Prompt: "How did state regulation of citizenship and slavery inform the social, economic, and political development of the United States of America from the signing of the American Constitution in 1787 to the conclusion of the American Civil War in 1865?"
Thesis: The History of citizenship and slavery in the United States origins comes in the foundations of our nation and created a chain reaction of events that resulted in the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery. From the days of the Early Republic to events such as the Missouri Compromise, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the Dred Scott ruling. The question of citizenship and slavery paved the way for many social, economic, and political changes in the United States.
1: The Missouri Compromise
In 1819, the territory of Missouri petitioned to be admitted into the United States. Missouri wanted to be admitted into the Union as a slave state. At the time this would have unbalanced the amount of states that were free and the amount of states that were slave. In 1820, in order to maintain balance Congress constructed a two-part compromise. Missouri would be admitted into the Union as a slave state and Maine would enter the Union as a free state, Congress also passed an amendment that drew a line across the Louisiana Territory which established a boundary between free and slave states.
http://www.mrvanduyne.com/youngnation/change/misscomp.html
2: The Interstate Slave Trade
In 1808, the international slave trade was over, but in the United States slavery was still widely practiced in the south. In the South slavery was necessary for daily life. Southerners were able to maintain a competitive advantage over the north with the use of slave labor in means of production. With this advantage, the Interstate Slave Trade was born and slaves were bought, sold, and traded across state lines in the South.
http://usslave.blogspot.com/2012/04/forks-of-road-slave-market-at-natchez.html
Abolitionism was the movement to end slavery, whether formal or informal. I 1831 the abolitionist movement began to take hold in the Northern United States. Newspapers and magazines began to publish articles condemning the act of slavery and the call for immediate freedom of all enslaved people. William Lloyd Garrison and John Brown were famous abolitionist from opposite ends of the spectrum. While Garrison proposed abolition through democracy, John Brown wanted to end slavery by any means possible.
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/abolitionist-movement
4: Seneca Falls Convention
July 19, 1848 at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York the first Women’s rights convention in the United States was held. The convention was organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The two women met at the 1840 Anti-Slavery Convention in London. Women’s Suffrage and the abolitionist movement in the United States were closely linked. But the country was only ready for one new social movement at the time. It would only take two decades after the Seneca Falls Convention for slavery to be abolished but women’s suffrage would not be adopted until 1920 with the 19th Amendment.
http://www.historynet.com/seneca-falls-convention
Harriet Beecher Stowe first published installments of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in an antislavery newspaper, but her book was to be published in 1852 and become an overnight sensation. Uncle Tom’s Cabin depicts slavery and the system of slavery at odds with the ideology of Christianity. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was one of the first Anti-Slavery novels and had profound power on the communities in the north.
https://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/utc/
Fugitive Slaves were runaway slaves that managed to escape to a free state. the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 passed by congress, allowed citizens to assist in the capture of runaway slaves and it also denied slaves the right to a jury trial and increased the penalty for interfering with the rendition process and $1,000 and six months in jail.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive_slaves_in_the_United_States
In order to avert the coming sectional crisis between the North and South, Senator Henry Clay passed a series of resolutions in early 1850. The Compromise of 1850 ended the slave trade in Washington D.C. while creating the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, making it easier for southerners to recover any fugitive slaves. The Compromise also addressed the territories that were acquired from the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
http://www.history.com/topics/compromise-of-1850
Early in 1854, Senator Stephen Douglas drafted a new bill that divided the land of Missouri into two territories, Kansas and Nebraska. As a proponent of popular sovereignty, Douglas argued settlement of the new territories to decide if slavery would be legal there, even though it violated the Missouri Compromise. Settlers from the North moved to Kansas-Nebraska territory to vote opposed to the state becoming a slave state, while southern settlers and citizens of Missouri moved to the Kansas-Nebraska territory to vote in favor of it becoming a slave state. The territory erupted in violence and the seeds of separation were planted.
http://www.history.com/topics/kansas-nebraska-act
John Brown was a radical abolitionist who believed that slavery was to be destroyed by any means necessary. John Brown believed that slavery should even be overthrown through violence. John Brown was famous for his 1859 raid on the federal arsenal at Harper Ferry. He and his sons attempted to capture supplies and arms at Harpers Ferry in order to spark a slave rebellion. His attack was a failure, and he was later hung, but in the North he was regarded as a hero and in the south a terrorist.
http://www.history.com/topics/john-brown
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, he served his presidency from March 1861 until his assassination by John Wilkes Booth in April of 1865. Abraham Lincoln was famous for his Emancipation Proclamation, issued in 1863 and it freed all slaves in the rebellious states during the Civil War. The Emancipation Proclamation paved the way for eventual abolition of slavery. Abraham Lincoln is regarded as one of the United States greatest Presidents for his ability to reunite the Union and the abolition of slavery.
http://www.biography.com/people/abraham-lincoln-9382540
After the election of Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War was inevitable. Southern States had already begun to seceded from the Union because they feared that with the election of a republican president the southern way of life was at risk. Once South Carolina seceded in December of 1860 before Lincoln had even taken office a domino effect occurred and split the nation in half, sparking the Civil War.
http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/secession
(p. VII) Plenty of stories are known of the hard cruelty that was found in the South, but Sojourner was one of the few African American slaves, who revealed what life was like as a slave of the North. Similarly to Southern slaves Isabella was separated and sold to another master at the early age of 9. Her life seemed no where near as harsh as other stories appear to be, having once been freed in 1827, she took a case to court in order to have her oldest son returned to New York from Alabama so that he would not have to live his whole life in slavery, since he had been illegally traded south.
http://thepoliticalgirl.blogspot.com/2011/02/from-sojourner-to-michelle-ten-black.html
13:William Lloyd Garrison
(p. 94)He was the first man to public ally make it know what his stand point was on the idea of slavery. Garrison with many other abolitionists in order to spread the knowledge that slavery was wrong and that African Americans deserved the same freedom he had himself. Not only was he an abolitionist, he was also a feminist, which at the time did not always sit well with other men.
Source: http://www.accessible-archives.com/2013/09/william-lloyd-garrison-non-resistance/
The state regulation of slavery and citizenship profoundly changed the United States during the early 19th Century. Slavery was the driving factor for many of the events that happened from the creation of the Missouri Compromise to the development and consequences of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Without slavery these events would not have happened and the Civil War would have never occurred. After researching the early 19th century it is clear that slavery was the driving factor for the secession of southern states sparking the Civil War. The development of the institution of slavery shaped and defined our economy, politics, society, and identity as a nation in the early 19th century and would forever have racial repercussions that continue to divide our nation to this day.
