Fugitive Slave Law example essay topic

April 30, 1998 Essay: Causes of the American Civil War The American Civil War was a military conflict between the United States of America (the Union), and 11 secessionist Southern states, organized as the Confederate States of America (the Confederacy). It was the culmination of four decades of intense sectional conflict and it reflected deep-seated economic, social, and political differences between the North and the South. One of the major causes of the Civil War was the seemingly endless political disputes over slavery in the Mexican Cession and Louisiana Purchase territories. It was imperative that the Democratic and Whig political leaders maintain harmony between their Southern and Northern supporters, thus, the platforms of both during presidential elections like that of 1848 tried to avoid that particular slavery question. But the extension of slavery into the new territories was one of the largest issues of the time, and with growing opposition from the North, evasion of it became increasingly difficult.

Another significant cause of the war was the growth of different responses to antislavery practices such as the Underground Railroad and reactions to runaway slaves and the Fugitive Slave laws that spurred from all sections of the country. Finally, there was the economic distress factor, of both foreign and domestic roots, that included everything from tariffs to the financial crash of 1857. These in turn caused sectional disputes over the use of the federal government's public lands. In early 1848, when gold was discovered in California, 'a horde of adventurers poured into the valleys.

' ; (Bailey, 400). 'Free-soilers'; and '; argued over the proposed issue of slavery in the territories, and thus, whether the terrain itself was suitable for a slave economy. In Congress on August 8, 1846, Pennsylvania Representative David Wilmot moved an amendment: 'that, as an express and fundamental condition of the acquisition of any territory from the Republic of Mexico... neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory,' ; (CG, 1217) releasing the 'pent-up ire'; of northern Democrats, many of whom cared less about the slavery issue itself than about their own power within the party. But the northern Whigs, who had a more consistent antislavery 'record', volunteered support for the proviso.

'This bipartisan northern coalition in the House passed it over the united opposition of southern Democrats and Whigs. ' ; (McPherson, 53). Normally, as in cases dealing with tariffs, the Bank, and federal aid for internal improvement, Congress would have been divided along party lines. 'This was a dire omen.

' ; (McPherson, 53). In 1854, Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas proposed the division of the Territory of Nebraska into two territories, that of Kansas and Nebraska. 'Their status regarding slavery would be settled by popular sovereignty - a democratic concept to which Douglas and his western constituents were deeply attached. ' ; (Bailey, 414). It was the general assumption that, due to the slavery standing of the surrounding states, that Kansas and Nebraska would become a slave state and a free state, respectively. This 'Kansas-Nebraska scheme'; would be a downright revocation of the Missouri Compromise of 1820.

The plan soon became the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and northerners, who 'regarded the repeal of the Missouri Compromise as an intolerable breach of faith... would henceforth resist to the last trench all future southern demands for slave territory. ' ; (Bailey, 415). However, when pioneers started settling in Kansas, groups of free-soilers, like the New England Emigrant Aid Company, came as well, angering southerners because 'the northern 'Neb rascals,' allegedly by foul means, were now apparently trying to ' both Kansas and Nebraska. ' ; (Bailey, 421).

In 1857, the slavery supporters drew up the Lecompton Constitution, supported by President James Buchanan, not for the people of Kansas to vote for, but to accept and vote on whether it should allow slavery or abolish it. If the latter was voted for, slave-owners already in Kansas would be permitted to keep their slaves. Fortunately, Senator Douglas intervened, and the people thus voted on the entire 'constitution. ' ; But the most important outcome of the whole affair was that Buchanan had opposed the northern and southern Democrats.

Until then, the Democrats had been the one remaining national party, since the Whigs had disintegrated and the Republican party was sectional. After the Lecompton Constitution incident, the Democratic party was shattered. On all but one issue, antebellum southerners stood for states' rights and a weak federal government. The exception was the fugitive slave law of 1850, which 'gave the national government more power than any other law yet passed by Congress. ' ; (McPherson, 78).

Article IV, Section 2 of the Constitution stipulated that any 'person held to service or labor in one state'; who escaped to another 'shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor shall be due. ' ; The Constitution did not state how this was to be accomplished, and when northern states began enacting personal liberty laws, and 'conductors'; of the Underground Railroad started rescuing perhaps several hundred slaves each year, slave-owners began crying out that the Fugitive Slave Law passed in 1793 wasn't effective enough, and demanding a new one. In some areas of the North, owners couldn't reclaim their escaped property without the help of federal marshals. Black leaders and sympathetic whites in numerous communities formed vigilance committees that cooperated with the legendary Underground Railroad and attempted to resist such efforts. 'Like a free California, northern aid to escaping slaves was an insult to southern honor. ' ; (McPherson, 79).

