Slavery and Politics

I. Northwest Ordinance

A. Settling the Upper South

1. Tennessee—parts of the territory that became Tennessee were claimed by North Carolina. Many of the first white settlers in the region came from North and South Carolina, and the most economically successful brought slaves to work on the land they claimed—people like Andrew Jackson.

2. Kentucky—claimed by Virginia; settled by whites from that state, and like in Tennessee, the more economically advantaged brought slaves with them. Virginia in fact had already sold a sizable portion of the land available, in many areas twice, which created conflicting claims which were again usually settled in favor of those able to pay for better legal representation.



B. Northwest Ordinance (1787)—the chaos that had ensued with the settlement of Tennessee and especially Kentucky led to a desire to implement a more ordered process in settling the region north and west of the Ohio River—the Northwest Territory.

1. Congress of the Confederation—perhaps the most significant piece of legislation passed by that body. Following the pattern set the settlement set by Kentucky and Tennessee, eastern states had to give up their claims to the land to their west; in Ohio, for example, the state of Connecticut to give up its claim to both the Firelands and to the Western Reserve.

2. Grid Survey System—the Ordinance provided that the northwest by surveyed in 36 square-mile townships, and land be sold in 320 acre sections, 160 acre half sections, or in 80 acre quarter half sections. The survey was conveyed on maps in a grid pattern, and set the most significant geographic feature of the Midwest today—its grid road system. 16 sections made up a township; the sale of one of the sections in each larger part was set aside to provide funds to establish a public school system.

3. Slavery prohibited—most significantly, slavery was prohibited in the Northwest Territory. This prohibition was not always strictly enforced, and did not prevent slave owners from occasionally using slaves for a season on farms in the region (Lincoln, in fact, defended—successfully—one such slave owner in court), but it did prevent slavery from being established in the region.

4. “Best poor [white] man’s country”—by preventing slavery from gaining a hold in the region, this increased the chances for poor whites of obtaining greater economic prosperity.

5. The political equalizer—before passage of the Northwest Ordinance, the slave states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, and Georgia—with the Middle Atlantic States of New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, which still had an affluent and influential population that owned slaves—dominated national politics. As the states that were created from the Northwest Territory were admitted, and the Middle Atlantic states abolished slavery, this dominance ended, and politics became more balanced.



C. Missouri Compromise (1820)

1. Louisiana Purchase (1803)—most of the attention that has been focused on the Louisiana Purchase has focused on the exploits of the Corps of Exploration, Lewis and Clark’s adventure. This acquisition, however, along with Florida, permitted the creation of the slave states of Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, eventually Arkansas—and Missouri.

2. Missouri controversy—Missouri statehood was controversial, because most of the state was north of the line extended west from the point where the Ohio River ended.

3. The Missouri Solution—the legislation that made Missouri a state prohibited the introduction of slavery above 36-30 (Missouri’s southern border); to balance the admission of Missouri, the Down East portion of Massachusetts was admitted as the state of Maine. From this point to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, states were admitted in slave/non-slave pairs—to maintain the balance of power.

II. Manifest Destiny

A. Sea to Shining Sea—most white Americans fully supported extending the territory of the country across the breadth of the continent, but disagreed mightily on whether slavery should be extended with it.


B. Presidency of James K. Polk—Polk’s four years in office witnessed the greatest expansion of territory of the country in its history—but this expansion also heightened the tensions that resulted in the Civil War.

1. Oregon Territory—after a bit of saber-rattling, Polk agreed to settle the northwestern boundary of the country with Great Britain



2. War with Mexico—after initial enthusiasm for the war, many in the country began to become increasingly disenchanted with the conflict, which they began to argue mainly benefited slaveholders, anyway.
3. Whig opposition—Lincoln was a vociferous opponent of the war during one term in Congress


4. Wilmot Proviso—introduced by heretofore loyal Democrat David Wilmot, it proposed to forbid the introduction of slavery to any area gained from Mexico where it did not previously exist (and since slavery was illegal in Mexico, that was just about everywhere). The vote on this measure delineated a new trend in American politics, as the vote split along sectional lines rather than along party differences.

5. California Republic—whites had been moving into California in significant number all during the 1840s; the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill saw an explosion of ‘49ers from across the globe—including, significantly, large numbers of Chinese men to work in the mines.



C. Compromise of 1850—a complex series of five bills that: settled the Texas claim of New Mexico, while providing the state with debt relief, El Paso, and the Panhandle; allowed popular sovereignty to decide the issue over slavery in the territories of New Mexico and Utah (it failed in both places); maintained slavery in the District of Columbia, but ended the sale of slaves there; decided the issue of slavery in Southern California by prohibiting it; strengthened the Fugitive Slave Law.

1. Initially failed to pass, but in the following session Stephen A. Douglas broke up the various parts of the bill—Henry Clay had attempted to pass it as an omnibus bill, and the strenuous effort contributed to his demise—and got the Senate to pass the various parts through the use of shifting coalitions

2. Complaints—although no parties were entirely happy with the final result, this compromise in fact helped reduced the tension over sectional disputes that had been building since the Mexican War.

D. Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

1. Douglas’ blunder—why does Douglas splinter the country again after settling the issue with the Compromise of 1850? To get a transcontinental railroad built. Southern legislators refused to vote for a railroad unless they got the right to bring slaves into the new territories; Douglas then began arguing for leaving the issue of the extension of slavery to a popular vote.


2. Civil war in Kansas—immediately after the act was passed, both pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces began staking claims on Kansas; the Bushwackers were pro-slavery sympathizers from Missouri, while Jayhawkers were anti-slavery. This dispute quickly escalated into violence, with Bushwackers torching Lawrence; in response John Brown led his sons and other associates on the Pottawatomie Massacre, the murder of five slavery sympathizers. This civil war raged from the mid-1850s until the end of the American Civil War, and saw the rise of such men like Jesse and Frank James and former Ohio school teacher William Quantrill, in addition to the Brown clan and James Lane.

*UPDATE*
III. Political Party Re-alignment

A. Causes—the pressure from the political crisis caused by the sectional split over slavery split the Whig Party, most dramatically, but also split the Democratic Party, as well. This split was less dramatic, because there was a Democratic Party during and after the Civil War—but the split in the Democratic Party was the leading factor in Lincoln’s victory in the 1860 presidential election.

B. Political Parties

1. Liberty Party—abolitionists who broke with Garrison (who did not believe that a political solution could be found on the issue of slavery), the party was not successful electorally, but did pressure northern Whigs from “the left”

2. American Party—aka the Native American Party and the “Know-Nothing” Party, organized around the principals of limiting immigration and the rights of the Roman Catholic Church.


3. Free Soil Party—absorbed abolitionist members of the Liberty Party (eventually), along with anti-slavery elements of both the Whig and Democratic parties. Successful in national elections, with members winning places in both the Senate and in the House of Representatives, the Free Soil Party eventually was absorbed into the Republican Party