When and How Slavery Became a Divisive

Introduction

In the wake of 19th century, slavery had already become a significant national issue in the United States (US). Previously the US presidents and members of congress and senate had a belief that slavery would in itself die out after the abolition of international slave trade back in 1808. However, the south rallied behind the institution of slavery as an economic factor. The fast growing cash crop industries and plantations of cotton, sugarcane, tobacco extended slavery in the south. This made the practice profitable than ever. For students who are facing issues with historical complexities such as these, seeking history dissertation help can provide invaluable guidance. This quickly turned into an economic as well as political issue followed by enactment of statutes and penal codes to control and regulate the practice. The abolition of slavery was not easy as expected and it turned out to become a slow and gradual issue that brought along division though the United States. This essay will look into the history of slavery covering its timeline and how when it became such a divisive issue fueling such events as the civil war and intensifying racial discrimination.

The concept of slavery

Slavery in its simplest definition is involuntary servitude. One human being is owned by another. According to Elkins, a slave was by law considered a property or a chattel and could not access most of the human right enjoyed by free people. There is not a clear and substantial consensus of what institution of slavery or a slave is defined but anthropologists, sociologists, historians and other agree that one needed to meet the following to be considered a slave. He/she was a property and belonged to someone, slaves were the objects and not the subjects of the law, they were not to be held responsible for their doing but the owner just like an ox and finally they

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1. Elkins, S.M., 2013. Slavery: A problem in American institutional and intellectual life. University of Chicago Press.

were not liable to any contracts or torts (Domar, 2017). Depending on the society, slaves had few to no right with constant physical and psychological abuse, mistreatment, and subjected to inhumane conditions (Williams, 2014). Socially and legally slaves did not have a kin and no relative to stand or defend them. It is worth noting that slavery current exist in some area of the world but its legality has changed where it is banned in most, if not, all social setting and countries.

There has been two types of slavery recorded in history. Domestic, patriarchal or household slavery who primary role was to serve their masters in their homes or anywhere else where their masters might be. The second category was the productive slave who worked predominantly in mines and plantations. Slavery was widespread with the latter category occurring predominantly in Greece, Rome, Sub-Sahara Africa, India, and in post-Columbian circum-Caribbean. Slaves were obtained through wars. Prisoners of war would be turned into slaves as a way of disposing enemy troops. Others would be kidnapped on slave raiding expeditions while others would be enslave for their criminal activities or debt. Most often the offspring of the slaves would be enslaved as well.

History of slavery in the US

In the early history of the United States, there existed both slave states and free-states. Slave states were those states in which the practice of slavery was legal and free-states were those that prohibited slavery or were in the process of legally phasing out slavery. Back in the

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2. Domar, E.D., 2017. The causes of slavery or serfdom: a hypothesis. In Critical Readings on Global Slavery (4 vols.) (pp. 43-57). Brill.
3. Williams, E., 2014. Capitalism and slavery. UNC Press Books.
4. Kolchin, P., 2003. American Slavery: 1619-1877. Macmillan.
5. ibid

17th century, slavery was already established in Britain colonies overseas and in early 18th century it was introduced to all the British colonies of North America during the British colonization regime. By 1776 all the thirteen states had adopted slavery. The sentiments by the American Revolution (1775-1783) and the idea of equality evoked on the declaration of American Independence contrasted with the status of black Americans. Divisions amongst Black Americans emerged as some ganged up and fought against the British with the hope of new order. Thousands joined the British army lured by the British deal of freedom in exchange of their military services. This led to the rise of Black patriots and black loyalists. Blacks sent a lot of petitions to Northern legislators in the 1770s demanding freedom. Starting with Pennsylvania in 1780 abolished slavery and about half the northern states had joined suit. By 1804, all of the Northern States had abolished slavery and or set measure that would gradually phase out the practice.

Slavery became a strong issue and such a divisive one when writing the US Constitution. Constitution Convention did a lot of debating on the issue of slavery and for quiet sometime it impeded the passage of new constitution. The convent did not really deal with the issue with clear cut decision but made a compromise. The constitution as agreed prohibited the federal law hence ending slave importation but in compromise that the prohibition would later be lifted in twenty years. Legislation to end it passed in 1807 and became effective a year later. The thirteenth amendment of the U.S constitution in Dec of 1865, abolished slavery across the United States.

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6. Williams, E., 2014. Capitalism and slavery. UNC Press Books.
7. ibid
8. Kolchin, P., 2003. American Slavery: 1619-1877. Macmillan.
9. Williams, E., 2014. Capitalism and slavery. UNC Press Books.

