Beginning of the End
Women’s Reform Movement
• When the United
States Constitution was
written, only white men
had the right to vote.
• Women were not
allowed to vote under
the law.
• Women also did not
have many other rights
such as the right to
own property or to be
educated for certain
jobs.
• Women in the anti-slavery abolition
movement of the 1830s recognized parallels
between the legal condition of slaves and that
of women.
Seneca Falls Convention (1848)
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton
attended the 1840 AntiSlavery Convention and her
experience led her to the
struggle for women’s rights.
• In 1848, Quakers and
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
organized a women’s rights
convention in Seneca Falls,
NY.
• The Declaration of
Sentiments is drafted.
Declaration of Sentiments, 1848
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Lucretia Mott
Seneca Falls Convention
Social Snapshot
• Women, as members of mixedsex societies, fought against
injustices of:
– The need for free public education for all
children
– The abuse and neglect of criminals and mental
patients
– Slavery
– The evils of drink (for Prohibition)
– Women’s legal position
Audience
• “a candid world”
• Other women
– The Seneca Falls Convention
served as a pep rally for
women’s rights activists.
– Encourages women not in
the movement to join, or
just think about their
positions.
• Men (Politicians, husbands,
fathers, brothers, bosses,
clergy, etc.)
Main Points
Women declared their independence
and inalienable Rights: Life, Liberty
and the pursuit of Happiness.
• “We insist that [women] have immediate
admission to the rights and privileges
which belong to them as citizens of the
United States.”
Main Points
Men have created a social and
political tyranny over women by not
recognizing their civil liberties.
“He has endeavored, in every way that he
could, to destroy her confidence in her own
powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to
make her willing to lead a dependent and
abject life.”
• “He has made her, if married, in the eye
of the law, civilly dead.”
• “He has compelled her to submit to
laws, in the formation of which she had
no voice.”
• “He has withheld from her rights which
are given the most ignorant and
degraded men- both natives and
foreigners.”
• “He has never permitted her to exercise
her inalienable right to the elective
franchise.”
• “He has taken from her all right in
property, even to the wages she earns.”
• “In the covenant of marriage, she is
compelled to promise obedience to her
husband, he becoming, to all intents and
purposes, her master.”
• …if single, and the owner of property, he
has taxed her to support a government
which recognizes her only when her
property can be made profitable to it.”
1
Social Impact
• After the convention, some parties
removed their names due to societal
pressures.
• The Convention was said to have
mocked, not utilized, the Declaration of
Independence.
• This stand put the women’s movement
back a few steps. Feminism today has a
negative connotation.
Questions to consider
• How could an Abolitionist consistently oppose
slavery but favor the continuation of women’s
inferior status?
• Why were so many of their contemporaries, even
among the Abolitionists, deeply disturbed by the
Declaration?
• What contemporary groups, if any, could utilize
Jefferson’s language in the Declaration of
Independence for their own purposes?
North
Southern Colonies
• Plantation systems
–Tobacco, cotton,
indigo
• Dark blue dye
• Heavy slave
economy
Middle Colonies
• Most slaves worked in trade
in manufacturing
– Construction
– Mason
– Shipwright
– Goldsmith
– Glass workers
• Moderate slave economy,
but much less than southern
colonies
New England
• Slavery less common
– New England
temperature/short farming
period not financial conducive
to slavery
– Slavery therefore less common
– Building houses
– Working as house servants
• Many more free blacks
Slave Rebellion
• Gabriel’s Conspiracy
– August 30, 1800
• Plans to attack Richmond.
• Two slaves revealed plans to white authorities
• Gabriel arrested and hanged
• Louisiana Rebellion
– Deslondes, Haitian native initiated revolt
• Organized 180 men and women
• Over run by troops, 60 killed instantly, the rest executed
Slavery and the West
• Small communities cropped up in the West
• 1860
– 4000 blacks in CA made up 75% of all the
nominally free African-Americans in the West
• Discriminatory black laws kept free black
westerners at a minimum
• Still some families made the trip west to try
for better economic chances
Missouri Compromise
• Issue about slave states emerging west of the
Mississippi
• Northerners didn’t want new slave states
• Southerners didn’t feel the North had the right to
infringe
• Agreement made: For every slave state admitted,
a free state had to be approved as well.
• Banned slavery north of the 36’ 30” latitude line.
