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AP®︎/College US History
Course: AP®︎/College US History > Unit 5
Lesson 3: The Compromise of 1850Increasing political battles over slavery in the mid-1800s
The video explores the history of slavery in the United States, focusing on the 1800s. It discusses how the expansion of territories exacerbated the issue, leading to political battles and compromises. The video also highlights the rising tensions between the North and South, culminating in the election of Abraham Lincoln, an anti-slavery advocate.
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- Why didn't slaves flee to the non-state territories like Oklahoma at the time to avoid the Fugitive Slave Act ()? 5:30(9 votes)
- in the clay compromise a law was passed that the slave states could bring the run-away slaves and could punish them in anyway
this is why they didint flee(6 votes)
- Is the photo of a whipped slave legitimate or is it a sketch?(2 votes)
- From the author:That is a real photograph of a man named Gordon who escaped from slavery in 1863. You can learn more about him here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_(slave)(14 votes)
- Atdoesn't Kim contradict herself? She says first that Lincoln didn't think he could "legally or constitutionally" abolish slavery. But then she says that he didn't think the constitution allowed it. If the constitution didn't allow it then why can't he constitutionally get rid of it? 11:05(3 votes)
- there was far to many supporters of slavery in the goverment, many of the founding fathers owned slaves including geoge washington and tomas jefferson
it was only posible to abolish slavery AFTER the slave states receded from the union(5 votes)
- Did the fact that Mexico did not allowed slavery influenced Texas' revolution?(0 votes)
- It did affect the situation. The main reason for discontent between the Americans and the Mexicans was the different ways in which the two parties wanted to do, well, literally anything, and their hardheadedness and unwillingness to change.
There was lots of empty and fertile land in Texas. Americans saw that land and an opportunity to get rich on it. So thousands of Americans began settling in Texas, many bringing their slaves with them. The Mexicans had originally supported the American migration into Texas, but the majority of the newly arrived Americans made themselves obnoxious to the Mexicans by disobeying whatever laws they chose and ignoring any attempt to enforce them. Eventually, the Mexican government banned any more Americans from entering Texas. This ban didn't stop the Americans from coming. The settlers either circumvented the laws or simply ignored them. In addition, Santa Anna (the Mexican President) had a policy of keeping the government centralized. This mean little to no government interaction with the settlers in Texas. Not that many of the settlers wanted interaction with the government, but it was a great excuse to start a revolution on the basis of "No taxation without representation!" Some of the most influential American settlers got together and created the Texan Declaration of Independence, and the revolution escalated from there.
Sorry this was such a long answer, but I hope it helps give you the whole picture!(10 votes)
- wait so in the fugitive slave act did it say anyone who found a former slave who escapes has to help return them to their former owner or was it just applying the to the police and law officers?(3 votes)
- So. I read the act from beginning to end. It seems to allow the "owner" of an enslaved person who finds out where her property has gone across a state line to file a case at home, which will result in a local judge issuing a document that compels the legal authorities in the place where the escaped enslaved person has taken up residence, to arrest that enslaved person and return her to the "owner". It also provides that the expenses incurred in the arrest, trial and transportation of that escaped "property" be paid for (though doesn't say by whom). It seems, also, to allow "slave catchers" to round up escaped enslaved people, even in "non slave" staates or territories, and return them to their "owners" in the slave states.(4 votes)
- How much did the slaves cost? In the 1800s(2 votes)
- the price, to purchase, in 1860 was about $1-2,000.(3 votes)
- Did the fact that Mexico did not allowed slavery influenced Texas' revolution?(3 votes)
- Yes. This was one reason why white people who had taken up residence in Texas (with their black slaves) moved to detatch the territory from Mexico.(3 votes)
- How come the states in the USA voted to add a slave state like Texas? I thought they didn't want slavery to expand.(2 votes)
- Because the US wasn't all abolitionist. The pro-slavery people still were in power in Congress, so they could help bring it in.(3 votes)
- Kim is Amazing! I wish she did all the history content. :)(4 votes)
- Kim said "in 1860, the things that they're interested in, their goals and aims are completely different. And the Republican Party is an anti-slavery party. They're deliberately and publicly against slavery."
Are you referring to the Republican Party interest being different than the Whigs?(3 votes)- I think what Kim meant by that was that the Republican Party in the 1860's had completely different goals and aims than what the current Republican Party has today. Of course the anti-slavery sentiment was also a difference, because slavery doesn't exist today.
