CHAPTER 6 CAUSES OF THE CIVIL WAR, Politics and Rebellion, 1850.docx

CHAPTER 6: CAUSES OF THE CIVIL WAR, Politics and
Rebellion, 1850-1860
Contents
Introduction and Pre-Reading Questions: 1
Documents: 7
Document 1, Slave Anthony Burns Describes his Capture via the
Fugitive Slave Act (PBS.org, 1855) 7
Document 2, The Boston Post and The Southern Press Review
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (University of Virginia, 1852) 8
Document 3, John Brown writes to his father about “Bleeding
Kansas” (Digital History, 1855) 12
Document 4, The Dred Scott Decision, 1857 (PBS.org, 1857) 13
Document 5, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Freeport, Illinois,
1858: Senator Douglas explains Popular Sovereignty
(ushistory.org, 1858) 14
Document 6, John Brown Speaks to the Court in his trial re: the
Raid on Harper’s Ferry (PBS.org, 1859) 15
Document 7, Lincoln Argues that the Republican Party only
wants to limit the expansion of slavery, not destroy it where it
currently exists, 1860 (Abraham Lincoln Online, 1860) 16
Document 8, South Carolinian William Gibson Explains the
Secessionist Sentiment in South Carolina (Digital History,
1860) 19
Document 9, Lincoln’s Response to Secession in his First
Inaugural Address (Library of Congress, 1861) 19
Post-Reading Exercises: 20
Works Cited 21
Introduction and Pre-Reading Questions: The idea of Manifest
Destiny suggested to Americans that we, as a people, as a
nation, were destined to spread our settlement, spread our

ideology, spread our democracy and civility to the westernmost
regions. This migration to the Far West, however, brought to
the surface some of the issues that had really challenged the
federal government and national unity—issues dealing with
slavery. The Missouri Compromise, it seemed, had solved the
issues over the spread of slavery, but as Texas, New Mexico,
the Oregon territory and California began applying for
statehood, it quickly became clear that the slavery issue was far
from solved. In fact, it would be the slavery issue that would
simmer below the surface as tensions between the North and
South rose. The 1850s opened up with the Compromise of
1850, which was supposed to deal with the issue of slavery in
territories obtained from Mexico, as well as some other issues
surrounding slavery. Though the Compromise was ultimately
passed, the spirit of compromise was missing which signaled
that the slavery issue had not been fully dealt with.
One of the pieces of legislation embedded in the
Compromise of 1850 outlined a Fugitive Slave Act. This Act
legally obligated Northerners to assist in the capture of fugitive
(runaway) slaves and the return of those fugitives to their
southern owners. Additionally, the Slave Act declared that any
official or federal marshal would be subject to a $1,000 fine for
not assisting in the recapture of runaway slaves. This became
such a hot issue because: a) many people living in the North at
this time were anti-slavery; and b) after the Compromise was
enacted, some southerners began coming to the North to
recapture slaves who had escaped from them years ago, slaves
who were now living lives as free blacks in the North.
Northern anti-slavery mobs would often use force or violence to
ensure that the Fugitive Slave Act was not enforced in their
regions and simultaneously rallied new northerners over to the
cause of anti-slavery (many Northerners who might otherwise
not have been opposed to slavery were nonetheless upset at a
pro-Southern law). For Southerners, however, this mob
violence and these attempts to thwart the Fugitive Slave Law,
this lack of respect for southern property and southern rights,

was extremely troublesome and seemed a clear violation of the
Compromise.
For example, in Boston, escaped slave Anthony Burns was
tracked down by his master in 1854, which you’ll read about in
the first document. Burns was arrested, but Boston abolitionists
protested—whites and blacks headed to the Boston courthouse
to try and free Burns. A melee broke out, during which a
deputy was killed. President Franklin Pierce ordered federal
protection to get Burns back to the South. Burns was ultimately
declared a fugitive slave and returned to his master (though
friends purchased his freedom within a year and Burns returned
to Boston a free man). Why did southerners believe the
Fugitive Slave Act was a legal right and necessity? Why were
northerners so opposed to it?
The tensions between the North and South grew stronger
after this event. When Harriet Beecher Stowe’s seminal novel,
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published in 1852, the divisions
between North and South seemed abundant and clear, as you’ll
see in the two reviews of the book—one from a Northern press,
the other from a Southern newspaper (Document 2).
But it wasn’t this lack of respect, it wasn’t this fight
against the Fugitive Slave Act, that really inflamed sectional
tensions. It was the Kansas-Nebraska controversy of the 1850s
that would take center stage; it would be this controversy that
would loosen all of the compromise threads that had
precariously held the nation together. The Kansas-Nebraska
controversy was a controversy that the Compromise of 1850 was
supposed to have solved; it was over the issue of slavery in the
territories. By the 1850s, you see, white settlement wasn’t just
going to regions won from Mexico, it wasn’t just expanding to
new southwestern regions; by the 1850s, white settlement had
moved into the Great Plains region as it became clear that land
that was once thought unfit for living (although it had been
deemed acceptable for Indians during Indian Removal in the
1830s) was actually quite inhabitable. Problems arose,
however, after Senator Stephen Douglas began a move to

organize the territory in order to prepare it as a railroad hub.
The major problem was that the territory was part of the
Louisiana Purchase and was above the 36’30 parallel set by the
Missouri Compromise—remember, territory above the 36’30
parallel was designated as free from slavery according to the
Compromise. Not surprisingly, then, Southerners didn’t want
the territory to be made a state unless they could negate the
Missouri Compromise and introduce slavery into the territory.
Senator Douglas tried to be shifty about this—he split the
territory into two territories—Kansas and Nebraska—and
suggested that each should be admitted to statehood and should
vote on the issue of slavery using the tenets of popular
sovereignty, which you learned about in the last chapter.
Immediately after the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed in 1854,
a number of both Northern and Southern settlers began moving
there. This is important because, remember, the Kansas-
Nebraska Act said that the issue of slavery would be decided
based on popular sovereignty: the inhabitants would vote on
whether they wanted slavery or not. And if you have people
from the North and the South moving there, there could be some
problems. Some moved because they liked the prospect of new
land. Others, southerners, moved because they wanted to fill
the region with pro-slavery advocates. Still others, northerners
and free-soilers, moved because they wanted to outnumber pro-
slavery advocates. During the popular sovereignty vote to
decide the status of slavery in Kansas, however, chaos ensued,
and both pro-slavery and free-soiler blood was shed in Kansas
over the issue of slavery in the territories, with ten men losing
their lives. Free-soiler John Brown describes his side of
“Bleeding Kansas” in Document 3. What were his justifications
for “Bleeding Kansas” turning out the way it did?
With all of these fears becoming increasingly entrenched
among Northerners, and with a similar fear among Southerners
that the North was out to destroy slavery at any cost, the 1850s
opened up with a great deal of sectional tension. Indeed, during
the 1850s, three events took place that proved to be the final

straws: the Dred Scott decision, John Brown’s raid of Harpers
Ferry and Lincoln’s election to the presidency.
The first event was the Dred Scott decision. Northerners, you’ll
remember, had fought vehemently against enforcing the
Fugitive Slave Act—they did not want to help Southerners
retrieve runaway slaves and, in many cases, impeded
Southerners’ ability to do so. The issue got even trickier when
the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford (Document 4) went to the
Supreme Court. Dred Scott was a Missouri slave who had been
taken to Illinois, a free state. He brought a suit to the Supreme
Court arguing that since he had been brought by his master to a
free state, since he was a resident of a free state, that he should
be freed from slavery. The Supreme Court came back with a
decision that said that blacks were not citizens and, therefore,
could not bring a suit in federal courts. Furthermore, the
decision argued that slaves were property, and, as such,
slaveowners could bring them anywhere. This decision had
landmark implications—it meant that a slaveowner could move
to a free state and bring slavery with him. This meant that
slaves could be brought to Pennsylvania, to New England, to
New York—places where slavery had been outlawed for years.
Essentially, the decision meant that no place was protected from
the institution of slavery. How do you think Northerners felt
about this decision? Southerners?
Many Northerners were distraught by the Dred Scott decision,
which was only exacerbated a few months later when the new
president, President James Buchanan urged Kansas to apply for
statehood as a slave state, even though it was clear that Kansas
still had a majority of antislavery residents. The Kansas issue
wouldn’t even be resolved until after southern states began
seceding from the Union in the early 1860s, but in 1857,
Buchanan’s support of Kansas becoming a slave state seemed to
signal even more loudly that a slave power conspiracy was at
the helm of national politics. This, of course, would pave the
way for Lincoln to become president.
Indeed, Lincoln stepped up to the podium in 1858 and began a

series of debates with Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas that
would outline the growing debate over slavery. The long and
short of the Lincoln-Douglas debates was that Lincoln, and by
extension the Republican Party, believed in a slave power
conspiracy and wanted to end its power. Lincoln also did not
want slavery to extend into the territories, he supported a free-
soil ideology. You should note that he was not an abolitionist—
the Republican Party was not demanding black equality or
insisting that blacks could function as citizens. Douglas, on the
other hand, supported the idea of popular sovereignty and he
supported the South’s right to protect the institution of slavery,
which you’ll read an excerpt from in Document 5. According to
this document, what did the national debate over slavery look
like? What were the basic tenets of popular sovereignty?
But it wasn’t their debates that really brought the issue to
a head. It was John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry that really
set Southerners off and made an unbridgeable gap between the
North and South. You remember John Brown from Bleeding
Kansas—well, in 1859 John Brown organized a militia of
eighteen men to start a slave insurrection in the South. He
hoped that he and his men could seize the weapons at the
federal arsenal located at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and these
weapons could be used by slaves to overthrow their masters and
overturn the institution of slavery altogether. John Brown and
his friends were not as successful as they hoped to be. A local
militia put down Brown’s raid, capturing a number of his men—
dead or alive—before weapons could be seized, before slaves
could be called to rise up. John Brown was among the captured
(Document 6) and was hung for treason at the end of 1859.
John Brown’s raid, though unsuccessful, was the number one
factor that convinced a number of southerners that they could
no longer live safely within the Union. They feared that John
Brown’s Raid was only the start of hundreds of potentially
deadly slave insurrections—they feared that their property, their
slaves, were at stake, and now their lives were too.
And when Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860,

