A Nation Divided - The Issue of Slavery

In the late fifteenth century the Dominican friar Bartholomeo de las Casas, suggested that
Africans be brought to America to perform the hard physical labor that seemed to be killing the
native Indians in Spain’s American colonies. De las Casas, who was a kind, humane man, soon
came to regret this suggestion. Spanish, Portuguese, English and Dutch ship captains began a
cruel business of trading European products for African captives and transporting them to the
Spanish, French and English colonies in the New World to be sold as slaves.

Until very recently in human history, slavery has been accepted as a normal institution. The Old
and New Testaments, as well as the Muslim Qu’ran exhort slaves to obey their masters and
masters to treat slaves (and animals) with kindness and consideration. It is not surprising
therefore, that Muslim merchants encouraged Africans to engage in intertribal wars that resulted
in captives whom they could then buy as slaves, or that Christian traders eagerly bargained for
these unfortunate men, women and children, and loaded them like cattle onto ships. In fact,
Christian slave traders and slave owners alike could take satisfaction in the knowledge that they
were saving the souls of these Africans by converting them to Christianity. It was easy for
Europeans to assume that a life of labor in the New World was preferable to a “barbaric” life of
idleness, warfare, cannibalism, and idol worship in the jungles and savannahs of Africa.

In England’s southern colonies like Virginia, the extensive cultivation of tobacco and cotton
called for large numbers of slaves, a situation that continued until the end of the colonial period.
In 1776 Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…”

But at that time a considerable number of Americans were in fact, slaves. Thomas Jefferson
himself owned large numbers of slaves as did also George Washington and other highly
respected founders of the republic. Troubled by this contradiction, Jefferson wrote, “I tremble for
my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever”.

Jefferson, like many of his contemporaries, accepted regarded slavery as a pernicious institution
that would eventually disappear. For a time it seemed that he was correct. The North was a region
of small independent farmers, industry and trade. The economy of the north did not really favor
the use of slaves, and by 1804 all of the northern states had abolished slavery. In the South,
plantation owners used gangs of slaves to work enormous fields of cotton and tobacco, but for a
time, it appeared that slavery would soon cease to be profitable even in these regions. In 1808 the
United States government prohibited the importation of slaves, and American warships patrolled
the seas to intercept slave ships.

But in 1794 an American named Eli Whitney invented the Cotton Gin, a machine for separating
cotton seeds from cotton fibers. As the cotton gin came into widespread use, plantation owners
found that they could grow and market much larger quantities of cotton. Cotton became the all-
important product of the South and British cloth factories came to depend on the large scale
import of Southern cotton. “Cotton is king” became a popular saying.

The invention of the cotton gin gave a new impulse to the institution of slavery. Even though the
slaves could no longer enter the United States legally, the existing population of four million or
so slaves guaranteed the continued existence of the institution. As the 19th century progressed the
question of slavery increasingly divided the American. As more and more northerners began to
attack slavery as a wicked, oppressive institution, Southerners began to defend it – arguing that
slaves were inferior human beings whose natural destiny was to work for and be civilized by the
white man. They even quoted the Bible (Genesis 9:25) to support this assertion: In the biblical
account, Noah’s son Canaan, father of Ham (supposed to be the ancestor of the black race) sinned
by looking at Noah as he lay drunk and naked. Upon waking from his drunken stupor, Noah says,
“Cursed be Canaan; a slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers. Cursed be Canaan; a slave of
slaves shall he be to his brothers”.

In 1831 a slave named Nat Turner led an unsuccessful slave rebellion in which many white
people were killed. The fear that this event engendered in southern whites led to repressive laws
that dictated even harsher treatment of slaves – for example, prohibitions against teaching blacks
to read and write. Southerners blamed northerners for inciting slaves to rebellion and for
harboring escaped slaves. In 1850 the southern states induced Congress to pass the Fugitive Slave
Act, which required northerners to hand over escaped slaves to state authorities who were then to
return them to their masters.

Northerners, for their part, began to take a determined stand against slavery. Groups of
abolitionists (people who called for the immediate abolition of slavery) formed in most of the

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northern states. They denounced the Fugitive Slave Act and proudly collaborated with the
“underground railroad” an elaborate web of escape routes and safe houses for aiding escaped
slaves to reach Canada.

