Slaves preparing the ground to plant cotton ona southern plantain
In the year 1810 there were 7.2 million people in the
United States. For 1.2 million of these people the
words of the Declaration of Independence “that all men
are ereated equal” were far from true. They were
black and they were slaves.
‘Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of
Independence, owned slaves himself. So did George
Washington and other leaders of the movement for
American independence and freedom, Both Jefferson
and Washington had uneasy consciences about this.
But other big landowners in southern states such as
Virginia defended slavery. They asked what they
thought was an unanswerable question. How could
they cultivate their fields of tobacco, rice and cotton
without slave workers?
In the north of the United Seates farms were smaller
and the climate was cooler. Farmers there did not,
ced slaves to work the land for them. Som
northerners opposed slavery for moral and religions
reasons also. Many were abolitionists that is, people
who wanted to end or abolish slavery by law. By the
carly nineteenth century many northern states had
passed laws abolishing slavery inside their own
boundaries. In 1808 they also persuaded Congress to
make it illegal for ships to bring any new slaves from
Africa into the United States.
By the 1820s southern and northern politicians were
arguing fiercely about whether slavery should be
permitted in the new territories that were then being
settled in the West. The argument centered on theMissouri territory, which was part of the Louisiana
Purchase. Southerners argued that slave labor should
beallowed in Missouri and all the other lands that
formed part of the Lonisiana Purchase. Both
abolitionists and other northerners objected strongly
to this. Northern farmers moving west did not want
to find themselves competing for land against
southerners who had slaves to do their work for
them. Eventually the two sides agreed ona
compromise. Slavery would be permitted in the
Missouri and Arkansas territories but banned in lands
to the west and north of Missouri.
‘The Missouri Compromise, as it was called, did not
end the disputes berween North and South. By the
carly 1830s another angry argument was going on.
This time the argument began over import duties.
Northern states favored such duties because they
protected their young industries against the
competition of foreign manufactured goods.
Southern states opposed them because southerners:
relied upon foreign manufacturers for both
necessities and luxuries of many kinds. Import duties
would raise the prices of such goods.
During the argument abont import duties a southern
political leader named John G. Calhoun raised a
‘much more serious question. He claimed thata state
had the right to disobey any federal law ifthe state
believed that the law would harm its interests. This
Hiestsimeon a coon planation bese she Misisipph River.
idea was strongly supported by other southerners. It
became known as the “states” rights doctrine.
Calhoun's claim was strongly denied by Senator
Daniel Webster of Massachusetts. The power to
decide whether the federal authorities were acting
rightly or wrongly belonged to the Supreme Court,
said Webster, not to individual states. Ifstates were
given the right to disobey the federal government, he
said, it would become “a mere rope of sand” and lose
its power to hold the country together. Webster’s
speech was a warning to Americans that the states”
rights doctrine could become serious threat fo the
unity of the United States
Tn the next twenty years the United States grew
much bigger. In 1846 it divided the Oregon
Territory with Britain, In 1848 it took vast areas of
the Southwest from Mexico. Obtaining these new
lands raised again the question that the Missouri
‘Compromise of 1820 had tried to settle—shonld.
slavery be allowed on new American territory? Once
again southerners answered “yes.” And once again
northemers said “‘no.””
In 1850 Congress voted in favor of another
‘compromise. California was admitted to the United
States as a free state, while people who lived in Utah
and New Mexico were given the right to decide for
themselves whether or not to allow slavery.‘To persuade southerners to agree to these
arrangements, Congress passed a new Fugitive Slave
‘Act. This was a law to make it easier for southerners
to recapture slaves who escaped from their masters
and fled for safety to free states. The law called for
“severe penalties on anyone assisting Negroes to’
escape from bondage.
Slave owners had long offered rewards, or
“bounties,” for the return of runaway slaves. This
had created a group of men called “bounty hunters,”
‘These men made their living by hunting down
fugitive slaves in order to collect the rewards on
them. With the snpport of the new law, bounty
hunters now began searching free states for escaped
slaves.
‘The Fugitive Slave Act angered many northerners
who had not so far given much thought to the rights,
and wrongs of slavery. Some northern judges refiased
to enforce it. Other people provided food, money,
and hiding places for fugitives. They mapped out
escape routes and moved runaway slaves by night
from one secret hiding place to another. The final
stop on these escape routes was Canada, where
fugitives could be followed by neither American laws
nor bounty hunters,
Because railroads were the most modern form of
transport at this time, this carefully organized system
was called the “Underground Railroad.” People
providing money to pay for it were called
“stockholders.”” Guides who led the fugitives to
freedom were called “conductors,” and hiding places
were called “depots.” Alll these were terms that were
used on ordinary railroads.
Many conductors on the Underground Railroad
were former slaves themselves. Often they traveled
deep into slave states to make contact with runaways.
This was a dangerous thing to do. IFconductors were
captured they could end up as slaves again or dead.
As the number of fugitive slaves increased, gunfights
between bounty hunters and conductors became
more and more common.
In 1854 a Senator named Stephen Douglas persuaded
Congress to end the Missouri Compromise. West of
Missouri, on land that was supposed to be closed to
sliyery, was a western territory called Kansas. In
1854 Congress voted to let its people decide for
themselves whether to permit slavery the
William Lloyd Garrison and the
abolitionists
Some Americans opposed to slavery were prepared
to wait for it to come to an end gradually and by
agreement with the slave owners. Others wanted
to end it immediately and without compromises
‘The best known spokesman of the people in this,
second group was a Boston writer named William
Lloyd Garrison
‘On January 1, 1831, Garrison produced the first
issue of The Liberator, a newspaper dedicated to
the abolition of slavery. “On this subject I do not
wish to think, or speak, or write with moder-
ation,” he wrote, “I will not retreat a single inch—
and I will be heard.”
Garrison meant what he said. He became well-
Known for the extreme way in which he expressed
his views. He printed, and sometimes invented,
sensational stories about how cruelly black slaves
were treated, He attacked slave owners as evil
monsters, about whom nothing good could be
said.
Sometimes Garrison went too far even for his
fellow northerners, In 1835 an angry mob showed
its dislike of his opinions by parading him through
the streets of Boston with a rope around his neck.
But Garrison refused to be silenced. His blood-
thirsty calls for action and sensational stories
continued to offend both the supporters of slavery
and those who wanted to bring it to an end peace-
fully, Buc they convinced many other people that
slavery. was evil and that it must be abolished at
‘once—even if the only way to do this was by war.
A race began to win control of Kansas. Pro-slavery
immigrants poured in from the South and anti-
slavery immigrants from the North. Each group was
dezcrmined to outnumber the other. Soon fighting
and killing began. Pro-slavery raiders from Missouri
burned a town called Lawrence and killed some of its
people. In reply, a half-mad abolitionist named John
Brown led a raid in which a number of supporters of
slavery were killed. Because of all the fighting and
killing in the territory Americans everywhere began
referring to it as “bleeding Kansas.