southerners became even more convinced. Lincoln’s election
had been won with a platform supporting a high tariff, the
building of a transcontinental railroad with a Northern hub, and
arguing that neither Congress nor territorial legislatures could
legalize slavery in the territories (only an official state could),
as you can see in Document 7. This was all the proof
southerners needed that the North was conspiring against their
best interests, and even, their paranoid minds believed, would
support slave insurrections (Document 8). And so it was that a
number of southern states, in the immediate aftermath of
Lincoln’s election would move to secede from the Union
(Document 9). After reading these three documents, does it
appear that Civil War was inevitable or that there were possible
solutions that could help the United States avoid the war?
Whatever possible solutions may have existed, though, it is
clear that the events of the 1850s moved the nation closer to
Civil War. Documents:
Document 1, Slave Anthony Burns Describes his Capture via the
Fugitive Slave Act (PBS.org, 1855)[footnoteRef:1] [1: Anthony
Burns, “My friends…,” New York Tribune, n.d., in the
Liberator, March 9, 1855.]
My friends, I am very glad to have it to say, have it to feel, that
I am once more in the land of liberty; that I am with those who
are my friends. Until my tenth year I did not care what became
of me; but soon after I began to learn that there is a Christ who
came to make us free; I began to hear about a North, and to feel
the necessity for freedom of soul and body. I heard of a North
where men of my color could live without any man daring to say
to them, "You are my property;" and I determined by the
blessing of God, one day to find my way there. My inclination
grew on me, and I found my way to Boston.
You see, I didn't want to make myself known, so I didn't tell
who I was; but as I came to work, I got employment, and I

worked hard; but I kept my own counsel, and didn't tell anybody
that I was a slave, but I strove for myself as I never had an
opportunity to do before. When I was going home one night I
heard some one running behind me; presently a hand was put on
my shoulder, and somebody said: "Stop, stop; you are the fellow
who broke into a silversmith's shop the other night." I assured
the man that it was a mistake, but almost before I could speak, I
was lifted from off my feet by six or seven others, and it was no
use to resist. In the Court House I waited some time, and as the
silversmith did not come, I told them I wanted to go home for
supper. A man then come to the door; he didn't open it like an
honest man would, but kind of slowly opened it, and looked in.
He said, "How do you do, Mr. Burns?" and I called him as we
do in Virginia, "master!"
He asked me if there would be any trouble in taking me back to
Virginia, and I was brought right to a stand, and didn't know
what to say. He wanted to know if I remembered the money that
he used to give me, and I said, "Yes, I do recollect that you
used to give me twelve and a half cents at the end of every year
I worked for you." He went out and came back next morning. I
got no supper nor sleep that night. The next morning they told
me that my master said that he had the right to me, and as I had
called him "master," having the fear of God before my eyes, I
could not go from it. Next morning I was taken down, with the
bracelets on my wrists -- not such as you wear, ladies, of gold
and silver -- but iron and steel that wore into the bone.
Document 2, The Boston Post and The Southern Press Review
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (University of Virginia,
1852)[footnoteRef:2] [2: W.B.S., “Review of Uncle Tom’s
Cabin,” The Morning Post (Boston), May 3, 1852; n.a., “Review
of Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” Southern Press Review, 1852.]
The Boston Post Review:
SINCE “Jane Eyre,” no book has had so sudden and so great a

success on this side of the Atlantic as “Uncle Tom's Cabin.”
Everybody has read it, is reading, or is about to read it. And
certainly it is one of the most remarkable literary productions of
the time—an evident result of some of the highest attributes of
the novel writer.
As all the world knows, “Uncle Tom's Cabini” purports to be a
picture of slavery as it now exists in the Southern States. It is
an attempt to present the accidental and inevitable evils of
slavery side by side with the practical advantages of the system
in its paternal care of a long depressed, if not actually inferior
race. It paints both slaveholder and slave, and none can doubt
the intention of the author to deal justly with both, nothing
extenuating and setting down naught in malice. The incidents
are stated to be drawn from the personal experience of the
writer or her most immediate friends, and we believe it is
universally admitted that as a mere story the book is of intense
interest.
But we would here remark that some portions are very highly
colored. The main facts stated, also, may have occurred
somewhere or other, and at distant intervals of time; but the
aggregation of so many rare horrors into two small volumes,
produces a picture which we are happy to believe does not do
justice to practical slavery in our southern states. In a word the
effect of “Uncle Tom's Cabin,” as a whole, is grossly to
exaggerate the actual evils of negro slavery in this country. As a
didactic work, therefore, it should be swallowed with a
considerable dose of allowance.
But it is not as an instructive work, chiefly, that we now desire
to regard it. As chroniclers of the literature of the day, we have
much more to do with the conception and execution of books, as
merely literary works, than with their sentiment or effect,
although these latter may be all that make them practically
important. Suffice it to say, then, that “Uncle Tom's Cabin,”

even with our dose of allowance, is the finest picture yet
painted of the abominable horrors of slavery, (bad enough at the
best, and inevitably,) and that it is likely to do more for the
cause of liberal abolitionism, than all that has been preached,
said and sung, for a long time.
But throwing aside the design or effect of the book under
notice, and looking at it as a literary work merely, it must be
confessed that if the incidents be exaggerated in themselves, or
if they be so unduly crowded as to create an erroneous
impression—admitting all this, we say—it must be owned that
the incidents are treated artistically and with a master hand. The
whole is truth-seeming if not true, and the whole book reads
naturally and probably. It has nothing forced or awkward in its
conduct.
And yet the management of the tale is among its lesser
interests. Both in dialogue and in character Mrs. Stowe has
produced a fiction which can scarcely be excelled, in its
peculiar line. To be sure, her negroes often pronounce a word
properly, while a few sentences later on they mangle it horribly
by the same people. But such inaccuracies are of little
consequence, and are soon lost in the tide of humor, pathos and
oddity that flows from the lips of the queer children of Africa.
The dialogue, both of the whites and blacks, is naturalness
itself, having nothing either of books or the theatre in its
composition.
And in respect to character-painting, “Uncle Tom's Cabin”
may compare with any fiction of the day, English or American.
It does not contain a figure that is not so vigorously sketched as
to be fully individualized, and well able to stand alone. Every
slave differs from his fellows in some essential features, and
runs no risk of being mistaken for a sooty brother. Mrs.
Shelby's "Sam," for instance, though visible in but a single
scene, is as well drawn as if he were the sole hero of the fiction.

Chloe the cook is not Dinah the cook, and neither of the young
quadroon slaves of St. Clare could be mistaken for the quadroon
George or his wife Eliza. The Quakers, also, who appear but
once, are very nicely sketched, and Mrs. Shelby, who is
scarcely seen but in a few chapters, at the beginning, is as
perfect a portrait of an intelligent and right-hearted lady as we
have lately seen. Topsy is a gem. Indeed, whether as regards
black or white, everybody is hit off properly, and is nobody else
but himself.
But coming to the principal characters, we must say that Uncle
Tom himself, St. Clare, Marie, Eva and Miss Ophelia are given
with a truth to nature that fairly astonished us, in our utter
ignorance that a female author lived who was capable of such
painting. Eva, indeed, is not to be criticized. She stands with
Little Nell and Little Paul—unnatural, it may be, as a child of
man, but a creation of exquisite beauty, tenderness, intelligence
and affection—an embodiment, in baby form, of all that is
highest, holiest, and best in human nature.
We hope the book in hand will be noticed by our leading
reviews. As an American novel, merely, it deserves an elaborate
critique, and we feel that our limited space does not do it
justice.
We should like to sustain our praise by several extracts, but
are obliged to refer our readers to the glowing pages
themselves.
“Uncle Tom's Cabin,” as much as any novel we know of, is
stamped on every page with genius. The author cannot touch a
single incident without showing that she bears the sacred fire.
How strong and wide may be the blaze we know not, but taking
the present novel as the first effort in this line of writing, it is a
wonderful composition, emanating from true genius, and
produced with a nice tact and ingenuity, and a thorough

knowledge of human nature, &c. The scene at Senator Bird's,
the flight across the Ohio, the interview of George with the
manufacturer, at the road side inn, the night-scene in the
steamer—nay, many other passages—are not prominent portions
of the work, but they are given in a masterly manner. Not one
word in the book suggests mediocrity, whether the pictures of
slavery please or displease. And the death of Eva! We have said
that some chapters are beyond criticism—the reader will find
them so. And with all the pathos and intensity of most of the
story, there is no jot of dulness—no harping on one string. A
vein of humor and drollery meanders through it, and one is
often laughing with wet eyes.
But brilliant as is “Uncle Tom's Cabin” as a literary work, it is
yet more creditable to the author in another point of view. It
proves that unlike most women and very many men, Mrs. Stowe
has the high ability of looking on both sides of one question.
With feelings and principles equally opposed to slavery, for its
unavoidable evils as well as its accidental abuses, she is yet
able to paint the slaveholder as he lives and moves, with no
touch of bigotry or fanaticism. No southerner need be ashamed
of the noble, kind and generous St. Clare, or the angel-child, his
daughter.
More than this, Mrs. Stowe has fairly presented the various
arguments in favor of slavery, and the various feelings which
exist in the mind of the south, in reference to this terrible evil.
And, indeed, were it not for the incidental remarks in the book,
one would be rather puzzled to say, from the dialogue alone,
what were Mrs. Stowe's real sentiments. Both sides are
presented with heart, soul and strength.
The entire fiction is filled with instances of this peculiar
power of the author to look on both sides of a question at once,
and this (so called) masculine quality of mind is sustained by an
exceeding ease in the management of details and the handling of

