grew, politicians in lowed in the new state.The Compro-Washington, D.C., tried to maintain a mise of 1820, also known as thebalance between North and South by Missouri Compromise, ended theSlavery 81*'debate by admitting Missouri as a Wilmot Proviso Pennsylvania repre-slave state and Maine (which had sentative David Wilmot introducedbeen a part of Massachusetts) as a the  Wilmot Proviso an amendmentfree state, keeping the balance be- to an appropriations bill in 1846.tween slave and free states.This law This amendment stipulated that slav-also specified that slavery would not ery would not be allowed in any terri-be allowed in any future territory tory taken from Mexico.Althoughnorth of a line drawn from the south- Wilmot s amendment was defeated, itern border of Missouri west to the rallied a large number of antislaveryPacific Ocean.crusaders behind it, especially peopleThe issue of slavery, however, who believed that the South was re-never disappeared from the national sponsible for the war in an attempt toscene.As abolition societies multi- spread slavery.Significantly, the voteplied in the North, citizens began pe- defeating the amendment was casttitioning Congress to abolish slavery.along sectional, rather than party,As attacks on the immorality of slav- lines.ery increased, Southerners becameARGUMENTS ESCALATEmore and more defensive.BetweenWhen the region of California sought1836 and 1844, thanks to the poweradmission as a free state, the slaveryof Southern congressmen, a gag ruledebate in Congress intensified.An-went into effect that prohibited anti-other compromise was reached theslavery petitions from being broughtCompromise of 1850.California wasbefore Congress [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]