Slavery to Civil Rights Part 1. The Roots of Conflict King Cotton Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin (1793) cotton could be very profitable with large enslaved.

Slavery to Civil Rights

Part 1

The Roots of ConflictKing Cotton• Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin (1793)

• cotton could be very profitable with large enslaved force

• By mid 1800’s:North – economy relied mostly on

manufacturing with an immigrant workforce

South – agricultural economy reliant upon slavery

The Missouri Compromise - 1820• until 1818 there were an equal number of free and slave states

• Missouri petitioned to enter the Union as a slave state

• balance of power would shift to slave states

Compromise:• Maine would enter as a free state• Missouri would be a slave state• region south of 36th parallel in Louisiana territory would be open for slavery• land north of 36th (except Missouri) free• runaway slaves in free states to be returned

The Missouri Compromise

War With Mexico• Texas declared independence from Mexico in 1836

• White southerners wanted Texas to be a slave state

• Northerners worried balance of power in Congress would swing to the South

• Southern politicians won out and Texas was admitted to the Union as the 28th state in 1845

• Northerners worried about territories to the West which were south of the line established by the Missouri Compromise

The Compromise of 1850• By 1850, 15 free states and 15 slave states

• California threatened balance when they applied for admission as a free state

Compromise: California be admitted as a free state

• people in the territories of Utah and New Mexico decide on slavery issue themselves

• slave trade (but not slavery) be prohibited in the District of Columbia

• new fugitive slave law to require federal marshals to capture runaway slaves

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

• Part of the Compromise of 1850

• All runaway slaves must be returned to their masters

• Abolitionists nicknamed it the “bloodhound law”

• law enforcement officers could be fined $1,000 for not arresting runaways

• people aiding runaways by providing food or shelter could face 6 months of $1,000 fine

The Underground Railroad• Between 1830 and 1860

• helped enslaved African Americans escape by conducting them to safe houses on their way to free territories

• runaway slaves were pursued by bounty hunters

• many continued on to Canada

The Kansas-Nebraska Act - 1854• Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas wanted territory north of Missouri line open for the people to decide for themselves whether or not they wanted slavery (known as popular sovereignty)

• passed in 1854, it divided the Nebraska territory into two separate territories, Kansas and Nebraska

• in effect it voided the Missouri Compromise, allowing slavery to expand northward

• violence broke out in Kansas between antislavery and proslavery groups

Conflict in Kansas• proslavery and antislavery fought for control of Kansas by 1855 when Kansas applied for statehood

• proslavery residents of Missouri poured into Kansas to help elect proslavery candidates

• antislavery forces armed themselves

• proslavery Missourians opened cannon fire on Lawrence, Kansas burned down homes, businesses, killed several men

• John Brown and his four sons kidnapped and brutally executed five proslavery settlers

Growing Debate

Lincoln – Douglas Senatorial Debates

• Dred Scott Decision handed down by the Supreme Court in 1857

Supreme Court Decision: • enslaved African Americans were considered legal property

• no state could deprive citizens of their property without due process of law

John Brown

• Abolitionist who led 21 men on an attack of a federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia in 1859

• hoped to spark a slave rebellion that would end slavery

• he and his men were quickly captured and no slaves joined him as he hoped they would

• powerful speaker who during his trial became a hero to many Northern antislavery opponents

• Sentenced to death by hanging

John Brown

Lincoln Elected • When President Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860, southerners reacted by calling for secession

• By December of 1860, South Carolina seceded

• The following year Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed declaring themselves a new nation, the Confederate States of America

• War begins in 1861

• Northern African Americans tried to enlist at the start of the war but were rejected

• in 1863, and in desperate need of troops, the Union Army admitted black soldiers

Emancipation Proclamation• Lincoln was pressured by abolitionists throughout the war to free all enslaved black Americans

• North’s two main reasons for fighting the war were to preserve the union and to end slavery

• Fugitive Slave Laws no longer applied to Southern slave owners since after secession from the Union could no longer expect to be protected by the Union’s laws

• 1863 Executive Order, included all areas in rebellion, excluded areas not in rebellion (border states)

• applied to more than 3 million of the 4 million slaves in the U.S. at the time

The Civil War was over and four million former slaves living inthe South were now free. The Period following the Civil War in the South was known as RECONSTRUCTION. It was a period that lasted for about 12Years, ending in 1877.

Big Question:

Were African Americans free during Reconstruction?

Emancipation

“My paramount object in this struggle is tosave the Union, and is not either to save orto destroy Slavery. If I could save the Unionwithout freeing any slave, I would do it; andif I could do it by freeing all of the slaves, Iwould do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.what I do about Slavery and the colored race,I do because it helps to save the Union; andwhat I forbear, I forbear because I do notbelieve it would help to save the Union.”

-Abraham Lincoln, from a letter to Horace Greeley, 1862

The Push to Reform the South

Andrew JohnsonPresidency 1865-1869

• some members of Congress criticized Johnson for being too lenient toward the South

• Johnson did little to prevent new Southern state governments from passing black codes

• black codes were laws that severely restricted the rights of newly freed blacks

Mississippi Black Code Restrictions:• prohibited blacks from owning land• freed black orphaned children could be assigned to forced labor

Black Codes• Andrew Johnson did nothing to prevent Southern states from passing Black Codes

Severely restricted the rights of newly freed blacks

• Barred blacks from renting land, buying property

• kept them from serving on juries, voting

• black orphans could be assigned to forced labor

• by keeping blacks powerless it ensured a stable labor supply in the South

Freedmen’s Bureau• established to provide freed blacks with food, teachers, legal aid, and other assistance

• viewed by white southerners as meddling on the part of the federal government

• vetoed by Andrew Johnson along with the Civil Rights Act

• Congress overrode both vetoes

• Johnson removed cabinet members who dis- agreed with him without Senate approval

• impeachment proceedings, acquitted by 1 vote

officially abolished and continues to prohibit slavery

The 13th Amendment (1865)

The Civil Rights Act of 1866

• gives citizenship to African Americans

• guarantees equal protection under the law

The 14th Amendment (1868)

Secured rights for former slaves

Equal Protection

Due Process

15th Amendment (1870)

no citizen could be prevented from voting based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude(i.e. slavery).

The Enforcement Act of 1870

• empowers federal authorities to punish violators of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments

Problem?United States v. Cruikshank• ruled that a state couldn’t discriminate against blacks, but said non-state institutions and individuals could