masculine facts of all sorts. One wonders, indeed, where a lady
could pick up so much stuff, and how she could acquire such
free and easy manners in disposing of it. Everything is fish that
comes to her net, and she is equally at home with saint or
sinner, black or white, high or low. She never suffers any mock
modesty, reverence or respect for any world prejudice whatever
to stand in the way of truth of portraiture or naturalness of
dialogue.
“Uncle Tom's Cabin,” we believe, was first published in
chapters, in the National Era. It there became known to a
sufficient number of readers to give it a large circulation, when
it appeared in book-form. Latterly, however, it has had an
extraordinary run, and last week its sale had reached the large
quantity of 3000 copies.
The Southern Press Review:
We have just finished the perusal of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," a
work in two volumes, of more than three hundred pages each,
which appeared originally in the National Era, in a succession
of numbers, and has recently been re-published in its present
form. The papers inform us that already, within eleven weeks of
its re-publication, eighty thousand copies of it have been sold at
the rate of a dollar to a dollar and a quarter per copy.
The authoress of this work is HARRIET BEECHER STOWE,
wife of Professor Stowe, and daughter of Dr. Beecher. She
resided for many years, before and after marriage, in Cincinnati.
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" is an anti-slavery novel. It is a caricature
of slavery. It selects for description the most odious features of
slavery—the escape and pursuit of fugitive slaves, the sale and
separation of domestic slaves, the separation of husbands and
wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters. It portrays the
slaves of the story as more moral, intelligent, courageous,
elegant and beautiful than their masters and mistresses; and
where it concedes any of these qualities to the whites, it is to

such only as are, even though slaveholders, opposed to slavery.
Those in favor of slavery are slave-traders, slave-catchers, and
the most weak, depraved, cruel and malignant of beings and
demons.
It is a little curious, that the two works on slavery that have
attained the largest circulation since the Wilmot proviso was
proposed, have both emanated from Cincinnati. The first, the
lecture on "the North and the South," by the senior editor of this
paper; the other, "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Of the lecture, about
three hundred thousand copies were printed in pamphlets and
newspapers. The novel will probably reach an equal circulation.
It deserves to be considered that the defense of the South was
a documentary argument, consisting chiefly of a collection of
all the evidence on the subject which existed in an authentic
shape. The attack on the South is a novel—a romance. The
system of the South relies on fact—the sentiment of the North
flies to fiction. This is significant. For some time before, the
North, the practical, calculating, unimaginative North, claimed
the facts. But since the appearance of "the North and the
South," that pretension has almost been abandoned. We have
been struck by the almost total abstinence of the northern press
from all allusion to the results of the last census, when
discussing the slavery question. That census has vindicated
triumphantly the positions of the lecture on "the North and the
South." Now, what is the value of a work of fiction in this
controversy? What would be its value even if even incident it
contains were founded on fact, as the writer intimates? Why,
just nothing at all. Every man who is accustomed to reason is
familiar with the artifice of a discomfitted antagonist. When
refuted in argument, when overwhelmed with evidence, he
insists on relating an anecdote, or telling a story—he retreats
into fiction, or cites a particular instance—although everyone
capable of reasoning knows that any proposition can be
maintained, or any institution be overthrown, if the citation of

particular incidents is accepted as argument. Government,
society, law, civilization itself would fall in an hour, if we were
to listen to the stories of the wrong and ruin that incidentally or
exceptionally attend them. Do not murderers escape—are not
the innocent sometimes put to death under the administration of
criminal law? And yet, who would abolish it, even if hundreds
of novels were written to illustrate its defects, or under pretence
of exposing its enormity? Do we not find bad men with wealth,
or good men in want—then why not have a novel to prove it and
to insist on the abolition of property? Nay, there is religion
itself, whose institutions cannot be divested of superstition,
hypocrisy and fanaticism. How many romances could be written
and have been written to illustrate these latter? Yet must we
abolish religion?
Mrs. Stowe may have seen, during her residence in Cincinnati,
in the arrival and departure of emigrants, and in the trade and
navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi, more families separated
forever; she must know that from that single city more
husbands, brothers, sons and fathers have gone voluntarily, as
she calls it, from wives, mothers and children, and, in the
pursuit of trade, met with untimely death by fevers and cholera
on the river, or in the wilderness, leaving their families to
suffer from want, their …
CHAPTER 4: ANTEBELLUM SOUTH, Slavery and Economy,
1820-1860
Contents
Documents: 4
Document 1, James Henry Hammond Declares “Cotton is King”
(Willis, 1858) 4
Document 2, DeBow’s Review Comments on the Economic
Relationship Between the North and the South (University of
Michigan Library, 1856) 7

Document 3, Henry Tayloe writes about the Domestic Slave
Trade (PBS.org, 1835) 10
Document 4, Slave Jacob Stroyer Talks about Being Sold to the
Deep South (PBS.org, 1890) 10
Document 5, Slave James Curry Describes Running Away to the
North, 1840 (LearnNC.org, 1840) 11
Document 6, Charles Ball discusses City Slavery (Documenting
the American South, 1859) 15
Document 7, Southern Angelina Grimke Decries the Institution
of Slavery (Digital History, 1839) 17
Document 8, George Fitzhugh Presents a Pro-Slavery Argument
(PBS.org, 1857) 17
Document 9, Senator James Henry Hammond Defends Slavery,
1858 (PBS.org, 1858) 18
Document 10, Dr. Samuel Cartwright writes about the “Diseases
and Peculiarities of the Negro Race” (PBS.org, 1851) 19
Post-Reading Exercises 21
Works Cited 21
Introduction and Pre-Reading Questions: Like the Northern
states, the Southern states were experiencing dramatic growth in
the years between 1840 and the start of the Civil War.
Southerners had moved out into regions in the Southwest and
they had brought both cotton and slaves with them. They
expanded other markets to the Southwest, as well, such as
sugar, rice, and tobacco and with their increased production in
the new Southwestern states, some Southern planters were able
to make a lot of money. But with all of this economic and
territorial expansion, the South still didn’t experience as
dramatic a transformation as the North did in these middle years
of the nineteenth century. The major reason behind this was
that the South continued to focus almost solely on agricultural
production; the focus on industry and transportation that had

become so revolutionary in the North was almost completely
missing in the South. The major differences between the South
and the North at this time, then, were that the North had a good
deal of industry, they had sophisticated machinery and
transportation, and they were creating goods and services that
could be used or traded, while the South focused primarily on
agricultural production: on making a staple crop for export that
required slave labor. And because of this major difference, the
divide between North and South only grew larger, paranoia
about the differences only grew stronger, and this, of course,
was why the Civil War happened.
While tobacco had been the original, profitable staple crop of
the south, by the 19th century, cotton was the major crop grown
throughout the south. By the 1850s, King Cotton, as it had
come to be known, dominated, fueled and exploded the
Southern economy, as James Henry Hammond relates in the first
document. King Cotton was being exported for nearly $200
million a year in profit—and this meant it was here to stay. But
with just one major crop dominating production, and with little
in the way of industry, the South was dependent on the North
for nearly all of their industrial goods. Now, there certainly
were some Southerners who were embarrassed and worried that
the North had such a superior, sophisticated economic structure
while the South did not, and some Southerners called on the
South to change the system. One man, James B.D. De Bow of
New Orleans, spoke frequently in the magazine he published,
DeBow’s Review, about how troubling it was that the South had
an inferior economic system to the North and how problematic
it was (Document 2). He argued that this inferiority caused the
South to be dependent on the North’s manufactured goods. De
Bow feared the South’s dependency on the North because he
feared the North and Northern politicians would always have
more power than the South and Southern politicians. But
because the agricultural system of the South was extremely
profitable, particularly cotton production, few southerners
wanted to knock King Cotton off of his throne. What did the

Southern economy look like, when compared to the Northern
economy? Are there any economic factors that you think
contributed to the growing tensions between the North and the
South?
Rather, people were migrating by the thousands to the
regions of the Southwest where cotton production was
developing. These migrants were wealthy plantation owners, in
some cases, but many more were small slaveholders or farmers
who could not afford any slaves, but who hoped to become
wealthy, slave-owning plantation owners. The migrants were
also slaves—between 1840 and 1860, about 410,000 slaves
came with masters to this region or were sold to masters living
in this region. The remainder of the documents in this chapter
discuss the institution of slavery, which kept the southern
economy afloat and King Cotton in charge. Documents 3-7
illustrate the horrors of slavery, while Documents 8-10 explain
the pro-slavery argument that became increasingly prominent
among white southerners during the antebellum period.
Compare and contrast the two sets of documents—can you see
why slavery was both abhorrent and popular? If you were a
white, southern, cotton grower, why might you have wanted to
keep the institution of slavery intact? If you were a black slave,
why would you have wanted slavery to be destroyed?
The South’s economy and slavery were inextricably linked
to one another, so much so that the notion of untangling the two
was unthinkable to most southerners. Yet, as industry,
commerce and activism grew in the North, it became nearly
impossible to ignore the moral tensions surrounding slavery.
This became even more so the case with westward expansion in
the antebellum period, which would ultimately completely
shatter the tenuous balance between free and slave that the
North and South had agreed upon.
Documents:
Document 1, James Henry Hammond Declares “Cotton is King”
(Willis, 1858)[footnoteRef:1] [1: Reprinted in Selections from
the Letters and Speeches of the Hon. James H. Hammond, of

