The decade of the 1850s was a dispiriting time for
African Americans seeking freedom through the law or through a more personal
form of self-liberation—running away. After the Mexican American War (1848),
events piled upon themselves. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 strengthened the
original Act of 1793. The law made it legal for slaveholders to pursue runaways
into states where slavery was illegal.
As a result, professional slave catchers seized
black men and women, often on the street or at their workplace. After giving
evidence that this person was indeed a fugitive slave to a local justice of the
peace or court, they hastened them south. The evidence the unsavory slave
catchers had was often flimsy or false. While the South had won the legal
victory, the abolitionist cause won a larger victory when northerners witnessed
blacks struggling to escape from their captors. Many northerners acquired a new
understanding of the slave condition and a greater sympathy for the campaign to
end slavery in the United States.
Still, the national government seemed to reflect
the southern view throughout the decade, partly through fear of southern
defection from the Union, partly from the central role of Southern politicians
in national politics. In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act revived the concept of
“popular sovereignty,” meaning that settlers in those territories were free to
determine their own form of government. Free soil and abolitionist settlers
were drawn to Kansas. A state of guerilla warfare followed with proslavery
settlers attacking the Free Soilers and vice versa. The state of Kansas became
known as “bleeding Kansas.” It was here that John Brown received his first
national attention.
In 1857, in the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford,
Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney declared that blacks had no rights that
the white man was bound to observe. This meant that the status of free blacks
was up to the individual states. The federal government could guarantee
nothing. John Brown’s 1859 raid on Harper’s Ferry was a desperate attempt to
inspire slaves to rebellion. All other avenues to national manumission seemed
closed. While it failed, many historians credit Brown’s raid with being the
spark that led to the Civil War.
As the nation approached the Civil War, there was a
free black population of substance in every state. In the North, many were
active in antislavery, African-American churches, and in self-help societies.
Even southern free blacks had been organized into churches and societies,
although their public presentation on all issues was extremely careful not to
offend. The very existence of this class of people raised every question about
liberty and citizenship that the U.S. government tried fervently to ignore.
In this atmosphere, the Civil War began as a war to
save the Union. It was not a war to free the slaves. However, the Union was
threatened by the expanding contradictions inherent in a nation “half slave,
half free.” No sooner had Union troops appeared in the border states, on the
islands off the Atlantic coast, and in the lower Mississippi Valley, than
thousands of blacks took the opportunity to liberate themselves by deserting to
the Yankee camps. A first impulse to send them back to their masters was soon
squelched. The runaways became “contraband,” or confiscated property of war.
Many of them quickly found work within the Union lines and members of their
families began to join them. At the same time, northern blacks, seeking to form
companies and join the army, had initially been rebuffed.
The Confederacy was also quick to see the
advantages of non-enlisted black labor. Free blacks were conscripted to dig
fortifications for the southern army and to labor on roads and in mines. Slaves
accompanied their masters to army camp. They acted as cooks, grooms, and
personal attendants. Early in the war, slaveholders hired out their slaves to
the army but when slaves availed themselves of the chance to change sides, the
same slaveholders and others decided to send their slaves to interior
plantations, far away from the battles.
This enormous upheaval and movement of the black
population within the South created unique opportunities for self-liberation;
this had taken place on an extraordinary scale even before the federal
government acknowledged its reality.
1. Why were
the 1850s a daunting time for African Americans in search of freedom?
a.
There was very little aid from northern
abolitionist groups.
b.
The southern slaveholders were growing more
powerful.
c.
The
Fugitive Slave Law was in effect and was being enforced.
d.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act had been revoked.
2. Why was
the Kansas-Nebraska Act a blow to the emancipation movement?
a.
It showed that the government was undecided about
the spread of slavery.
b.
It
allowed slavery to continue by authorizing popular sovereignty in some states.
c.
This ruling was a sign to the members of the
southern legislature.
d.
The northern states were too far away to fight
proslavery groups.
3. Which of
the following is true about John
Brown’s relationship with slaves?
a.
John Brown came from the North and was uninterested
in slavery.
b.
He worked for the welfare of the slaves within the
existing laws.
c.
John Brown agreed with Justice Taney’s decision in
Dred Scott v. Sandford.
d.
He
thought that every person should be free, and that slavery was wrong.
4. Why did
many of the slaveholders choose to send their slaves into interior plantations
after the Civil War began?
a.
Their concern was their crops and they did not want
to lose their slaves in battle.
b.
Neither the Confederate nor the Union armies were
interested in the labor of slaves.
c.
The slaveholders did not believe that the slaves
would be of any help in the war.
d.
They
did not want to give the slaves the opportunity to desert and join the
Union.
5. Give two examples to show that the United States
government did not want to make a stand on slavery. Clearly explain each one.
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