There was a contentious issue over new territories. The Northwest Ordinance that was passed in 1987, prior to US constitution prohibited slavery in the Northwest Territory. The six states that emerged from the N-W territory (Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana and Minnesota) were all free-states. The south were still pro-slavery and the line dividing them was known as Mason-Dixon Line south of the Ohio River. The division of the North committed to complete elimination of slavery and the South committed to continuing the institution, grew to become a strong political conflict. Whether new joining states would be anti or pro slavery brought the concerns of balance of power in the United States senates between the North and the South.

A nation divided;

The Missouri compromise

The Missouri compromise was the very first divisive argument over the expansion of slavery to newly acquired western territories. The North all along held abolition sentiments and strongly opposed the institution’s west expansion whereas the South were pro-slavery and were in support of introduction of slavery into new western territories. The great controversy whether or not Missouri should be admitted into the Union as a slave state resulted into the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The compromise specified that the Louisiana Purchase (the acquired territory of the state of Louisiana by the US from France) territory which actually covered most of Missouri’s boundary to the south, would be organized as a free-state. The compromise further stated that the territory south of that line would then be reserved for the organization as slave state. Also, the admission of Maine in 1820 as a free state was changed and

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10. Lehman, C.P., 2014. Slavery in the Upper Mississippi Valley, 1787-1865: a history of human bondage in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. McFarland.
11. Forbes, R.P., 2009. The Missouri Compromise and Its Aftermath: Slavery and the Meaning of America. Univ of North Carolina Press.
12. Kolchin, P., 2003. American Slavery: 1619-1877. Macmillan.

allowed to join as slave state following the Missouri compromise of 1820. This compromise managed to strike a balance and quelled the tension brewing between the North and the South in regard to slavery

Texas and the Mexican Cession.

The power balance and harmony between the North and the south brought by the Missouri compromise of 1820, faced issues in mid-1840s amid extreme regional controversies. The admission of Texas in 1845 and the acquisition of vast territories from Mexican Cession after the Mexican-American war, intensified division and conflict between the North-South. The settled portion of Texas had rich soils and was an area with cotton plantations. It was then annexed as a slave state since it dependent on slave labor. The other territories to the Mountain West however did not seem suited for cotton growth or slavery.

California which was among the regions acquired after the end of Mexican-American war (alongside Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona and parts of Colorado) was admitted as a free state without a slave pair. This quickly raised tensions and another compromise of 1850 was made to avert this. In the compromise California was to send two senators; one pro-slavery and another anti-slavery to the congress.

Slave and Free-state pairs

This became a paramount issue through the 1850s following the bloody fight over the Kansas-Nebraska Act that overrode the Missouri compromise. Under Kansas-Nebraska Act, white male settlers in the newly acquired territories were allowed to determine whether they

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13. Horton, J.O. and Horton, L.E., 2006. Slavery and the Making of America. Oxford University Press, USA.
14. Williams, E., 2014. Capitalism and slavery. UNC Press Books.

would allow slavery in their territories through popular sovereignty. The result; pro and anti-slavery heads flooded Kansas in order to swing the vote to either side leading to a fight. Free-slavers fought against pro slavers in an era known as the bleeding Kansas and won. Further Minnesota and Oregon were straight away and easily admitted as a free state and the balance in the senate was lost. Due to the tensions that arises from such an imbalance, the preservation and continuity of the union was threatened and it became clear that if the union were to survive, admission of new territories must be done in pairs. The balance was maintained until late 1850, after which the civil war erupted, disrupted the balance and ended slavery.

The civil war era

Early division occurred when Abraham Lincoln vied for presidency on a campaign platform of bringing to an end the expansion of slavery. He won the presidential election in 1860 and immediately seven pro-slavery US states in the south broke away to form the Confederacy to fight the abolition. A year later the confederate forces made an attack to US army Fort Summer leading to the start of the intensified civil war.

The United States civil war fought between 1861 and 1865 was fueled predominantly by slavery. According Filler and Shi & Tindall, the issue of abolition of slave trade and slavery and taxes brought bitterness between the slave-holding south and the north that championed freedom bringing about bitter division. The Northern states referred to as “The Union” saw the war as an opportunity restore unity among the states and secure new western territories from the hand of

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15. Filler, L., 2017. The crusade against slavery: 1830-1860. Routledge.
16. Foner, E., 2013. Give Me Liberty! An American History: Seagull Fourth Edition (Vol. 1). WW Norton & Company.
17. Filler, L., 2017. The crusade against slavery: 1830-1860. Routledge.

the slave owners. The southern states commonly referred as confederates, however, saw it differently, to them the war was a chance to assert their independent right enshrined at the time of Declaration of Independence away from the aggression of the northern states. The likes of strong influential leaders such as John Brown, Henry ward Beecher and Douglass Fred were radical abolitionists and were in favor for a war to end slavery and bring about insurrection. President Lincoln made it clear that his interest was pro-unity of the states that for him it did not really matter if slavery was affected.