Senator James Mason of Virginia once said, 'Although the loss of property is felt, the loss of honor is felt still more. ' ; (Quotation from Nevins, Emergence, 489). But northern abolitionists couldn't ignore the moral issues in slavery. In response to attempts by President Fillmore to recapture an 'escaped slave,' ; the pastor of the fugitive's church sent a defiant message: 'I would rather lie all my life in jail, and starve there, than refuse to protect one of these parishioners of mine. ' ; When the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was passed, it forbade runaway slaves from testifying and receiving a trial by jury. Worse, the northerners suspected bribery of federal commissioners who handled fugitive cases: if the runaway was freed, he would receive five dollars; if the fugitive was not, the commissioner would receive ten.

Southerners claimed the prices differed according to the amount of paperwork associated with each. The abolitionists, who worked harder through the Underground Railroad to free slaves after the Fugitive Slave law of 1850 was passed, regarded their moral judgement's 'in some ways, more galling'; than the 'theft'; of slaves from their owners, and thus 'reflected not only a holier-than-thou attitude but a refusal to obey the laws solemnly passed by Congress. ' ; (Bailey, 403-404). But northerners who helped slaves escape were subject to heavy fines, jail, and sometimes an order to aid the slave-catchers, which 'rubbed salt into old sores.

' ; (Bailey, 407). In 1857 the United States was struck by a short but severe depression. There were three basic causes for this 'Panic of 1857'; . Perhaps the most important was the interruption in the flow of European capital into American investments as a result of the Crimean War, which lasted from 1854 to 1856. The European conflicts during those two years cut off Russian grain from the market, and 'American exports mushroomed to meet the need. ' ; (McPherson, 189).

This intensified a surge of speculation in the western lands, much of it over-speculation. Several years of over-speculation in railroads as well as the lands was another cause of the panic. Besides all of this, the decade-long expansion of all economic indices had also produced rapid rises in the prices of bonds and stocks. The North blamed the Panic on low tariffs. Horace Greeley, writer of the New York Tribune, wrote in 1857: 'No truth of mathematics is more clearly demonstrable than that the ruin about us is fundamentally attributable to the destruction of the Protective [Walker] Tariff. ' ; The South, which had suffered much less than the industrial North, saw the Panic as proof of the superiority of the Southern economy in general and slavery in particular.

The North's financial distress added impetus to the idea of using the federal government's vast land for three proposed land-grant measures: a homestead act, a Pacific railroad act, and grants to states in order to establish agricultural and mechanical colleges. Free land would help farmers ruined by the Panic to get a new start. Labor reformer George Henry Evans believed that homesteads would also give unemployed workingmen new opportunities as independent landowners and raise the wages of those laborers who were still stuck behind. A transcontinental railroad would 'tap the wealth of the West'; as well as bind the country together, provide employment, and increase the prosperity of all regions.

But most southerners were completely against these maneuvers. They were convinced that the homestead act would fill up the West with settlers hostile to slavery. One native of Mississippi declared, 'Better for us that these territories should remain a waste, a howling wilderness, trod only by red hunters then be so settled. ' ; Southerners were also uninterested in using public lands for schools that would be 'mostly filled with Yankees. ' ; Lastly, a Pacific railroad, with a likely terminus at St. Louis or Chicago, did not have much in the package for them.

Thus the opposing North and South bickered over the use of public lands until the votes in Congress were made. There were many circumstances that caused the outbreak of the American Civil War in the 19th century. The greatest factors were the arguments over the slavery status of proposed states, hostile feelings produced by mixed reactions to fugitive slaves and the means of catching or protecting them, and the Panic of 1857, which also led to bellicose sentiments and actions over the uses of public land. Besides these, there were secondary reasons, as well, numerous and piled-up from decades of conflicting interests. All of these contributed in producing, measured in physical devastation and human lives, the costliest war in the experience of the American people.

Bibliography

American Civil War. ' ; - Microsoft Encarta '95. CD ROM. 1994 Bailey, Thomas A.
and David M. Kennedy. The American Pageant. Lexington, Massachusetts: D.C. Heath and Company, 1994.
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Congressional Globe, 29 Congress, 1 Sess. Fried heim, William, and Ronald Jackson. Freedom's Unfinished Revolution. New York: American Social History Productions, 1996.
Mcpherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Nevins, Allan. The Emergence of Lincoln: Douglas, Buchanan, and Party Chaos. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1950.
Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Union. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1947.