South Carolina (New York: John F. Trow & Co., 1866), pages
311-322.]
As I am disposed to see this question settled as soon as
possible, and am perfectly willing to have a final and conclusive
settlement now, after what the Senator from New York [William
Seward] has said, I think it not improper that I should attempt
to bring the North and South face to face, and see what
resources each of us might have in the contingency of separate
organizations.
If we never acquire another foot of territory for the South, look
at her. Eight hundred and fifty thousand square miles. As
large as Great Britain, France, Austria, Prussia and Spain. Is
not that territory enough to make an empire that shall rule the
world? With the finest soil, the most delightful climate, whose
staple productions none of those great countries can grow, we
have three thousand miles of continental sea-shore line so
indented with bays and crowded with islands, that, when their
shore lines are added, we have twelve thousand miles. Through
the heart of our country runs the great Mississippi, the father of
waters, into whose bosom are poured thirty-six thousand miles
of tributary rivers; and beyond we have the desert prairie
wastes to protect us in our rear. Can you hem in such a
territory as that? You talk of putting up a wall of fire around
eight hundred and fifty thousand square miles so situated!
How absurd.
But, in this territory lies the great valley of the Mississippi,
now the real, and soon to be the acknowledged seat of the
empire of the world. The sway of that valley will be as great
as ever the Nile knew in the earlier ages of mankind. We own
the most of it. The most valuable part of it belongs to us now;
and although those who have settled above us are now opposed
to us, another generation will tell a different tale. They are

ours by all the laws of nature; slave-labor will go over every
foot of this great valley where it will be found profitable to use
it, and some of those who may not use it are soon to be united
with us by such ties as will make us one and inseparable. The
iron horse will soon be clattering over the sunny plains of the
South to bear the products of its upper tributaries of the valley
to our Atlantic ports, as it now does through the ice-bound
North. And there is the great Mississippi, a bond of union
made by Nature herself. She will maintain it forever.
On this fine territory we have a population four times as large
as that with which these colonies separated from the mother
country, and a hundred, I might say a thousand fold stronger.
Our population is now sixty per cent. greater than that of the
whole United States when we entered into the second war of
independence. It is as large as the whole population of the
United States was ten years after the conclusion of that war, and
our own exports are three times as great as those of the whole
United States then. Upon our muster-rolls we have a million of
men. In a defensive war, upon an emergency, every one of
them would be available. At any time, the South can raise,
equip, and maintain in the field, a larger army than any Power
of the earth can send against her, and an army of soldiers -- men
brought up on horseback, with guns in their hands.
If we take the North, even when the two large States of Kansas
and Minnesota shall be admitted, her territory will be one
hundred thousand square miles less than ours. I do not speak
of California and Oregon; there is no antagonism between the
South and those countries, and never will be. The population
of the North is fifty per cent. greater than ours. I have nothing
to say in disparagement either of the soil of the North, or the
people of the North, who are a brave and energetic race, full of
intellect. But they produce no great staple that the South does
not produce; while we produce two or three, and these the very
greatest, that she can never produce. As to her men, I may be

allowed to say, they have never proved themselves to be
superior to those of the South, either in the field or in the
Senate.
But the strength of a nation depends in a great measure upon its
wealth, and the wealth of a nation, like that of a man, is to be
estimated by its surplus production. You may go to your trashy
census books, full of falsehoods and nonsense -- they tell you,
for example, that in the State of Tennessee, the whole number
of house-servants is not equal to that of those in my own house,
and such things as that. You may estimate what is made
throughout the country from these census books, but it is no
matter how much is made if it is all consumed. If a man
possess millions of dollars and consumes his income, is he rich?
Is he competent to embark in any new enterprises? Can he long
build ships or railroads? And could a people in that condition
build ships and roads or go to war without a fatal strain on
capital? All the enterprises of peace and war depend upon the
surplus productions of a people. They may be happy, they may
be comfortable, they may enjoy themselves in consuming what
they make; but they are not rich, they are not strong. It
appears, by going to the reports of the Secretary of the
Treasury, which are authentic, that last year the United States
exported in round numbers $279,000,000 worth of domestic
produce, excluding gold and foreign merchandise re-exported.
Of this amount $158,000,000 worth is the clear produce of the
South; articles that are not and cannot be made at the North.
There are then $80,000,000 worth of exports of products of the
forest, provisions and breadstuffs. If we assume that the South
made but one third of these, and I think that is a low
calculation, our exports were $185,000,000, leaving to the
North less than $95,000,000.
In addition to this, we sent to the North $30,000,000 worth of
cotton, which is not counted in the exports. We sent to her $7
or $8,000,000 worth of tobacco, which is not counted in the

exports. We sent naval stores, lumber, rice, and many other
minor articles. There is no doubt that we sent to the North
$40,000,000 in addition; but suppose the amount to be
$35,000,000, it will give us a surplus production of
$220,000,000. But the recorded exports of the South now are
greater than the whole exports of the United States in any year
before 1856. They are greater than the whole average exports
of the United States for the last twelve years, including the two
extraordinary years of 1856 and 1857. They are nearly double
the amount of the average exports of the twelve preceding
years. If I am right in my calculations as to $220,000,000 of
surplus produce, there is not a nation on the face of the earth,
with any numerous population, that can compete with us in
produce per capita. It amounts to $16.66 per head, supposing
that we have twelve millions of people. England with all her
accumulated wealth, with her concentrated and educated energy,
makes but sixteen and a half dollars of surplus production per
head. I have not made a calculation as to the North, with her
$95,000,000 surplus; admitting that she exports as much as we
do, with her eighteen millions of population it would be but
little over twelve dollars a head. But she cannot export to us
and abroad exceeding ten dollars a head against our sixteen
dollars. I know well enough that the North sends to the South a
vast amount of the productions of her industry. I take it for
granted that she, at least, pays us in that way for the thirty or
forty million dollars worth of cotton and other articles we send
her. I am willing to admit that she sends us considerably more;
but to bring her up to our amount of surplus production -- to
bring her up to $220,000,000 a year, the South must take from
her $125,000,000; and this, in addition to our share of the
consumption of the $330,000,000 worth introduced into the
country from abroad, and paid for chiefly by our own exports.
The thing is absurd; it is impossible; it can never appear
anywhere but in a book of statistics, or a Congress speech.
With an export of $220,000,000 under the present tariff, the

South organized separately would have $40,000,000 of revenue.
With one-fourth the present tariff, she would have a revenue
with the present tariff adequate to all her wants, for the South
would never go to war; she would never need an army or a
navy, beyond a few garrisons on the frontiers and a few revenue
cutters. It is commerce that breeds war. It is manufactures
that require to be hawked about the world, and that give rise to
navies and commerce. But we have nothing to do but to take
off restrictions on foreign merchandise and open our ports, and
the whole world will come to us to trade. They will be too glad
to bring and carry us, and we never shall dream of a war. Why
the South has never yet had a just cause of war except with the
North. Every time she has drawn her sword it has been on the
point of honor, and that point of honor has been mainly loyalty
to her sister colonies and sister States, who have ever since
plundered and calumniated her.
But if there were no other reason why we should never have
war, would any sane nation make war on cotton? Without
firing a gun, without drawing a sword, should they make war on
us we could bring the whole world to our feet. The South is
perfectly competent to go on, one, two, or three years without
planting a seed of cotton. I believe that if she was to plant but
half her cotton, for three years to come, it would be an immense
advantage to her. I am not so sure but that after three years'
entire abstinence she would come out stronger than ever she was
before, and better prepared to enter afresh upon her great career
of enterprise. What would happen if no cotton was furnished
for three years? I will not stop to depict what every one can
imagine, but this is certain: England would topple headlong
and carry the whole civilized world with her, save the South.
No, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares
to make war upon it. Cotton is king. Until lately the Bank of
England was king; but she tried to put her screws as usual, the
fall before last, upon the cotton crop, and was utterly
vanquished. The last power has been conquered. Who can

doubt, that has looked at recent events, that cotton is supreme?
When the abuse of credit had destroyed credit and annihilated
confidence; when thousands of the strongest commercial houses
in the world were coming down, and hundreds of millions of
dollars of supposed property evaporating in thin air; when you
came to a dead lock, and revolutions were threatened, what
brought you up? Fortunately for you it was the commencement
of the cotton season, and we have poured in upon you one
million six hundred thousand bales of cotton just at the crisis to
save you from destruction. That cotton, but for the bursting of
your speculative bubbles in the North, which produced the
whole of this convulsion, would have brought us $100,000,000.
We have sold it for $65,000,000 and saved you. Thirty-five
million dollars we, the slaveholders of the South, have put into
the charity box for your magnificent financiers, your "cotton
lords," your "merchant princes."
But, sir, the greatest strength of the South arises from the
harmony of her political and social institutions. This harmony
gives her a frame of society, the best in the world, and an extent
of political freedom, combined with entire security, such as no
other people ever enjoyed upon the face of the earth. Society
precedes government; creates it, and ought to control it; but as
far as we can look back in historic times we find the case
different; for government is no sooner created than it becomes
too strong for society, and shapes and moulds, as well as
controls it. In later centuries the progress of civilization and of
intelligence has made the divergence so great as to produce
civil wars and revolutions; and it is nothing now but the want
of harmony between governments and societies which occasions
all the uneasiness and trouble and terror that we see abroad. It
was this that brought on the American Revolution. We threw
off a Government not adapted to our social system, and made
one for ourselves. The question is, how far have we
succeeded? The South, so far as that is concerned, is satisfied,
harmonious, and prosperous, but demands to be let alone.

Document 2, DeBow’s Review Comments on the Economic
Relationship Between the North and the South (University of
Michigan Library, 1856)[footnoteRef:2] [2: Debow’s Review,
Agricultural, commercial, industrial progress and resources.
“The Loss of Our Trade with the North.” New Orleans: J.D.B.
DeBow, Volume 20, Issue: 3, March 1856, 391a-392a.]
Document 3, Henry Tayloe writes about the Domestic Slave
Trade (PBS.org, 1835)[footnoteRef:3] [3: Henry A. Tayloe to
“Dear Brother” (B.O. Tayloe), January 5, 1835. Alabama
Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, Alabama.]
Henry A. Tayloe to "Dear Brother" (B.O. Tayloe), January 5,
1835
From Walnut Grove (Marengo County, AL) to Washington City
George and myself only made 30 bales and George about the
same. I wish you may visit me early this Spring to make some
arrangements about your Negroes. If they continue high I would
advise you to sell them in this country on one and two years
credit bearing 8 per ct interest. The present high price of
Negroes can not continue long and if you will make me a
partner in the sale on reasonable terms I will bring them out this
Fall from VA and sell them for you and release you from all
troubles. On a credit your negroes would bring here about $120
to $130, 000 bearing 8 per ct interest. My object is to make a
fortune here as soon as possible by industry and economy, and
then return [to VA] to enjoy myself. Therefore I am willing to
aid you in any way as far as reason will permit. You had better
give your land away if you can get from $6 to $800 round for
your Negroes -- and if you will incur the risk with me, and