Northern citizens and political leaders tended to view abolitionists as fanatics, but they generally
favored limiting slavery to those states where it already existed. Southerners, on the other hand,
conscious that their smaller population gave them fewer seats in the House of Representatives,
feared that the North might one day use its majority to abolish slavery. They were anxious to
have new territories admitted to the Union as “slave states” so as to strengthen their
representation in the Senate. Thus, southerners were anxious to see Texas admitted to the union
(as a slave state) whereas many northerners opposed it. Much of the popular opposition to the
Mexican War came from northerners who regarded it as a southern conspiracy aimed at seizing
land from Mexico in order to extend the territory in which slavery could be practiced.
In their enthusiasm for extending the practice of slavery, a number of southerners engaged in a
practice known as filibustering –attempts by a private citizen to gain control of foreign countries.
John Quitman recruited southerners for a military conquest of Cuba until he was stopped by the
U.S. government. In 1857, John Walker actually succeeded in making himself dictator of
Nicaragua, where he reinstituted slavery. In a number of southern cities, meetings were held to
raise money in support of his enterprise. After holding power for two years, Walker was forced to
return to the U.S. but reappeared in Nicaragua later that same year, only to be captured by U.S.
naval forces and made to stand trial for violation of U.S. neutrality laws. He eventually made his
way back to Nicaragua yet a third time, where he was finally captured by a British naval captain
and executed by local authorities.

The issue of whether to permit or forbid slavery in territories admitted as new states led to
acrimonious debates in Congress and violence in some of the territories in question. After Kansas
was opened to settlement in 1854 pro-slavery and anti-slavery partisans rushed into the territory
and fought one another for control of the state. One fanatical abolitionist named John Brown
travelled to Kansas and, together with his sons, took a leading part in the violence that came to be
known as “bleeding Kansas”. In the U.S. Senate, the Southern Congressman Charles Preston
walked into the office of Senator Charles Sumner and beat him with a cane in retaliation for a
speech Sumner had made criticizing the pro-slavery advocates in Kansas.

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin published in 1852, may not have been a great
work of fiction, but it became immensely popular in many parts of the world and greatly
increased popular sentiment against slavery. Stowe’s melodramatic novel attempted to portray
the evils of slavery through the experiences of Elisa a slave who escapes to the north with her
son, and Uncle Tom, a loyal, gentle house slave who is sold to Simon Legree, a northern slave
dealer who brutally mistreats Uncle Tom and eventually brings about his death. The author was
careful to represent southerners as well-meaning Christians unwittingly caught up in an
inherently evil institution (Simon Legree is of northern origin whereas George Shelby, who tries

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to rescue Tom, is the son of a southern slave-owner). Even so, southerners were outraged. They
denounced the novel as a vicious attack on their way of life and took harsh measures to prevent
its sale and distribution. Years later, during the Civil War, President Lincoln is said to have
greeted Harriett Beecher Stowe saying, “So, you’re the little woman who started this big war”.

During the decade leading up to the Civil War, feelings about slavery became increasingly bitter
in both north and south. Ironically, the majority of southern citizens owned no slaves and most of
those who kept slaves owned only one or two, who usually worked alongside their masters and
were treated as members of the family. But the wealthy, influential class of great landowners and
slave owners promoted a public mentality that regarded slavery as a God-ordained institution,
essential to the southern way of life. Increasingly repressive measures were adopted in order to
prevent slaves from escaping or rebelling; clergymen were pressured to avoid criticism of slavery
in their sermons; anyone who dared speak out against slavery on southern soil was signaled out
as a dangerous agitator and threatened with legal prosecution or mob violence. Perceptive
northern writers like Emerson and Thoreau pointed out that the institution of slavery kept not
only the black man, but also the white man in bondage.

Although the vast majority of Northerners had no strong feelings either for or against slavery, the
actions of fanatical abolitionists like John Brown filled Southerners with fear and paranoia. In
1859, John Brown and his sons (already famous for their activities in “bleeding Kansas”) seized
the Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in order to lead a slave uprising. Brown’s sons
were killed and he himself was captured and hanged, but many Northerners hailed him as a hero.
Southerners, however saw this incident as one more indication that they could not continue
indefinitely to live in peace with the anti-slavery North.

The conflict over slavery reached a climax with the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. During
his presidential campaign, Lincoln had advocated an end to the further extension of slavery,
while promising to respect the institution where it already existed. But southerners no longer
trusted northern politicians. Shortly after the results of the election were known, South Carolina
announced its secession (withdrawal) from the Union. Soon other states followed until, by March
of 1861, eleven southern states had seceded from the United States in order form a new nation
which they called The Confederate States of America (often referred to as the Confederacy). The
secession of the southern states did not immediately bring about war. But southerners were
determined to take possession of federal forts located within their territories. One of these was
Fort Sumter which guarded the harbor of Charleston in South Carolina. On April 12, 1861, Fort
Sumter was bombarded and forced to surrender. Southerners were enthusiastic over this defiance
while in the north, thousands of young men eagerly responded to Lincoln’s call for troops to
defend the Union. The Civil War had begun. It was to be the bloodiest war ever fought on the
American continent.
- Ronald A. Perry / UTP / 04-09