Hope this helped! :)(2 votes)
Video transcript
- [Voiceover] So Kim, in the last video we started talking about how slavery has been an issue in the United States really since its founding
with the Revolutionary War. And we see some images here of slavery. This was a particularly famous image that really kind of
helped spark indignation in the North among Abolitionists 'cause you can see how this
person was beaten or whipped. - [Voiceover] Yes absolutely. - [Voiceover] So it's kind of, you know, and today we all think it's
morally reprehensible thing but you go back not too far
in the whole scope of history. We're going to the early 1800s, and this was something that was debated. It was slavery was allowed in a large chunk of the United States. And in the last video, we talked about that this issue of slavery
only got exacerbated the more territory that was added. You have the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 that adds all of this territory. You start having states getting carved. Once you get a critical population, a critical mass of
people in a certain state they can apply to be, or
in a certain territory, they can apply to be a state. And as each of these states are added, and they want to get representation, it's a political issue. You mentioned how the
North, they didn't like it on moral grounds and if
it was a slave state. And they also didn't like
it on economic grounds 'cause it's hard to compete
economically with slavery. While the South was afraid
of losing its political power if more free states
were to join the Union. And the Compromise of 1820, you mentioned that well that compromise,
Missouri is a slave state. Maine gets carved out of Massachusetts, becomes a free state. But that didn't solve the problem. That problem only
continues because we only add more territory. - [Voiceover] Yeah, I
mean most of the history of the 1800s, when it comes to slavery, is a history of putting off the problem. Henry Clay becomes this
very famous legislator because he's good at compromising. He's called the "Great Compromiser". So, instead of trying to actually solve the issue of slavery, which many people think of as an unsolvable problem. They're just saying,
"All right, well how can "we put off a conflict over
this a little bit longer?" - [Voiceover] And they
just keep doing that. You know, in 1836 the
territory expands further, or it starts to I guess. The expansion is catalyzed further by you have the Texas Revolution. Texas get its independence from Mexico. Which itself got independence
only a few decades before that from Spain. But so Texas, for a brief amount of time, is its own independent country. But then, it joins the US,
it's annexed by the US in 1845. So it's more territory for the US, and that was slave territory. - [Voiceover] Right, yeah so again, this is an area in the South where most of the reasons that
slavery existed in the South is because it's a very fertile
agricultural region, right? Where the things that you grow, crops, are very labor-intensive. So they figure, how are we going to find enough people to grow these crops? And the answer is that they've
been importing African slaves and forcing them to work. - [Voiceover] And the annexation of Texas, there's war disputes with Mexico which leads to even, another
conflict with Mexico. This time with the US and Mexico. This is the Mexican-American
War from 1846 to 1848. But in the context of this conversation, the reason why it helped
bring the slavery issue even more to a head, is
that when the US wins it, it gets even more territory. It gets all of this area in
the West, right over here. - [Voiceover] Right, it's more territory. And it's more sort of Southern territory which means that it has a high probability of becoming slave states. - [Voiceover] And so, this map that we looked at earlier in the other video, this is kind of showing
what the US looked like as we exit out the Mexican-American War. We're getting to about 1850. And so, what happens then? I mean, is it just one compromise after another at this point? - [Voiceover] Well, this is
the point where compromise begins to break down. Henry Clay again, is the architect of what's called the Compromise of 1850. As soon as the US goes to war with Mexico, people in Congress are wondering, "All right, if we get this territory "that we're trying to get,
what's going to happen? "Are they going to be free
states or slave states?" And this compromise over
free and slave states has been going on for 30 years since the Missouri Compromise. And even longer, if you
take it back to 1776. So, they're doing exactly the same thing. They're saying, "All right, well let's try "to keep a balance of power "between free states and slave states." Except, they add in a couple of provises that make people really
angry in the 1850s. - [Voiceover] And who gets angry? - [Voiceover] Both I
would say, slaveowners and Abolitionists and anti-slavery
activists in the North. - [Voiceover] So, I guess that's
what makes it a compromise. A little something to
make everybody angry. (laughter) What made the slave owners angry about the Compromise of 1850? - [Voiceover] One of the parts
of the Compromise of 1850, apart from deciding whether
these new territories were going to be slave or free was a part of the Act, was called the Fugitive Slave Act. And the Fugitive Slave
Act said that it was a federal offense not to help slave owners recover-- - [Voiceover] So this is
something the Abolitionists angry? - [Voiceover] Yes. - [Voiceover] Or the anti-slavery angry? - [Voiceover] Yeah, absolutely both. So for example, if you're
maybe living in Massachusetts, you're a white middle-class person living in Massachusetts, you
don't think slavery is great. You think it's morally wrong, but it hasn't really directly
