Fugitive Slaves and the Politics of Slavery After 1850

... on abolitionists. The actions of the slaveholders after the rebellion gave abolitionists even more ammunition to attack slave holders with. After many years of the relative quiet in congress, a new debate was brewing among pro slavers and abolitionists in congress. By the time the Compromise of 1850 was passed by congress, many things had occurred within the country that necessitated it. Texas and California had gained its independence from Mexico and the new territories of Utah and New Mexico ... part of the compromise for southerners because of the large size of California and the amo...

• Word Count: 1803
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... its source; compensate Texas for this by assuming the Texas debt; uphold slavery in the District of Columbia; abolish the slave trade across its boundaries; adopt a more effective fugitive slave act; and deny congressional authority to interfere with the interstate slave trade. This proposal became the Compromise of 1850. Calhoun addressed the senate, and later Daniel Webster did the same. Calhoun talked about the secession in the South, and Webster talked as an American, not a Massachusetts man ... get rid of slavery, or get rid of freedom." In 1856 James Buchanan (Democrat) was electe...

• Word Count: 2031
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... to antislavery among the African slaves, but he was the first martyr of the white abolitionists. After the murder of Lovejoy, "The abolitionist movement now broadened its appeal so as to win the support of northerners who cared little about the rights of blacks but could be convinced that slavery endangered their own cherished freedoms." (476) The 1830s also saw events by slaves and by free blacks that signify the end of the acceptance of the institution of slavery in America as ... to reclaim runaway slaves. And the status of slavery in the remaining territories acquired from Mexico wo...

• Word Count: 1423
• Approx Pages: 6

... slowly stifle the South out of existence. The Compromise of 1850 generated positive and negative results from both sides of the country. Its passage quieted sectional animosities for a few years, until the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, and held off the Civil War for about 10 years. Though the Northern feelings of betrayal would haunt them, and lead to the end of all attempt of compromise. Historian Gene Smith says "Northerners were so enraged by the provisions of the Fugitive Slave ... to say [save] the breakup of the Union.".12 Lincoln's refusal of negotiation, and further compromise wi...

• Word Count: 3046
• Approx Pages: 12
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... , a white abolitionist, published an anti-slavery newspaper in Illinois. Angry mobs demolished three of his printing presses, and in 1837, as he tried to protect a fourth press, Lovejoy was killed. Then later on the second Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 was passed and it made things even worse, for now ... respected black citizens- craftsman, publishers, business owners- could be taken from their homes and sent in chains back to the cotton fields, and their friends could nothing but help them. Despite all the speeches, pamphlets, and autobiographies penned in the abolition campaign, probably...

• Word Count: 1826
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... capture fugitive slaves and during localised fighting between pro and anti-slavery settlers in Kansas after 1854, the massive majority within the Abolitionist movement remained dedicated to peaceful resistance to slavery. In the minds of southerners, however, the mass society and democracy from which the movement was derived combined with the extreme righteousness which favoured its words and actions made it heir to the revolutionary Jacobins conspiring to overthrow by violence the Southern way of life. The Abolitionist Journal The Liberator ... . "One man and God" he declared "can overt...

• Word Count: 1642
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... over the uncertain future of slavery. Senator Clay of Kentucky came up with some ideas to reduce the tension by creating a series of compromises for both sides of the slavery issue. He wanted to admit California as a free state and keep slavery prohibited in the Mexico region, where the climate and land were wrong for cotton and slavery would not prosper. He also called for a more effective Fugitive Slave Law. Clay's plan was proposed in February 1850, but ... free wage and labor. The North controlled 92% of the nation's industry. It also had twice the amount of railroad, controlled 2/3...

• Word Count: 1737
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... the filibustering of Cuba and Mexico believing that the "safety of the South was to be found only in the extension of (slavery)." The compromise of 1850, which admitted California to statehood as a slave state, enacted the fugitive slave law, and allowed the Utah and New Mexico territories to be "received into the Union, with or without slavery," was approved, in a large part, because it allowed the new territories to enter statehood with slaves. The South believed that only through the extension of slavery could the ... South maintain it's traditional way of life. In this aspect the Ci...

• Word Count: 2247
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... and after American Revolution, most Americans accepted slavery as a normal and inevitable aspect of their affairs. It became more and more confined, as a working institution, to the southern states. In the North West the pressure for free land was greatest, especially during the downswing of cycles when pressure on the farming community was acute. The South was generally opposed to free land, fearing that it would upset the balance between the number of free and slave states. Slavery ... 's Cabin is a replica of it's time. The division of culture and politics of mid-nineteenth-century. A...

• Word Count: 2149
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: High School