Lecture 32 + 33

Question 1

Why did southerners fight in the Civil War when 75% of the population didn’t own slaves?

Answer 1

• It is argued by southerners that the Civil War wasn’t just about slavery, but also states’ rights. This is crap.
• Many poor idiots fought because a) they thought that one day they might be planters and b) for landless whites, removing slaves would make them the bottom of the social hierarchy, which was not preferable.
• Also many were ideologically affiliated with the notion that slavery was a necessary evil.

Question 2

Explain the Free State of Jones.

Answer 2

• In Mississippi there was a county with pine woods, not preferable to cotton growth. As a result, not many slaves were there.
• People there didn’t want to fight in the Civil War.
• During the secession of Mississippi, they sent their delegate to vote against secession, but he voted for it.
• Afterwards, Jones county basically seceded from Mississippi when Mississippi seceded from the Union.
• It became a refuge for deserters.
• It was example of a few tiny isolated incidents of Southerners going against the CSA split.

Question 3

What is the fantasy/romanticized depiction of slavery in the Old South? What is the reality?

Answer 3

• Notion that slaves were grateful.
• That rich planters were ecstatic to fight in the Civil War.
• “House” slaves were a point of emphasis, as they were prettied up and had marginally better living conditions.
• The reality is that slaves worked in fields for 16/18 hours a day under horrid conditions and punished horribly with whipping, subsistence deprivation, etc.; most southerners were shocked by war, also.

Question 4

Sectionalism and the 1850s.

Answer 4

• Sectionalism was on the rise from the Missouri Crisis; North is North, South is South. First real instance of intense regional divide in the US.

Question 5

Slavery in the New Territories.

Answer 5

• There was a controversy over what to do in terms of slavery with California, New Mexico, Kansas, Nebraska, etc.
• Many abolitionists feel it is embarrassing to have slavery in the capitol, that is, Maryland. And Washington D.C. had its own slave market.

Question 6

Whilnot Proviso and free soilers.

Answer 6

• The wilnot proviso was attached to a spending bill. It said slavery would be banned in all new territories.
• This was an example of the ideas of free soilers; the group that advocated for slavery to not expand; not abolitionists.

Question 7

Popular sovereignty.

Answer 7

• The people who live in a state or territory decide for themselves whether slavery is allowed, which meant to put it to a vote.

Question 8

Extension of the Missouri Compromise Line.

Answer 8

• Idea that the Missouri Compromise line at 36.30 should just be extended West to cover all the new bits—no slavery above that, slavery below it.

Question 9

Compromise of 1850.

Answer 9

• Brokered by Stephen Douglas.
• Said California would enter the Union as a free state, and the rest of the new territory would be divided into Utah and New Mexico where popular sovereignty would determine the status of slavery.
• Texas would drop its claims to other land, so it’s boundaries would be set, and in exchange the Fed would assume its debt.
• Further asserted that slavery would be outlawed in Washington D.C.
• Finally, it enacted stricter fugitive slave laws.
• Delayed war for 10 years.

Question 10

Fugitive slave act.

Answer 10

• A part of the 1850 compromise.
• All runaway slaves would be returned to their owners, even those who escaped when they were little or had been free for indeterminate amounts of time preceding the law.
• A judge with no jury would determine the fate of any accused runaway slaves, and said judge would receive $10 for deciding an accused person was a slave and $5 for deciding an accused person is free.
• Led to outrage in the North from the potential for abuse and abolitionists concocting propaganda to warn blacks to stay out of sight.

Question 11

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Answer 11

• Book by Harriet Beecher Stow.
• Work of fiction about a slave’s life.
• Leads to political polarization: moderates either saw it and became abolitionist in horror or furthered their sense of pro-slavery views in a circling of the wagon.

Question 12

Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Answer 12

• 1854.
• Created Kansas and Nebraska out of the Louisiana Territory.
• Douglas brokered this compromise again.
• Douglas says the two states are subject to popular sovereignty but it effectively repeals the Missouri Compromise bc. both states are above the 36.30.
• Kills the Whig Party bc. not a single Whig voted for the Kansas-Nebraska Act

Question 13

Bleeding Kansas

Answer 13

• Radicals on both sides flocked to Kansas to ensure the state votes according to their interests following the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
• A lot of violence broke out in the area, which is why it’s called “bleeding.”

Question 14

Pottawatomie Creek Massacre.

Answer 14

• John Brown and his follows—radical abolitionists—captured pro-slavery individuals and shot one and hacked the others to death.
• The violence here spilled over into Congress.