Wilmot Proviso
• 1846
• David Wilmot
– PA congressman introduced a measure to prohibit
slavery in any lands acquired from Mexico
– “The Negro race already occupy enough of this
fair continent…”
– Never passed
Compromise of 1850
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Gold discovered in 1848
California quickly expanded
Applied for statehood as a free state
Missouri Compromise would cause a problem
Compromise of 1850
– Allows California to be admitted as a free state
and eliminating the slave trade in the District of
Columbia
– Stronger fugitive slave law for the south
Popular Sovereignty
• Issue of popular sovereignty
– Residents of a territory get to decide for
themselves whether to allow Slavery.
• States tired of government making decisions
about their state status without benefit of the
people’s vote
Fugitive Slave Act
• 1793
– Permitted slave owners to recover slaves who
escaped to other states
– 1830-40
• 1793 law became too weak
• 1850 Fugitive Slave Law
– US Marshals, deputies and even ordinary citizens
had to help seize suspected runaways
– Those who refused could be fined or imprisoned
Kansas-Nebraska Act 1854
By the 1850s the area above Texas was ready to be
recognized as a territory in preparation to becoming a state.
It was North of the 36x30 line. The Compromise of 1850 had
stated that these territories could decide for themselves if they
were going to be free or slave.
In 1854 Congress passed a bill creating 2 territories=Kansas
and Nebraska. It was hoped by many that one would be free
and one would be slave. However, the decision was left up to
the people in those territories=Popular Sovereignty.
People from surrounding states flooded into these territories
to swing the vote the way they wanted it to go. Many people
were killed over the issue.
On the section KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT write:
1. Nebraska was divided in half so there are 2 territories.
2. Kansas and Nebraska.
3. Slavery in each territory would be decided by the
voters=Popular Sovereignty.
4. Results:
1. Bleeding Kansas-lots of violence
2. The Democratic Party lost support in the North but
gained it in the South. Democrats were pro-slavery.
3. The Republican Party is created and it gained power
among those against slavery.
Dred Scott Decision 1857
Dred Scott was an African American slave who
belonged to an Army officer.
He traveled with his owner and lived in 2 free states
for several years.
At one point he even traveled alone through free
territories to join his master in the South.
He never sued for his freedom while his master was
alive. However, shortly after the Army officer died, his
widow hired Scott out to someone else. At this point,
Scott tried to buy his freedom. He was denied.
Abolitionist lawyers took his case and helped
him sue for his freedom on the grounds that he
had lived in 2 free states and should have been
given his freedom.
His case was in the courts for 10 years. Some
found in his favor, others found against him.
He decided to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court
in 1856.
Of the 9 Supreme Court justices 7 had been
appointed by pro-slavery, Southern presidents
and 5 were from slave holding families.
The Supreme Court ruled that because Scott was black
he was not a citizen of the United States and therefore he
had no right to sue.
The justices also declared that the Missouri
Compromise and its attempt to restrict slavery in
territories North of the 36x30 line was unconstitutional.
Northerners were furious and this decision had a huge
impact on the 1860 election of the Republican
nominee=Abraham Lincoln.
The sons of the man who had owned Dred Scott had
paid his legal fees for years trying to help him win his
freedom. After the Supreme Court decision, they bought
Scott and his wife from the widow and set him free. Scott
died 9 months later a free man.
On the section DRED SCOTT DECISION write:
1. The Supreme Court of 1857 ruled that people of
African ancestry were not citizens and could not sue
in Federal Court for freedom or anything else.
2. They also ruled that the Missouri Compromise was
not legal. They stated the government can not tell
states they have to be slave or free.
3. Results:
1. Angry anti-slavery voters voted for Abraham
Lincoln for president in 1860.
Write in the section Presidential Election of
1860
1860-Republican Abraham
Lincoln won the Presidency.
Republicans promised to:
End the spread of slavery
Impose tariffs to protect US
businesses
Give free land in the West
to settlers
In the South:
There were no votes for Lincoln-they feared he would end
slavery
Southern states started seceding-leaving the United States
In Texas, Sam Houston and other Unionists urged Texans
not to secede Unionist=Southerner who wanted to stay with
the Union
February 23, 1861-Texas secedes from the Union. They join
other states to form the Confederate States of
America=Confederacy
Sam Houston is removed from the office of governor after
he refuses to take the Oath of the Confederacy=promise to
support and defend the Confederacy