affected your life. Right? You're hundreds of miles away
from the nearest slave state. But now, the federal government says that if there is a person
who has escaped from slavery who has come to your town, it is a federal offense
for you not to help return that person to slavery. - [Voiceover] So this Fugitive Slave, this is part of the compromise? This is part of the Compromise of 1850. Is that I could be
sitting in Massachusetts, I could be anti-slavery or I could even be ambivalent about it. But now, I have to be complicit in it. If there's a slave, I can't. Or if there's someone who's escapes from the South who is a former slave, I have to actively, I
can't in any way help them. If I do, I could go to jail. If I'm a law officer, I
have to capture that person, and I have to bring them back. So it's kind of forcing people who are already not happy about slavery, it's kind of bringing it close to them. They have to partake in it. - [Voiceover] Yeah, and these are people who have very strong
religious convictions. This is the mid-19th century is a time when people feel their
religion very strongly. And so, there are people in
the North who are Quakers. Who are otherwise religiously
opposed to slavery. Who have maybe prayed
for the souls of slaves, but it's never been their job to try to keep someone in slavery before. So that is really infuriating. One of the things you get out this is a really strong backlash
of Abolitionist sentiment in the North. For example, Harriet Beecher Stowe, she's the daughter of a
reverend who's against slavery. She writes the book Uncle Tom's Cabin which becomes this smash hit. - [Voiceover] And when was this roughly? - [Voiceover] This was about 1852. - [Voiceover] OK, so this is
after the Compromise of 1850. So, people are getting, it
really is coming to a head. The people in the North, they're having to partake in this because
of the Fugitive Slave Act. You have Harriet Beecher Stowe
writes Uncle Tom's Cabin. It makes people even more upset about the realities of slavery. - [Voiceover] Right, and in the South, they've kind of gotten away,
white slave owners in this time with people saying, "Ya know, "slavery's not really my problem. "I don't like it." But now they're seeing
a concentrated attack, a moral and social attack
against slavery in the North. And their response is to become even more violently in favor of slavery. They pose the idea that
slavery is not just something that we could turn our eyes away from, but it's necessary. But it's a positive good. Slavery is actually going to actually make the country better. If it weren't for slavery, all
of these enslaved Africans, African-Americans, their lives
would be worse without us. - [Voiceover] And so, just to be clear on the Compromise of 1850. And there was a bunch of things, we went into a whole video
on the Compromise of 1850, all of the different facets of it. But it's one of its, in
terms of this conversation, one of its outcomes is because
of the Fugitive Slave Law. It infuriated many of the
anti-slavery Abolitionists in the North. They became more entrenched
in their positions which made the Southerners more entrenched in their positions. The Southerners didn't necessarily, they liked the Fugitive
Slave Law, the Southerners. The Compromise of 1850 sounds like it was, it was a compromise,
not everyone was happy. But it sounds like it made the anti-slavery folks more unhappy than the slavery folks. - [Voiceover] Yeah absolutely. So it makes the anti-slavery
folks super unhappy, but it also means that now
white slave owners in the South, they feel like there's
a target on their heads. And so, they're going
to dig in even further to make sure that their interests
in slavery are protected. - [Voiceover] And this gets
us to the election of 1860 which I guess in some ways was the straw that breaks the camel's back, I guess from a Southern perspective. And why is that? - [Voiceover] Well, during the 1850s, you have all of these
political battles over slavery. In fact, it kind of breaks
the major political party of the 1850s, the Whig Party. So, in 1860, some of these leftover Whigs, they reorganize as the Republican Party. And this is the first election
with a Republican Party that we know today. But obviously, in 1860, the things that they're interested
in, their goals and aims are completely different. And the Republican Party
is an anti-slavery party. They're deliberately and
publicly against slavery. So, they nominate as their political candidate for 1860, Abraham Lincoln who is
well-known in the country for having been an anti-slavery agitator. He's given many speeches where he has made very eloquent
arguments against slavery. - [Voiceover] He's, we talked
about in the previous video, he's against it, I guess on moral grounds. But perhaps even more, his old father wasn't able to be a successful farmer because he had to compete
with slave owners. - [Voiceover] Right, so he's
brought up to hate slavery because it's a big
business that has harmed his own family's economic future. But, he comes, I think,
to his own conclusion that slavery is morally wrong. What he doesn't think that
he can do as president is legally or constitutionally,
get rid of slavery. He doesn't think that the
Constitution allows it. But, he is seen as enough
of a threat by Southerners that in many cases, on the
presidential ballots in 1860, you couldn't even vote for Abraham Lincoln if you wanted to. He didn't show up on the
ballot in Southern states. Nonetheless, he still gets
enough electoral votes that he's elected. - [Voiceover] And then
that's what takes us into the real meat of, you know,
catalyzes the Civil War. - [Voiceover] Yeah, stay
tuned, Abraham Lincoln.