Laws are Being Passed, but Not One Helps the Big Problem

There were may causes to the Civil War.  Slavery entrenched in our society and the country's morality of slaves were the overall reason.  Between the span of 1850 to 1859, many events occurred that got the attention of the government.  All of these events led to acts or laws being passed resolving it.  However, no one was really focusing on the big picture and that was slavery itself.  The 'elephant in the room' which was our class lesson is the debate over slavery for 19th century American politics.  In class, we read and learned about all of the events that took place.  Prior to these events, we learned about the Missouri Compromise that took place in 1820.  The South wanted fair representation in Senate so the compromise split the northern free and the southern slave states to 11 each.  However, all territory north of the 36 degrees 30 minutes latitude line would be free states.  Then came the gold rush in the unclaimed area of California in 1849.  California requested to join the union as a state in 1850.  This would be unfair to either the North or South because one side would have more representation than the other.  Henry Clay then proposed a five part compromise.  The first part was Texas.  Texas got to claim land in dispute and were given $0.01 billion (just a complicated way to say $10 million).  They were given this to pay off their debt to Mexico from the previous Mexican-American war.  This helped pro-slavery.  The second was part was the matter of Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah.  The decision on whether or not they would be slave states would be determined by the inhabitants when applying for statehood.  This also favored pro-slavery.  Third was the abolishment of the slave trade (buying and selling) in D.C..  Although slavery was still allowed there, this favored anti-slavery.  Then California got to join the nation as a free state which obviously satisfied anti-slavery.  Lastly was the Fugitive Slave Act which overall stated that if a slave escaped to the North, they were not free and they had to be returned to their owner.  So, if you were a slave, you were a slave no matter where you were and this went for pro-slavery.  Another big event that occurred was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.  Senator Steven Douglas wanted to have a northern transcontinental railroad.  However, the land which it was going to pass through would only be beneficial to slave labor.  He suggested that slave labor should extend into Kansas and Nebraska but that would violate the Missouri Compromise.  However, the act did pass and it made it much easier for southern slave owners to extend northward over the line.  This benefited pro-slavery because slavery was extending and American politicians passed the act without worrying about the Missouri Compromise.  This helps show that the 'elephant in the room' is the decisions and laws within slavery, not just slavery as a whole.    

 (I give permission to Liam Dwyer, Ben Fischer, Jamie Callahan, and Julia Pustizzi to use this image.  We all helped make it but it was created by me.  Just so Mrs. Gallagher knows.) 

 

Clearly, slavery as one big topic was being ignored by American politicians.  The Kansas-Nebraska Act led to more hell revolving around slavery.  Bleeding Kansas of 1856 is safe to say probably the most violent of these acts.  Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner gave a speech that lasted two days.  It was called The Crime Against Kansas.  The bold senator was an anti-slavery advocate and he criticized southerners attracting and forcing slavery upon these territories.  He made insults to Senator Andrew Butler.  Butler's insane      nephew Representative Preston Brooks took it to heart and two days after Sumner's speech, Brooks went to Sumner's desk and brutally beat him with a cane.  People in the South honored him and this made the North very angry.  Southern advocates also burned down the anti-slavery capital which was Lawrence, Kansas.  The other capital was for Pro-slavery was Lecompton, Kansas.  In return, another group of insane people only this time from the North roused five pro-slavery supporting men from their beds, dragged them to their homes, and executed them in front of their families.  This event you could say favored both pro and anti- slavery because both sides inflicted violence on the other.  One last event was the Dred Scott case in 1857.  Dred Scott was born into slavery.  He was a slave in Missouri.  However, the importation of slaves was illegal at that time.  This led to him filing a lawsuit against his owner because he and his wife had lived in states where slavery was illegal.  He wanted to apply for citizenship but his slave owner would not let him.  However in his case, the United States Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 against the his case.  This definitely favored pro-slavery because now slaves could not become citizens nor sue in court.  Slaves were slaves no matter where and the Missouri compromise turned out to be something that kept going further and further away in the distance.  This is what eventually led northerners to the attack which was the beginning of the Civil War.  All of these events help show that the 'elephant in the room' is slavery as one, but it the surrounding aspects caused by slavery and no one saw nor cared and probably there were politicians that didn't want to care but want to make it seem like they did.