Territorial and political division ensured due to issues of slavery. The United States came into existence as a result of a colonies grouping together to sought independence from their colonizer, Great Britain in 1776 through declaration of Independence (Congress, U.S., 1776). The underlying problem was that the issues of slavery was not fully and clearly settled by the founders and the lengthy discussions on the matter brought about growing unrest on the future of unity of the colonies. Consequently, by the mid of 19th century the united colonies remained distinctly divided on central concern of slavery. Culture and Economy of Southern and Northern states developed differently to the inhabitants of the Northern and Southern states. As pointed out by Grivno, this phenomenon was connoted by the term Mason-Dixon Line, between the

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18. Blackmon, D.A., 2009. Slavery by another name: The re-enslavement of black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. Anchor.
19. Sheehan-Dean, A., 2009. Why Confederates Fought: Family and Nation in Civil War Virginia. Univ of North Carolina Press.
20. Egnal, M. and Blair, T.L.V., 2009. Clash of Extremes: The Economic Origins of the Civil War. Macmillan.
21. Congress, U.S., 1776. Declaration of independence. Available in: http://memory. loc. gov/cgi-bin/ampage.
22. Egnal, M. and Blair, T.L.V., 2009. Clash of Extremes: The Economic Origins of the Civil War. Macmillan.
23. Castronovo, R., 1997. Compromised narratives along the border: The Mason-Dixon line, resistance, and hegemony. Border theory: The limits of cultural politics, pp.195-220.

states of Pennsylvania and Maryland that marked the border between free-states and slave states.

Division between the North and South intensified when the United States needed to admit new territories. The west of the continent was opened up to expansion and there was a debate whether to take them as free or slave states. The south increasing believed that the north was out to block any form of west-ward expansion to slavery. The Harper’s Ferry violent encounter of 1859 and the firing of shots at Fort Sumter in April of 1861 followed these kinds of divisive prejudgments. A war erupted and a deep bitter dispute between the industrialized North and the plantation-based southern society. Invention of the cotton gin widely expanded new cotton plantations in the South. There was a serious need of labor due to the expansion. Northern states sold slaves who were transported in a forced migration to the south totaling the number of slaves to four million in the south. The southern states therefore were in a desperate need to win the newly formed states as slave states in order to maintain their power in the US senate.

Religious division occurred as a result of slavery. According to Fountain (2010), the Protestants in the newly rich and blooming south with a population of four million slaves and expanding cotton plantations saw slavery as a positive good and preached to encourage it. They saw it as a means to their survival and therefore saw no problems in regard to it. The north just believed it was wrong to own, use, and perceive a fellow human being as a slave. This gave rise

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24. Grivno, M., 2011. Gleanings of freedom: free and slave labor along the Mason-Dixon Line, 1790-1860. University of Illinois Press.
25. White, D.J., 2017. Antislavery violence and secession, October 1859–April 1861 (Doctoral dissertation, University of Alabama Libraries).
26. Sublette, N. and Sublette, C., 2015. American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry. Chicago Review Press.
27. Fountain, D.L., 2010. Slavery, Civil War, and Salvation: African American Slaves and Christianity, 1830-1870. LSU Press.

to a split in protestant denomination into north and south regional organizations on the basis of their views on slavery.

The issue of emancipation proclamation by Lincoln that declared the freedom of over three million slaves in the south made the abolition of slavery a direct union war. The aftermath of the four year battle forced the southern Confederacy to give in in April of 1865, though the victory of slave trade abolition was marred by assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The Civil war brought changes as Lincoln called it 'new birth of freedom' that shaped the country but cast a shadow on the legacy and history of the south.

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28. Egnal, M. and Blair, T.L.V., 2009. Clash of Extremes: The Economic Origins of the Civil War. Macmillan.

Conclusion

The issue of slavery had for a long time become a precarious and contentious issue in the US and even threatened the very existence of the union. After the revolutionary war and declaration of Independence from Britain in 1776, the idea of equality and freedom could exist alongside slavery. The North came in first and bore abolitionist who had strong believes that the entire institution of slavery was wrong and it hard to go. The South however were pro-slavery and saw it as a means of sustaining their labor intensive way of life. The two regions of the US were locked in long due battles that made the drafting of the constitution a hard process. Already by 18th century, the American citizens had developed strong feelings about slavery but held back and compromised when it came to how dealing with slavery would affect the Economy and the constitution. Compromises such as that of Missouri of 1820, the compromise of 1850 and the introduction of Free and Slave state pairs tried to bring the balance between the divided North and South. The intensified imbalance of the free and slave states and the winning of Abraham Lincoln on the promise to end slavery spiked the Civil War.

After the war, abolition laws were passed throughout the United States and slavery was brought to an end. Fully phasing out slavery became a progressive issue and the states that had joined the confederation came under the union. The fight against slavery brought divisions, wars, cultural and economic changes and the numerous constitutional amendments that partly define the America we know today.

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