Institution of Slavery
Ashley H.
Information
Missouri Compromise
- The Missouri Compromise was a federal
statute in the United States that regulated
slavery territories.
- The Compromised, devised by Henry Clay,
was agreed to by the pro-slavery and antislavery factions in the United States
Congress and passed as a law in 1820.
- The Mission Compromise was effectively
repealed by the Kansas – Nebraska Act,
submitted to Congress by Stephen A. Douglas
in January 1854.
- The Act opened Kansas Territory and
Nebraska Territory to slavery and future
admission of slave state by allowing white
male settlers in those territories to determine,
through "Popular Sovereignty" whether they
would allow slavery within each territory.
- During the following session (1819-1820) the
House passed a similar bill with an
amendment, introduced on January 26, 1820,
by John W. Taylor of New York, allowing
Missouri into the union as a slave state.
Wilmot Proviso
- The Wilmot Proviso, one of the major events
leading to the American Civil War, would have
banned slavery in any territory to be acquired
from Mexico in the Mexican War or in the
future.
- Congressman David Wilmot first introduced
the Proviso In the United States House of
Representatives on August 8, 1846, as a rider
on a $2,000,000 appropriation bill intended
for the final negotiations to resolve the
Mexican – African War.
- It passed the House but failed in the Senate,
where the South had greater representation.
Compromise of 1850
- The Compromise of 1850 was a package of
five separate bills passed by the United States
Congress in September 1850, which defused a
four – year political confrontation between
slave and free states regarding the status of
territories acquired during the Mexican –
American War (1846-1848)
- The south prevented adoption of the Wilmot
Proviso that would have outlawed slavery in
the new territories, and the new Utah
territory and New Mexico territory were
allowed, under the principle of popular
sovereignty.
- The Compromise became possible after the
sudden death of President Zachary Taylor, who
although a slaveowner, had favored excluding
slavery for the Southwest.
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
- The Fugitive Slave Law or Fugitive Slave Act
was passed by the United States Congress on
September 8, 1850 as part of the Compromise
of 1850 between Southern Slave – holding
interests and Northern Free – Soilers.
- This was one of the most controversial
elements of the 1850 Compromise, and
heightened Northern Fears of a "Slave power
conspiracy."
- By 1843, several hundred slaves a year were
successfully escaping to the North, making
slavery an unstable institution in the border
states.
- The earlier Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was a
Federal Law which was written with the
intent to enforce Article 4, Section 2, of the
United States Constitution, which required
the return of runaway slaves.
Kansas – Nebraska Act
- The Kansas – Nebraska Act of 1854 created
the territories of Kansas and Nebraska,
opening new lands for settlement, and had
the the effect of repealing the Missouri
Compromise of 1820 by allowing white male
settlers in those territories to determine
though popular sovereignty.
- The initial purpose of the Kansas – Nebraska
Act was to open up many thousands of new
farms and make feasible a Midwestern
Transcontinental Railroad.
- In early 1853 the House of Representatives
passed a bill by a 107-to-49 vote that
organized the Nebraska Territory in land
west of Iowa and Missouri.
- The bill was reported to the main body of the
Senate on January 4, 1854.
Dred Scott v. Sandford
- Dred Scott v. Sandford was a landmark
decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in which
the court held the African Americans,
whether enslaved or free, could not be
America Citizens and therefore had no
standing to sue in federal court.
- Dred Scott, an enslaved African American
man who had been taken by his owners to
free states and territories.
- Dred Scott was born a slave in Virginia in
1795, little is known of his early years.
Northwest Ordinance
- The Northwest Ordinance was an Act of the
Congress of the Confederation of the United
States, passed July 13, 1787.
- On August 7, 1789, first President George
Washington signed a replacement, the
Northwest Ordinance of 1789, in which the
new U.S. Congress reaffirmed the ordinance
with slight modification under the newly
effective Constitution of the United States.
- The ordinance created the Northwest
Territory, the first organized territory of the
United States, from lands beyond the
Appalachian Mountains, between British
Canada and the Great Lakes to the North and
the Ohio River.