The Role Of Slavery In The South

As the nation descended further into a split entity, with the issue of slavery at the forefront of the debate. The North and South needed to find a way to deal with their differences before the Union fell in shambles. The Compromise of 1850 was passed after long extensive debate in congress, the compromise was intended to settle the debate over how slavery would be controlled throughout the expanding nation. The Fugitive Slave Act was included in the compromise to satisfy southern states, that wanted to preserve the institution of slavery. The act allowed for run away slaves to be hunted down and returned to their past owners, even after they made it to the free states in the North. The Southerners wished to preserve their right to property, which is among the “Unalienable Rights”. Some northern states refuse to recognize the law which infuriated the South because they saw this as an explicit violation of the slave holder’s rights, this intensified the South’s urge to become a separate State.

Introduction - When I think about Slavery, I think about black people and the south, but there is a whole other side to the story of Slavery called the North.In 1860, 476,00 blacks were free. 221,000 of them lived in the North. How Free Were Free Blacks In The North. Blacks in the North were somewhat free in the years just before the Civil War.This can be shown by looking at the three areas of society: Political, Social, and Economical.

The introduction of slavery in the Southern colonies helped the development of their economy. The plantation owners had no choice but to turn to slaves because of the lack of colonial workers and indentured servants. Slaves increased the productivity and profits generated by the huge plantations in the South because they had advantages over indentured servants. It also caused the South grow and develop different from the North, which would later lead to conflict between the two.

They finally settled on the Compromise of 1850. The Compromise of 1850 accepted California as a free state, granted Utah and New Mexico the ability to vote on their status concerning slavery, outlawed the slave trade in Washington D.C., and instituted the fugitive slave law, which forced, by federal law, the North to return escaped slaves to their owners in the South. Many free African Americans were sold into slavery as a result of the law. The Compromise of 1850 was intended to reduce tension between North and South. It ultimately failed and inflated these

For instance, a tremendous part of the South’s agricultural economy were slaves, as plantation owners needed a surplus of workers to maintain the fields. If the South paid their workers, there would be an extreme amount of profit lost due to how many workers were necessary. Therefore, slavery was a part of the South’s economy and was essential to southern lifestyle. On the other hand, the northern industrial economy did not depend on slavery and instead depended on immigrants to work in the factories. These differences of slavery in the economy led to sectionalism in the United States, for northerners did not comprehend why it was necessary to enslave people when their industrial economy strived even without free laborers. After the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act, the North’s sectionalist thinking was uncovered. Northerners were unhappy with the possibility of getting arrested for helping slaves escape, for the majority of the North believed slavery to be unfathomable. As a result, the North opposed the law and mobs were formed to prevent the Fugitive Slave Act’s enforcement. Henceforth, the North retaliated the similarly as the South did with the tariff of 1828; showcasing their sectionalist belief that their ideas of slavery were more important than the

You would think that a society which takes up an institution as immoral and barbaric as slavery would benefit from it on the whole, but that is not the case with the American South. The only people who benefited from slavery were the top 3% of Southern society. For the rest of the people the institution of slavery would prevent them from gaining an education, proper literacy, wealth, and movement up the social ladder. If viewed as an independent nation the South was a socially stagnant aristocracy, extremely dependant on foreign trade , had fairly weak industry, and finally had a small population compared to the North. Perhaps the greatest tragedy was that all those confederate soldiers died for a cause that kept them poor. This is not

Slavery was an institution that caused much division between the north and south of the United States back in the 1800’s that instigated many political, economic and moral fights between northern abolitionists and southern slaveholders. The system was established on the basis of economic profits, cheap labor, and morality of “saving” Africans from their previous lifestyle. The Southern states were notorious slave-holding states, while the North contained few, but far, slave-holders. Despite the number of slaves present in the south, their impact on production effected the economy in the north. The few but proud abolitionists in the north saw right through southerner’s proslavery ideology, and refuted their claims on the grounds of

South Carolina owned more black slaves than other places. South Carolina was called “Negro country”. Children slaves of South Carolina died before reaching the age of 16. White owners would try to erase their black slaves identities so, they would be more productive. Little did we forget we as African-Americans built this country by providing (roads, bridges, factories, farms, towns, and cities). We as blacks even created our own culture that whites could never touch nor take away. Our African-American food created a big influence on food which made food better and flowed through the Atlantic world. Not only food were being spreaded but, ideas about music, dance, religion, and freedom.