allow me time to pay you, I will give a fair price for one half
bring them to this country sell the whole number and divide the
proceeds of the sale equally. It is better to sell on time as by so
doing good masters may be obtained.... I have rented land for
your negroes and Henry Key's, and shall attend to them
faithfully. Gowie [?] ran off about the 18th of December and
has not been heard of. I hope to hear of him in a few days that I
may put him to work. He went off without any provocation. I
expect he is a deceitful fellow.
Document 4, Slave Jacob Stroyer Talks about Being Sold to the
Deep South (PBS.org, 1890)[footnoteRef:4] [4: Jacob Stroyer,
My Life in the South (Salem: Observer Book and Job Print,
1890).]
When the day came for them to leave, some, who seemed to
have been willing to go at first, refused, and were handcuffed
together and guarded on their way to the cars by white men. The
women and children were driven to the depot in crowds, like so
many cattle, and the sight of them caused great excitement
among master's negroes. Imagine a mass of uneducated people
shedding tears and yelling at the tops of their voices in anguish
and grief.
The victims were to take the cars from a station called Clarkson
turnout, which was about four miles from master's place. The
excitement was so great that the overseer and driver could not
control the relatives and friends of those that were going away,
as a large crowd of both old and young went down to the depot
to see them off. Louisiana was considered by the slaves as a
place of slaughter, so those who were going did not expect to
see their friends again. While passing along, many of the
negroes left their masters' fields and joined us as we marched to
the cars; some were yelling and wringing their hands, while
others were singing little hymns that they were accustomed to

for the consolation of those that were going away, such as
"When we all meet in heaven,
There is no parting there;
When we all meet in heaven,
There is parting no more."
We arrived at the depot and had to wait for the cars to bring the
others from the Sumterville Jail, but they soon came in sight,
and when the noise of the cars died away we heard wailing and
shrieks from those in the cars. While some were weeping, others
were fiddling, picking banjo, and dancing as they used to do in
their cabins on the plantations. Those who were so merry had
very bad masters, and even though they stood a chance of being
sold to one as bad or even worse, yet they were glad to be rid of
the one they knew.
While the cars were at the depot, a large crowd of white people
gathered, and were laughing and talking about the prospect of
negro traffic; but when the cars began to start and the conductor
cried out, "all who are going on this train must get on board
without delay," the colored people cried out with one voice as
though the heavens and earth were coming together, and it was
so pitiful, that those hard hearted white men who had been
accustomed to driving slaves all their lives, shed tears like
children. As the cars moved away we heard the weeping and
wailing from the slaves as far as human voice could be heard;
and from that time to the present I have neither seen nor heard
from my two sisters, nor any of those who left Clarkson depot
on that memorable day.
Document 5, Slave James Curry Describes Running Away to the
North, 1840 (LearnNC.org, 1840)[footnoteRef:5] [5: “Narrative
of James Curry, A Fugitive Slave.” The Liberator, January 10,

1840.]
After I was sixteen, I was put into the field to work in the
spring and summer, and in the autumn and winter, I worked in
the hatter’s shop with my uncle. We raised on the plantation,
principally, tobacco, some cotton, and some grain. We
commenced work as soon as we could see in the morning, and
worked from that time until 12 o’clock before breakfast, and
then until dark, when we had our dinner, and hastened to our
night-work for ourselves. We were not driven as field slaves
generally are, and yet when I hear people here say they work as
hard as the slaves, I can tell them from experience, they know
nothing about it. And even if they did work as hard, there is one
striking difference. When they go home at night, they carry to
their families the wages of their daily labor; and then they have
the night for rest and sleep. Whereas, the slave carries to his
family at night, only a weary body and a sick mind, and all he
can do for them is done during the hours allowed him for sleep.
A slave, who was hired during one summer by Thomas
Maguhee, a rich slaveholder in our neighborhood, soon after his
return, passed with me, one day, near a field on his plantation.
Pointing to it, he said, ‘I never saw blood flow any where as
I’ve seen it flow in that field. It flows there like water. When I
went there to work, I was a man but now, I am a boy. I could
then carry several bushels on my shoulder, but now I cannot lift
one to it.’ So very hard had he been worked. When arranging
the slaves for hoeing in the field, the overseer takes them, one
at a time, and tries their speed, and places them accordingly in
the row, the swiftest first and so on. Then they commence, and
all must keep up with the foremost. This Thomas Maguhee used
to walk into his field, with his hat close down on his head, and
holding his cane over his shoulder. When he came up to the
poor slaves, as they were tugging at their hoes, he would call
out, ‘boys!’ Then they must all raise their hats and reply
simultaneously, ‘Sir.’ ‘Move your hoes.’ They would spring

forward and strive to increase their speed to the utmost; but
presently he would call out again, ‘boys!’ Again the hats were
raised as they answered, ‘Sir.’ ‘I told you to move your hoes,
and you hav’nt moved them yet. I have twice to threat and once
to fall. (That is, if you do not move faster, I shall knock you
down.) Now the poor creatures must make their last effort, and
when he saw that their every power was exerted, he would set
his hat on the top of his head, taking down his cane, set his
arms akimbo and strut through the field.…
When in my twentieth year, I became attached to a free colored
girl, who lived about two miles from our plantation. When I
asked my master’s consent to our marriage, he refused to give
it, and swore that he would cut my throat from ear to ear, before
I should marry a free nigger; and with thus he left me. I did not
expect him to consent, but I had determined to do in this as I
pleased; I knew he would not kill me, because I was money to
him, and all the time keeping freedom in my view, I knew I
could run away if he punished me. And so we were married. We
did not dare to have any even of the trifling ceremony allowed
to the slaves, but God married us. It was about two months
before he said any thing to me about it. He then attacked me one
Sabbath morning, and told me I had broken his orders. He said I
should not have my free wife, for he would separate us, as far as
there was land to carry me. I told him if I was separated from
her, I should choose to be sent away. He then told me that she
was a bad girl, and endeavored by his falsehoods to make me
believe it. My indignation was roused, I forgot whom I was
talking to, and was on the point of giving him the lie, when I
recollected myself and smothered my feelings. He then again
said he would cut my throat from ear to ear, and if he had his
pen-knife, he would do it now. I told him he might kill me if he
chose, I had rather die than be separated from my wife. A man
with whom he had been negotiating for overseer, was standing
by, and he said to my master, I would not do that; you know
what the Scripture says about separating man and wife; and he

soon desisted and never said any more about it.
But notwithstanding my union with the object of my affection,
and the comparatively good treatment I received, I still
cherished the longing for liberty, which, from my childhood,
had been the prevailing desire of my heart. Hitherto, my
attachment to my relations, to my mother in particular, had
determined me to remain as long as a strict performance of my
allotted labors saved me from being whipped; but the time
came, when, having obtained a knowledge of the course which
would carry me to Pennsylvania, I only waited for an occasion
to escape. It is very common for slaves, when whipped or
threatened with a whipping, to run into the woods, and after a
short time, when subdued by hunger, not knowing whither to
flee for relief, to return and throw themselves upon the mercy of
their masters. Therefore, when a slave runs away, on such an
occasion, it is expected that he will soon return, and little
trouble is taken about it for some days. For such an occasion I
now waited, and it was not long before it came without my
seeking it. In May, 1837, just after I was 22 years old, the
overseer sent a boy to me one evening, with a horse, bidding me
go with him to feed him. It was then between nine and ten
o’clock at night. I had toiled through the day for my master, had
just got my dinner, and was on my way to the hatter’s shop for
my night’s work, when the boy came to me. I did not think it
necessary for me to go with him, so I told him where to put the
horse, and that the feed was all ready and he might throw it in;
and then I went to my work at the shop, where I was allowed to
make hats, using nothing of my master’s, except tools and the
dye, which would be thrown away after my uncle had done with
it. In a few minutes, the overseer came in and asked me why I
did not go with the boy. I began to reply, by by telling him that
I thought he did not care if the horse was but fed, and the boy
could just as well do it alone; he said he would let me know that
I should obey my orders, and if I did not move and feed the
horse, he would thrush me as long as he could find me. I went

to the house to obey him, and he followed me; but the horse was
fed when I got there. He then swore that he would flog me
because I had not obeyed his orders. He took a hickory rod and
struck me some thirty or forty strokes, over my clothes. My first
impulse was to take the stick out of his hand, for I was much
stronger than he. But I recollected that my master was in the
house, and if I did so, he would be called, and probably I should
be stripped and tied, and instead of thirty or forty, should
receive hundreds of stripes. I therefore concluded it was wisest
to take quietly whatever he choose to inflict, but as the strokes
fell upon my back, I firmly resolved that I would no longer be a
slave. I would now escape or die in the attempt. They might
shoot me down if they chose, but I would not live a slave. The
next morning, I decided, that, as my master was preparing for
one of his slave-driving expeditions to Alabama, I would wait
until he was gone; that when he was fairly started on his
journey, I would start on mine, he for the south, and I for the
north. In the meantime, I instructed my two younger brothers in
my plans. It happened that on the afternoon of the 14th of June,
about three weeks after the whipping I received, and just after
my master had set off for Alabama, as we were going to the
field after breakfast, to ploughing, the overseer got very angry
with me and my two brothers, and threatened to whip us before
night. He said that as he could not do it himself, there were men
in the neighborhood he could get to help him, and then he
walked away. This was our opportunity. We took our horses
round to the road fence and hitched them, and ran for my wife’s
house. There I changed my clothes, and took my leave of her,
with the hope of being soon able to send for her from a land of
freedom, and left her in a state of distress which I cannot
describe. We started without money and without clothes, except
what we wore, (not daring to carry a bundle,) but with our
hearts full of hope. We travelled by night, and slept in the
woods during the day. After travelling two or three nights, we
got alarmed and turned out of the road, and before we turned
into it again, it had separated, and we took the wrong road. It

