Slavery in the United States
A nation forged from a war for independence, the United States of America was founded on
the principle belief that “all men are created equal,” and that “they are endowed by their
Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of
Happiness.” Thomas Jefferson’s famous words did not apply to “all men” however, as these
rights were not extended to slaves, and their exclusion from the American dream would
ultimately plunge the country into its deepest nightmare.
Though many of the Founding Fathers held antislavery beliefs, the newly formed nation
was already reliant on and wedded to the “peculiar institution.” The Constitution of the
United States, drafted in 1787, included numerous provisions regarding slavery, though it
was never explicitly mentioned. The Constitution allowed the continued importation of
slaves for 20 more years (until 1808), strengthened fugitive slave laws, and also
established that each slave, though not allowed to vote, would be counted as three-fifths of
a United States citizen. The Three-Fifths Compromise was an attempt to balance the
representation of slave and free states in Congress, and was followed by many additional
measures to maintain this balance.
In the period following the Revolutionary War, the Northern states began to pass
antislavery legislation. Although gradual in many instances, by 1820 the distinction
between slave states and free states had become clear, as the states on both sides of the
issue were separated by Pennsylvania’s southern border, the Mason-Dixon Line.
The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and the American victory in the War of 1812 resulted in
massive new territories under U.S. control. Following the defeat of the British in 1815, the
country entered into an Era of Good Feelings under President James Monroe, during which
regional and political differences were largely put aside as the frontier extended westward.
In 1820, the country comprised 11 free and 11 slave states, and as each new territory
applied for statehood, the issue of slavery returned to the forefront of national attention.
When the question of slavery in Missouri arose, the northern portion of Massachusetts was
admitted into the Union as the free state of Maine to maintain the balance in the Missouri
Compromise. As part of the Compromise, slavery was prohibited in any new territories
admitted into the Union north of the line at 36˚ 30’.
Slavery permeated all aspects of Southern life. The Southern states’ economy was based on
agriculture, which was significantly more profitable and productive with the advantage of
slave labor. Southern whites’ greatest fear was that their Northern counterparts would
seek to outlaw slavery nationwide, and their response was to fight vehemently for slavery
to be permitted in the newly admitted states.
In response to the Missouri Compromise, which held the country in balance for nearly 30
years, Thomas Jefferson wrote that with the institution of slavery, “we have a wolf by the
ear, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and selfpreservation in the other.” With this, Jefferson vividly depicted the country’s growing
dilemma; a raging battle between states whose livelihoods were tied directly to slave labor
and those that believed equality should truly be extended to all men.
A period of relative calm was broken ten years after the Missouri Compromise when Nat
Turner led a slave rebellion in Virginia in 1831 that resulted in the deaths of 55 whites and
many more black slaves. Turner’s uprising served to validate proslavery forces’ fears, while
simultaneously awakening more whites around the country to the slaves’ plight. In 1836,
Arkansas entered the Union as a slave state, and a year later Michigan gained statehood,
again restoring the balance.
By 1846, the concept of Manifest Destiny, the idea that the United States was meant to
extend westward to the Pacific Ocean, had taken full effect. The nation was now at war with
Mexico and on the verge of another vast territorial gain. At this time, Pennsylvania
Congressman David Wilmot put forth the Wilmot Proviso, which proposed that any lands
acquired in the Mexican War prohibit slavery.
Proslavery opposition to the Wilmot Proviso defeated the amendment on three occasions
from 1846‒1848, but the prolonged national debate over the Proviso was in reality a
discussion on the issue of slavery in the territories. The response to Wilmot’s argument for
the prohibition of slavery in the land acquired in the Mexican Cession was the concept of
popular sovereignty. Championed by Senators Lewis Cass of Michigan and Stephen Douglas
of Illinois, both Democrats in search of a middle-ground solution that would be amenable to
all sides, popular sovereignty dictated that residents of each territory could make their own
decision on whether to permit slavery.
Tensions continued to rise during this period of rapid and prolific migration westward, and
reached another peak in 1850, when California was set to enter the Union. Henry Clay, the
Kentucky senator and architect of the Missouri Compromise, was again called upon to
reach a settlement on the fate of California as well as numerous other issues related to
slavery.
The Compromise of 1850 successfully calmed the nation and quieted rumblings of
Southern secession. However, it failed to truly answer the slavery question, and through its
provisions it heightened the stakes for those on both sides of the issue. As a result of the
Compromise, California was admitted as a free state and the slave trade (but not slavery
itself) was abolished in Washington, D.C. Most notably, the Compromise endorsed the
theory of popular sovereignty, and stated that when the Utah and New Mexico territories
applied for statehood, they would decide their policy on slavery for themselves.
Popular sovereignty was again seen as the solution when the territories of Kansas and
Nebraska were created. Designed by Douglas, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 determined
that the issue of slavery in these territories would be decided by their inhabitants. It also
served to effectively nullify much of the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of
1850, as both Kansas and Nebraska are north of the 36˚ 30’ line, reopening the question of
slavery in the northwest.
The primary flaw in popular sovereignty was realized in the wake of the Kansas-Nebraska
Act, as proponents on both sides of the issue flooded into Kansas from neighboring
Missouri in hopes of gaining a majority for their side. A series of violent confrontations over
Kansas’ fate ensued, and the armed conflict, a microcosm of the looming national fight,
became known as Bleeding Kansas.
The fighting in Kansas stirred Abraham Lincoln into action. A lawyer in Illinois at the time,
the 45-year old Lincoln was roused by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act “as he had
never been before.” While Lincoln had previously viewed slavery as an institution headed
toward extinction, he saw the new act as an aggressive step toward the expansion and
perpetuation of slavery in the United States. In his first major public speeches, Lincoln
framed Kansas-Nebraska and popular sovereignty as synonyms for the expansion of
slavery, and he argued that the existence of legal slavery was a violation of the central
principles of the Declaration of Independence. “No man is good enough to govern another
man, without that other man’s consent,” Lincoln argued. At this time, slaves in the United
States numbered over three million.
Over the next few years, the widespread popularity of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s
Cabin and the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dred Scott case heightened Northern passions
against slavery, while incidents such as John Brown’s attack at Pottawatomie, Kansas,
increased Southern fervor. In 1860, Lincoln was elected president after sweeping the North
on a platform of not eliminating slavery where it existed but one of strong opposition to its
expansion. Six weeks after Lincoln’s victory and six weeks before his inauguration, South
Carolina seceded from the United States, thrusting the nation into Civil War.