Trying to hold the Union together meant trying anything and everything. In 1850 the Fugitive Slave Law was adopted. This law allowed slaveholders to recover slaves who had run away. There was much confusion among congress and the slaveholders with this specific law, ultimately ending in the Compromise of 1850. Slaves whom were free for years, were no longer free in the eyes of the judges who would capture, hold a trial and ship them back to the South for slavery. Lincoln and many white northerners accepted the act for the sake of keeping the Union.

Once Southerners believed they were losing control and possible ability to spread slavery in the United States, they broke away from the Union. In 1861 elite slaveholders did not think their interests could be met, causing them to launch the confederacy. They did not care about only controlling the African Americans; at this point they were out for power, for blood. They lost their grip on the federal government after the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, which caused the power of national state no longer able to be used as a defense to strengthen slavery, but now a weapon to undermine it. They advocated the central importance of slavery and tried to make it seem as if the slavery was the reason for the southern states succession, while

In 1830 slavery was originally sited in the South, where it lives in various structures. African Americans were imprisoned on diminutive farms, big plantations, in cities and towns, within homes, outside the fields, and in industry and transportation. Even if slavery had such a great series of faces, the fundamental concepts were always similar. Slaves were considered possessions, and they were possessions for the reason that they were black. Their rank as property was inflicted by aggression actual or threatened. People, black and white, lived jointly within these limits, and their lives as one took a lot of forms (Solomon, 1855).

During the 1800s The United States of America faced a great divide, with slave states concentrated in the South and free states occupying the North, both sides differed greatly. While the foundation of the South was built and relied on the principles of slavery, the North was vastly different in that the region was built upon a system of industry and manufacturing, where all workers were employed and gainfully compensated. Although these two regions of the country were supposed to stand united, this very apparent social and economic difference between the two regions prompted a silent and tense divide. This strong and polarizing divide prompted abolitionists of the North and slave owners of the South to project their views on subject of

Slavery was a focal point of the Civil War and put our country on a right path towards equal rights for African Americans. However, to say the South fought solely to continue to impose slavery and the North fought solely to end it is a distorted view of what the civil war was actually about. The Civil war was the battle between centralization and decentralization of power between the federal government and the States. The emancipation Proclamation was not signed until two years after the war had started and was in violation of the constitution at the time. The wording of the Emancipation Proclamation also failed to free any slaves that were currently in the Union. (Ulysses S. Grant owned slaves in Ohio)

It is no secret that slavery was a huge part of the southern part of the United States for a very long time. Life below the Mason-Dixon Line was forever changed because of slavery and the effects it had on Americans. It is hard for this generation to imagine the discrimination because America is such a melting pot today. There are still some people who discriminate today, however, it is nothing compared to what it was several years ago. Although slavery was a negative thing in history, it has shaped the South into what we know it is today. The culture and tradition of the South were molded both during and after slavery was in effect. The idea of the South is completely changed today and went from being viewed as nothing but slaves states, to being viewed as a place that is rich in culture and tradition. The positive turn-around the South made is something that is well-respected by many Americans.

“The impact of slavery on the South’s social system, value system, and political system. Despite the distance between slave-owners and non-slave-owners, the South for a variety of reasons had been relatively free of class conflict. But between 1830 and 1860, the hardening of class lines and the widening of the gap between rich and poor began to create more tension between slaveholders and non-slaveholders, tension evidenced in white workers’ protests and in the publication of The Impending Crisis in 1857.” (People and Communities in a Slave Society: The South, 1830–1860, n.d)