was cloudy for two or three days, and after travelling three
nights, we found ourselves just where we were three days
before, and almost home again. We were sadly disappointed, but
not discouraged; and so, turning our faces again northward, we
went on.
Near Petersburgh, we passed a neat farm-house, with every
thing around it in perfect order, which had once been shown to
me by a slave, as I was driving my master’s team to the city.
‘That,’ said he, ‘belongs to a Friend; they never hold slaves.’
Now I was strongly tempted to stop there, and ask instruction in
my northward course, as I knew the way no farther; but I dared
not. So, not knowing the north star, we took the two lower stars
of the great bear for our guide, and putting our trust in God, we
passed Petersburgh. We suffered much from hunger. There was
no fruit and no grain to be found at that season, and we
sometimes went two days, and sometimes three, without tasting
food, as we did not dare to ask, except when we found a slave’s,
or free colored person’s house remote from any other, and then
we were never refused, if they had food to give. Thus we came
on, until about forty-five miles from Washington, when, having
in the night obtained some meal, and having then been three
days without food, my poor brothers begged me to go out of the
woods in the day time, and get some fire in order to bake us
some bread. I went to a house, got some and returned to the
woods. We made a fire in the hollow stump of a tree, mixed our
meal with water, which we found near, and wrapping it in
leaves, threw it in and baked it. After eating heartily, we began
to bake some to carry with us, when, hearing a noise in the
bushes, we looked up, and beheld dogs coming towards us, and
behind them several white men, who called out, ‘O! you rascals,
what are you doing there? Catch him! catch him!’ The dogs
sprang towards us. My feelings I cannot describe, as I started,
and ran with all my might. My brothers, having taken off their
coats and hats, stopped to pick them up, and then ran off in
another direction, and the dogs followed them, while I escaped,

and never saw them more. I heard the dogs barking after them,
when I had got as much as a mile from where we started. Oh!
then I was most miserable, left alone, a poor hunted stranger in
a strange land—my brothers gone. I know not how to express
the feelings of that moment. After listening awhile, I went
forward. I had lost my way, and knew not where I was, but I
looked at the sun, and as near as I could, pursued a northward
course. In that afternoon I was attacked by a wild beast. I knew
not what it was. I thought, surely I am beset this day, but unlike
the men, more ferocious than wild beasts, I succeeded in driving
him away, and that night crossed a branch of the Potomac. Just
before I reached the town of Dumfries, I came across an old
horse in a field with a bell on his neck. I had been warned by a
colored man, a few nights before, to beware of Dumfries. I was
worn out with running, and I took the bell off the horse’s neck,
took the bell collar for a whip, and putting a hickory bark round
his head for a bridle, I jumped on his back, and thus mounted, I
rode through Dumfries. The bull-dogs lay along the street, ready
to seize the poor night traveller, but, being on horse-back, they
did not molest me. I have no doubt that I should have been
taken up, if I had been on foot. When I got through the town, I
dismounted, and said to my horse, ‘go back to your master, I did
not mean to injure him, and hope we will get you again, but you
have done me a great deal of good.’ And then I hastened on, and
got as far from him as I could before morning. At Alexandria, I
crossed the Potomac river, and came to Washington, where I
made friends with a colored family, with whom I rested eight
days. I then took the Montgomery road, but, wishing to escape
Baltimore, I turned off, and it being cloudy, I lost my course,
and fell back again upon the Potomac river, and travelled on the
tow path of the canal from Friday night until Sunday morning,
when I lay down and slept a little, and then, having no place to
hide for the day, I determined to go on until I could find a place
of safety. I soon saw a man riding towards me on horse-back.
As he came near, he put his eyes upon me, and I felt sure that he
intended to question me. I fell to praying to God to protect me,

and so begging and praying fervently, I went forward. When he
met me, he stopped his horse, leaned forward and looked at me,
and then, without speaking, rode on again. I still fully believe it
was at first his intention to question me. I soon entered a
colored person’s house on the side of the canal, where they gave
me breakfast and treated me very kindly. I travelled on through
Williamsport and Hagerstown, in Maryland, and, on the 19th
day of July, about two hours before day. I crossed the line into
Pennsylvania, with a heart full of gratitude to God, believing
that I was indeed a free man, and that now, under the protection
of law, there was ‘none who could molest me or make me
afraid.’ In the course of the morning, I was spoken to by a man,
sitting at the window of a house in Chambersburg, who asked
me if I wanted a job of work. I replied that I did, and he took
me into his garden, and set me to work. When the job there was
done, he told me I might clean his carriage. At dinner, I ate in
the kitchen with a colored woman. She inquired where I came
from, I told her the name of the town in Pennsylvania. Said she,
‘I didn’t know but you came from Virginia, or Maryland, and
sometimes, some of our colored friends come from there hither,
and think they are free, but the people about here are very ugly,
and they take them and carry them back; and if you haven’t
sufficient free papers, I would advise you not to stay here to-
night.’ This was enough for me. I had discovered that the man
was very curious about me, and seemed disposed to keep me at
work upon little jobs until night. I went out, and jumped over
the garden wall, and was soon on the turnpike road. I was very
fearful, and came on tremblingly; but near Philadelphia, I fell in
with members of the Society of Friends, whom I never feared to
trust, who ‘took in the stranger,’ and I worked for them until
Christmas.
After finding, to my great disappointment, that I was now a
free man, and that I could not send for my wife from here, I
determined to go to Canada. But the situation of that country at
that time was such, that my friends thought it not best for me to

go immediately, and advised me to come into the State of
Massachusetts, as the safest place for me until the difficulties in
Canada were passed away. I was taken by kind friends to New
York, from whence the Abolitionists sent me to Massachusetts,
and here I have found a resting place, and have met with friends
who have freely administered to my necessities, and whose
kindness to the poor fugitive I shall ever remember with
emotions of heartfelt gratitude. And here I have fulfilled the
promise made in slavery to my Maker, that I would
acknowledge him before men, when I came into a land of
freedom. And although I have suffered much, very much in my
escape, and have not here found that perfect freedom which I
anticipated, yet I have never for one moment regretted that I
thus sought my liberty.
In a few days I start for Canada, fully believing that he who has
thus far protected me, will guide me safely, where, under the
free goverment of Queen Victoria, I may feel myself a man. I
trust in God.
Document 6, Charles Ball discusses City Slavery (Documenting
the American South, 1859)[footnoteRef:6] [6: Charle Ball,
Fifty Years in Chains; Or, The Life of an American Slave (New
York: H. Dayton, Publisher, 1859).]
One Saturday evening, when I came home from the corn field,
my master told me that he had hired me out for a year at the city
of Washington, and that I would have to live at the Navy Yard.
On the New Year's day following, which happened about
two weeks afterwards, my master set forward for Washington,
on horseback, and ordered me to accompany him on foot. It was
night when we arrived at the Navy Yard, and everything
appeared very strange to me.
I was told by a gentleman who had epaulets on his

shoulders, that I must go on board a large ship, which lay in the
river. He at the same time told a boy to show me the way. This
ship proved to be a frigate, and I was told that I had been
brought there to cook for the people belonging to her. In the
course of a few days the duties of my station became quite
familiar to me; and in the enjoyment of a profusion of excellent
provisions, I felt very happy. I strove by all means to please the
officers and gentlemen who came on board, and in this I soon
found my account. One gave me a half-worn coat, another an
old shirt, and a third, a cast off waistcoat and pantaloons. Some
presented me with small sums of money, and in this way I soon
found myself well clothed, and with more than a dollar in my
pocket. My duties, though constant, were not burthersome, and I
was permitted to spend Sunday afternoon in my own way. I
generally went up into the city to see the new and splendid
buildings; often walked as far as Georgetown, and made many
new acquaintances among the slaves, and frequently saw large
numbers of people of my color chained together in long trains,
and driven off towards the South. At that time the slave-trade
was not regarded with so much indignation and disgust, as it is
now. It was a rare thing to hear of a person of color running
away, and escaping altogether from his master: my father being
the only one within my knowledge, who had, before this time,
obtained his liberty in this manner, in Calvert county; and, as
before stated, I never heard what became of him after his flight.
I remained on board the frigate, and about the Navy Yard,
two years, and was quite satisfied with my lot, until about three
months before the expiration of this period, when it so happened
that a schooner, loaded with iron and other materials for the use
of the yard, arrived from Philadelphia. She came and lay close
by the frigate, to discharge her cargo, and amongst her crew I
observed a black man, with whom, in the course of a day or two,
I became acquainted. He told me he was free, and lived in
Philadelphia, where he kept a house of entertainment for sailors,
which, he said, was attended to in his absence by his wife.

His description of Philadelphia, and of the liberty that I
determined to devise some plan of escaping from the frigate,
and making my way to the North. I communicated my designs to
my new friend, who promised to give me his aid. We agreed that
the night before the schooner should sail, I was to be concealed
in the hold, amongst a parcel of loose tobacco, which, he said,
the captain had undertaken to carry to Philadelphia. The sailing
of the schooner was delayed longer than we expected; and,
finally, her captain purchased a cargo of flour in Georgetown,
and sailed for the West Indies. Whilst I was anxiously awaiting
some other opportunity of making my way to Philadelphia, (the
idea of crossing the country to the western part of Pennsylvania,
never entered my mind,) New Year's day came, and with it came
my old master from Calvert, accompanied by a gentleman
named Gibson, to whom, he said, he had sold me, and to whom
he delivered me over in the Navy Yard. We all three set out that
same evening for Calvert, and reached the residence of my new
master the next day. Here, I was informed, that I had become
the subject of a law-suit. My new master claimed me under his
purchase from old Mr. Cox; and another gentleman of the
neighborhood, named Levin Ballard, had bought me of the
children of my former master, Jack Cox This suit continued in
the course of Calvert county more than two years; but was
finally decided in favor of him who had bought me of the
children.
Document 7, Southern Angelina Grimke Decries the Institution
of Slavery (Digital History, 1839)[footnoteRef:7] [7: Weld,
Testimony of Angelina Grimke, 1839.]
I will first introduce the reader to a woman of the highest
respectability--one who was foremost in every benevolent
enterprise.... This lady used to keep cowhides, or small paddles
(called 'pancake sticks') in four different apartments in her
house; so that when she wished to punish, or to have punished,

any of her slaves, she might not have the trouble of sending for
an instrument of torture. For many years...her slaves, were
flogged every day.... But the floggings were not all; the
scoldings and abuse daily heaped upon them all, were worse:
'fools' and 'liars,' 'sluts' and 'husseys,' 'hypocrites' and 'good-
for-nothing creatures' were the common epithets which her
mouth was filled, when addressing her slaves, adults as well as
children....
Only two meals a day are allowed the house slaves--the first at
twelve o'clock.... As the general rule, no lights of any kind, no
firewood--no towels, basins, or soap, no tables, chairs, or other
furniture, are provided.... Chambermaids and seamstresses often
sleep in their mistresses' apartments, but with no bedding at
all....
Persons who own plantations and yet live in cities, often take
children from their parents as soon as they are weaned, and send
them into the country; because they do not want the time of the
mother taken up by attendance upon her own children, it being
too valuable to the mistress.... Parents are almost never
consulted as to the disposition to be made of their children; they
have as little control over them, as have domestic animals over
the disposal of their young. Every natural and social feeling and
affection are violated with indifference; slaves are treated as
though they did not possess them.
Another way in which the feelings of slaves are trifled with and
often deeply wounded, is by changing their names; if, at the
time they are brought into a family, there is another slave of the
same name; or if the owner happens, for some other reason, not
to like the name of the new comer.... Indeed it would be utterly
impossible to recount the multitude of ways in which the heart
of the slave is continually lacerated by the total disregard of his
feelings as a social being and a human creature.
Document 8, George Fitzhugh Presents a Pro-Slavery Argument

(PBS.org, 1857)[footnoteRef:8] [8: George Fitzhugh, Cannibals
All! Or, Slaves Without Masters (Richmond, VA: A. Morris,
1857).]
The negro slaves of the South are the happiest, and, in some
sense, the freest people in the world. The children and the aged
and infirm work not at all, and yet have all the comforts and
necessities of life provided for them. They enjoy liberty,
because they are oppressed neither by care nor labor. The
women do little hard work, and are protected from the
despotism of their husbands by their masters. The negro men
and stout boys work, on the average, in good weather, not more
than nine hours a day. The balance of their time is spent in
perfect abandon. Besides, they have their Sabbaths and
holidays. White men, with so much of license and liberty, would
die of ennui; but negroes luxuriate in corporeal and mental
repose. With their faces upturned to the sun, they can sleep at
any hour; and quiet sleep is the greatest of human enjoyments.
"Blessed be the man who invented sleep." 'tis happiness in
itself-and results from contentment with the present, and
confident assurance of the future. We do not know whether free
laborers ever sleep. They are fools to do so; for, whilst they
sleep, the wily and watchful capitalist is devising means to
ensnare and exploitate them. The free laborer must work or
starve. He is more of a slave than the negro, because he works
longer and harder for less allowance than the slave, and has no
holiday, because the cares of life with him begin when its labors
end. He has no liberty, and not a single right. We know, 'tis
often said, air and water are common property, which all have
equal right to participate and enjoy; but this is utterly false. The
appropriation of the lands carries with it the appropriation of all
on or above the lands, usque ad coelum, aut ad inferos. (Even to
heaven or hell.) A man cannot breathe the air without a place to
breathe it from, and all places are appropriated. All water is
private property "to the middle of the stream," except the ocean,

and that is not fit to drink.
Document 9, Senator James Henry Hammond Defends Slavery,
1858 (PBS.org, 1858)[footnoteRef:9] [9: James Henry
Hammond, “The ‘Mudsill’ Theory,” Speech to the US Senate,
March 4, 1858.]
Speech to the U.S. Senate, March 4, 1858
In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial
duties, to perform the drudgery of life. That is, a class requiring
but a low order of intellect and but little skill. Its requisites are
vigor, docility, fidelity. Such a class you must have, or you
would not have that other class which leads progress,
civilization, and refinement. It constitutes the very mud-sill of
society and of political government; and you might as well
attempt to build a house in the air, as to build either the one or
the other, except on this mud-sill. Fortunately for the South, she
found a race adapted to that purpose to her hand. A race inferior
to her own, but eminently qualified in temper, in vigor, in
docility, in capacity to stand the climate, to answer all her
purposes. We use them for our purpose, and call them slaves.
We found them slaves by the common "consent of mankind,"
which, according to Cicero, "lex naturae est." The highest proof
of what is Nature's law. We are old-fashioned at the South yet;
slave is a word discarded now by "ears polite;" I will not
characterize that class at the North by that term; but you have
it; it is there; it is everywhere; it is eternal.
The Senator from New York said yesterday that the whole world
had abolished slavery. Aye, the name, but not the thing; all the
powers of the earth cannot abolish that. God only can do it
when he repeals the fiat, "the poor ye always have with you;"
for the man who lives by daily labor, and scarcely lives at that,
and who has to put out his labor in the market, and take the best
he can get for it; in short, your whole hireling class of manual

laborers and "operatives," as you call them, are essentially
slaves. The difference between us is, that our slaves are hired
for life and well compensated; there is no starvation, no
begging, no want of employment among our people, and not too
much employment either. Yours are hired by the day, not cared
for, and scantily compensated, which may be proved in the most
painful manner, at any hour in any street in any of your large
towns. Why, you meet more beggars in one day, in any single
street of the city of New York, than you would meet in a
lifetime in the whole South. We do not think that whites should
be slaves either by law or necessity. Our slaves are black, of
another and inferior race. The status in which we have placed
them is an elevation. They are elevated from the condition in
which God first created them, by being made our slaves. None
of that race on the whole face of the globe can be compared
with the slaves of the South. They are happy, content,
unaspiring, and utterly incapable, from intellectual weakness,
ever to give us any trouble by their aspirations. Yours are
white, of your own race; you are brothers of one blood. They
are your equals in natural endowment of intellect, and they feel
galled by their degradation. Our slaves do not vote. We give
them no political power. Yours do vote, and, being the majority,
they are the depositories of all your political power. If they
knew the tremendous secret, that the ballot-box is stronger than
"an army with banners," and could combine, where would you
be? Your society would be reconstructed, your government
overthrown, your property divided, not as they have mistakenly
attempted to initiate such proceedings by meeting in parks, with
arms in their hands, but by the quiet process of the ballot-box.
You have been making war upon us to our very hearthstones.
How would you like for us to send lecturers and agitators North,
to teach these people this, to aid in combining, and to lead
them?
Document 10, Dr. Samuel Cartwright writes about the “Diseases
and Peculiarities of the Negro Race” (PBS.org,
1851)[footnoteRef:10] [10: Dr. Samuel Cartwright, “Diseases

and Peculiarities of the Negro Race,” DeBow’s Review,
Southern and Western States, Volume XI, New Orleans, 1951.]
DRAPETOMANIA, OR THE DISEASE CAUSING NEGROES
TO RUN AWAY.
It is unknown to our medical authorities, although its diagnostic
symptom, the absconding from service, is well known to our
planters and overseers...
In noticing a disease not heretofore classed among the long list
of maladies that man is subject to, it was necessary to have a
new term to express it. The cause in the most of cases, that
induces the negro to run away from service, is as much a
disease of the mind as any other species of mental alienation,
and much more curable, as a general rule. With the advantages
of proper medical advice, strictly followed, this troublesome
practice that many negroes have of running away, can be almost
entirely prevented, although the slaves be located on the borders
of a free state, within a stone's throw of the abolitionists.
If the white man attempts to oppose the Deity's will, by trying
to make the negro anything else than "the submissive knee-
bender," (which the Almighty declared he should be,) by trying
to raise him to a level with himself, or by putting himself on an
equality with the negro; or if he abuses the power which God
has given him over his fellow-man, by being cruel to him, or
punishing him in anger, or by neglecting to protect him from the
wanton abuses of his fellow-servants and all others, or by
denying him the usual comforts and necessaries of life, the
negro will run away; but if he keeps him in the position that we
learn from the Scriptures he was intended to occupy, that is, the
position of submission; and if his master or overseer be kind
and gracious in his hearing towards him, without condescension,
and at the sane time ministers to his physical wants, and
protects him from abuses, the negro is spell-bound, and cannot
run away.

According to my experience, the "genu flexit"--the awe and
reverence, must be exacted from them, or they will despise their
masters, become rude and ungovernable, and run away. On
Mason and Dixon's line, two classes of persons were apt to lose
their negroes: those who made themselves too familiar with
them, treating them as equals, and making little or no
distinction in regard to color; and, on the other hand, those who
treated them cruelly, denied them the common necessaries of
life, neglected to protect them against the abuses of others, or
frightened them by a blustering manner of approach, when about
to punish them for misdemeanors. Before the negroes run away,
unless they are frightened or panic-struck, they become sulky
and dissatisfied. The cause of this sulkiness and dissatisfaction
should be inquired into and removed, or they are apt to run
away or fall into the negro consumption. When sulky and
dissatisfied without cause, the experience of those on the line
and elsewhere, was decidedly in favor of whipping them out of
it, as a preventive measure against absconding, or other bad
conduct. It was called whipping the devil out of them.
If treated kindly, well fed and clothed, with fuel enough to keep
a small fire burning all night--separated into families, each
family having its own house--not permitted to run about at night
to visit their neighbors, to receive visits or use intoxicating
liquors, and not overworked or exposed too much to the
weather, they are very easily governed--more so than any other
people in the world. When all this is done, if any one of more of
them, at any time, are inclined to raise their heads to a level
with their master or overseer, humanity and their own good
require that they should be punished until they fall into that
submissive state which it was intended for them to occupy in all
after-time, when their progenitor received the name of Canaan
or "submissive knee-bender." They have only to be kept in that
state and treated like children, with care, kindness, attention
and humanity, to prevent and cure them from running away.

DYSAETHESIA AETHIOPICA, OR HEBETUDE OF MIND
AND OBTUSE SENSIBILITY OF BODY--A DISEASE
PECULIAR TO NEGROES--CALLED BY OVERSEERS, "
RASCALITY."
Dysaesthesia Aethiopica is a disease peculiar to negroes,
affecting both mind and body in a manner as well expressed by
dysaesthesia, the name I have given it, as could be by a single
term. There is both mind and sensibility, but both seem to be
difficult to reach by impressions from without. There is a
partial insensibility of the skin, and so great a hebetude of the
intellectual faculties, as to be like a person half asleep, that is
with difficulty aroused and kept awake. It differs from every
other species of mental disease, as it is accompanied with
physical signs or lesions of the body discoverable to the
medical observer, which are always present and sufficient to
account for the symptoms. It is much more prevalent among free
negroes living in clusters by themselves, than among slaves on
our plantations, and attacks only such slaves as live like free
negroes in regard to diet, drinks, exercise, etc. It is not my
purpose to treat of the complaint as it prevails among free
negroes, nearly all of whom are more or less afflicted with it,
that have not got some white person to direct and to take care of
them. To narrate its symptoms and effects among them would be
to write a history of the ruins and dilapidation of Hayti, and
every spot of earth they have ever had uncontrolled possession
over for any length of time. I propose only to describe its
symptoms among slaves.
From the careless movements of the individuals affected with
the complaint, they are apt to do much mischief, which appears
as if intentional, but is mostly owing to the stupidness of mind
and insensibility of the nerves induced by the disease. Thus,
they break, waste and destroy everything they handle,--abuse
horses and cattle,--tear, burn or rend their own clothing, and,

paying no attention to the rights of property, steal others, to
replace what they have destroyed. They wander about at night,
and keep in a half nodding sleep during the day. They slight
their work,--cut up corn, cane, cotton or tobacco when hoeing
it, as if for pure mischief. They raise disturbances with their
overseers and fellow-servants without cause or motive, and
seem to be insensible to pain when subjected to punishment.
The fact of the existence of such a complaint, making man like
an automaton or senseless machine, having the above or similar
symptoms, can be clearly established by the most direct and
positive testimony. That it should have escaped the attention of
the medical profession, can only be accounted for because its
attention has not been sufficiently directed to the maladies of
the negro race. Otherwise a complaint of so common an
occurrence on badly-governed plantations, and so universal
among free negroes, or those who are not governed at all,--a
disease radicated in physical lesions and having its peculiar and
well marked symptoms and its curative indications, would not
have escaped the notice of the profession. The northern
physicians and people have noticed the symptoms, but not the
disease from which they spring. They ignorantly attribute the
symptoms to the debasing influence of slavery on the mind
without considering that those who have never been in slavery,
or their fathers before them, are the most afflicted, and the
latest from the slave-holding South the least. The disease is the
natural offspring of negro liberty--the liberty to be idle, to
wallow in filth, and to indulge in improper food and drinks.
Post-Reading Exercises
1. Pretend you are an abolitionist and write a speech decrying
the evils of slavery. Your speech should bring in specific
examples and quotes from the primary source documents in this
chapter.
2. After examining the pro-slavery documents, write a list of at

least three justifications that pro-slavery advocates gave in
defending the institution of slavery. Then, using specific
examples and quotes from the primary source documents in this
chapter, discuss the motivations behind each justification (for
example, consider why pro-slavery doctors might have argued
that slaves were prone to “drapetomania”—what did it suggest
about slaves and slave owners?).
3. JOURNAL OPTION: For this chapter of OB, instead of
answering Question 1 or 2, you may instead choose to turn in a
2-4 page typed document (double-spaced) with brief notes on
each document in the chapter, as well as 5 questions about the
chapter’s material. Please see the handout under Files titled
“Journal Notes/Questions Guide” for more specific instructions
on how to do this properly.
Works Cited
Document 7:Digital History. (1839). Digital History. Retrieved
July 9, 2012, from Weld, Testimony of Angelina Grimke:
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/documents/documents_p2.cfm?
doc=85
Document 6: Documenting the American South. (1859).
Documenting the American South. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from
Charles Ball, Fifty Years in Chains:
http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/ball/ball.html
Document 5: LearnNC.org. (1840, January 10). LearnNC.org.
Retrieved July 9, 2012, from James Curry escapes from slavery:
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-antebellum/5335
Document 3: PBS.org. (1835, January 5). PBS.org. Retrieved
July 9, 2012, from Africans in America, Letter from Henry
Tayloe on the domestic slave trade:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3138t.html
Document 10: PBS.org. (1851). PBS.org. Retrieved July 9,
2012, from Africans in America, "Diseases and Peculiarities of
the Negro Race" by Dr. Cartwright:

Document 8: PBS.org. (1857). PBS.org. Retrieved July 9, 2012,
from American Experience, Excerpt from George Fitzhugh,
Cannibals All! Or, Slaves Without Masters:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/lincolns/filmmore/ps_fitzhugh.h
tml
Document 9: PBS.org. (1858, March 4). PBS.org. Retrieved July
9, 2012, from Africans in America,"The 'Mudsill' Theory" by
James Henry Hammond:
Document 4: PBS.org. (1890). PBS.org. Retrieved July 9, 2012,
from Africans in America, A slave experience of being sold
south: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3438t.html
Document 2: University of Michigan Library. (1856, March).
University of Michigan Library. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from
Debow's Review, The Loss of Our Trade with the North:
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-
idx?c=moajrnl;cc=moajrnl;rgn=full%20text;idno=acg1336.1-
20.003;didno=acg1336.1-
20.003;view=image;seq=0415;node=acg1336.1-20.003%3A15
Document 1: Willis, J. C. (1858, March 4). America's Civil
War, www.sewanee.edu. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from James
Henry Hammond, On the Admission of Kansas, Under the
Lecompton Constitution:
http://www.sewanee.edu/faculty/Willis/Civil_War/documents/H
ammondCotton.html
1
CHAPTER 5: ANTEBELLUM WEST, Uprooting and Upheaval,
1820-1860
Contents

Documents: 4
Document 1, John O’Sullivan Explains “Manifest Destiny” (Mt.
Holyoke, 1839) 4
Document 2, Autobiography of John Ball from the Oregon Trail,
1832 (user.xmission.com, 1832) 6
Document 3, Stephen Austin Justifies Taking Up Arms Against
Mexico (Digital History, 1836) 8
Document 4, General Zachary Taylor Describes the Mexican
War (Digital History, 1847) 9
Document 5, Taylor Gives the Mexicans an Ultimatum re:
Surrender (Digital History, 1847) 9
Document 6, Henry Simpson Tells Americans How They Can
Get Rich in California’s Gold Mines (library.ca.gov, 1848) 10
Document 7, William Clayton Writes About the Mormon
Migration to Utah (westvalley.edu, 1846) 11
Document 8, The Donner Party Write About Their Fateful Trip,
1847 (donnerpartydiary.com, 1847) 12
Document 9, Senator Stephen Douglas Argues for Popular
Sovereignty re: the Kansas-Nebraska Territory (The Library of
Congress, 1854) 14
Document 10, The Free Soil Ideology, 1848 (Digital History,
1848) 16
Post-Reading Exercises: 16
Works Cited 17
Introduction and Pre-Reading Questions: Americans had been
pushing west since early colonial times, always in search of
more land, better land, and, for some, more opportunity. That
push for land led settlers from the coast into the interior, from
the town into the backwoods. And this feeling that land could
always be found west, this feeling that opportunity lay in the
west, often convinced people to leave their surroundings and
strike out in the wilderness. Though settlers had begun

migrating to newer portions of the west in the 1820s, the 1840s
and 1850s truly saw the most dramatic increase in western
settlement, in westward expansion. One of the major factors in
why more people were migrating westward was the spread of an
idea called “Manifest Destiny,” an idea that would come to
define the American spirit for decades to follow. Manifest
Destiny explained to Americans that the United States was
destined, by God, “to expand its boundaries over a vast area, an
area that included, but was not necessarily restricted to, the
continent of North America.”[footnoteRef:1] This idea
embraced a spirit of nationalism that insisted it was Americans’
duty to bring that wonderful institution, democracy, to the
farthest reaches possible. And by the 1840s, the idea of
Manifest Destiny had spread like wildfire through the nation, as
you’ll see in the first document by John O’Sullivan. [1: Alan
Brinkley, The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the
American People (McGraw Hill: New York, 1996), 326.]
Manifest Destiny led people to a number of regions in the west.
In the early years of Manifest Destiny, people began traveling
first to Texas and Oregon. Document 2 illustrates the
excitement and resources that could be found on the Oregon
Trail. In Texas, tens of thousands of Americans migrated to
this Mexican territory in the 1820s and by the 1830s, these
white settlers wanted Texas (and other Mexican territories,
among them California) to become a part of the United States
with all of its benefits and protections. The United States
ultimately went to war with Mexico over this territory, which
Documents 3-5 discuss. What positive attributes did these
authors give to the West? What are some of the negative aspects
you can see regarding westward expansion? Why do you think
the United States felt justified in going to war over Mexican
territory?
The Mexican-American War added a great deal of territory to
the United States, which appeased the appetites of those people
who supported the idea of Manifest Destiny. But when gold

was found in California (Document 6) in 1848 causing
California to apply for statehood, it became clear that the
accumulation of new territory also meant that the issue of
slavery was far from solved.
There were certainly people who came to the Far West before
the 1848 gold rush, in search of a new and better life—people
who just came on the wings of the belief in Manifest Destiny.
One of these groups was the Mormons, a religious group that
had formed in the early 19th century in upstate New York. The
Mormons were heavily persecuted in upstate New York by other
religious folks who believed the Book of Mormon to be heresy.
As a result of these feelings of persecution, Joseph Smith and
his followers headed west to set up Mormon settlements and,
hopefully, escape danger. Document 7 discusses the Mormon
migration that took place as Mormons moved from New York,
to Missouri, Ohio, and ultimately Utah, in search of religious
freedom.
One of the most infamous groups of Manifest Destiny-
proponents was the Donner Party who migrated to California in
1846-1847. The story of the Donner Party is a tragic one
(Document 8), and it had the effect of at least tempering the
multitude of stories traveling east about how easy migration was
and how wonderful it was. How do Documents 6-8 describe
westward migration? What were the positives? The negatives?
Do you think you would have migrated west given what you’ve
read?
Westward expansions presented an exciting opportunity for
Americans and many Americans took advantage of the
opportunity and headed west. This westward expansion
absorbed the massive population growth of the antebellum
period and spread the American borders from the Atlantic to the
Pacific Oceans. But as people migrated west, their cultures and
their ideologies migrated westward, as well. And former
Northerners and Southerners soon found themselves as
neighbors; and slavery once again became a hot-button issue,
particularly whether or not slavery should be allowed to expand

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