1787 |
Northwest Ordinance:
On July 13, 1787, the Confederation Congress passed the
Northwest Ordinance, which created a territorial
government in the Northwest Territory and a system of
establishing new states from it (Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin). Article 6 banned
slavery or involuntary servitude in the Northwest
Territory, except as punishment for crime. It mandated
the return of fugitive slaves. The Northwest Ordinance
was one of the last acts of Congress under the Articles
of Confederation, which would soon be replaced by the
U.S. Constitution. |
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1787-1789 |
United States Constitution:
On September 17, 1787, delegates to the Constitutional
Convention signed the proposed constitution and sent it
to the states for ratification. On June 21, 1788, the
Constitution met the ratification requirement of
approval by three-quarters of the states. The first
congressional and presidential elections under the new
constitution were held that fall. The inauguration of
George Washington as president and the swearing in of
members of the First Congress occurred on March 4,
1789.
In order to avoid controversy
between the North and South, the institution of slavery
was not directly mentioned in the text of the original
Constitution. However, the document allowed 3/5 of the
number of slaves in a state to count toward that state’s
population for purposes of taxation and representation
in the U.S. House. It prohibited Congress from
outlawing the importation of slaves from abroad until
1808 (at which time Congress enacted such a ban). It
mandated the return of escaped slaves (“Persons held to
Service or Labour”). |
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1820-1821 |
Missouri Compromise:
Under its terms, Missouri entered the Union as a slave
state and Maine entered as a free state in order to keep
the slave-free state balance even in the U.S. Senate.
The Missouri Compromise prohibited slavery in the rest
of the Louisiana Purchase (1803) north of the latitude
36° 30'. The territory covered by the law ranged from
the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. Speaker
of the House Henry Clay was primarily responsible for
the successful adoption of the Missouri Compromise by
Congress. |
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1850 |
Compromise of 1850:
This legislation was designed to settle disputes arising
from War with Mexico (1846-1848), particularly those
concerning slavery. Senator Henry Clay drafted a bill
addressing all aspects of the controversy, but it was
unable to gain passage. Senator Stephen Douglas, an
Illinois Democrat, divided the measure into separate
bills in order to secure congressional majorities on
each. Under the Compromise of 1850, California entered
the Union as a free state; the Utah Territory and New
Mexico Territories were opened to slavery on the basis
of popular sovereignty (i.e., territorial voters were
allowed to decide the issue); the slave trade (but not
slavery) was abolished in the District of Columbia
(Washington, D.C.); the fugitive slave law was
strengthened; and the slave state of Texas gave up its
claim to land in the New Mexico Territory in return for
the federal government assuming debts incurred by Texas
before it was annexed as a state (1845). |
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1854 |
Kansas-Nebraska Act:
In an attempt to spur population growth in the western
territories in advance of a transcontinental railroad,
Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois introduced a bill to
establish the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. In
order to gain Southern support, the bill stipulated that
slavery in the territories would be decided by the
voters in each territory (“popular sovereignty”).
Therefore, the law repealed the Missouri Compromise ban on slavery north of 36° 30' in the lands
of the Louisiana Purchase. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of
1854 put the question of slavery in the territories at
the center of public debate, which led to the collapse
of the Whig Party, gave rise to the
anti-slavery-expansion Republican Party, and eventually
divided the Democratic Party in 1860. |
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1857 |
Dred Scott Case:
The case of Dred Scott v. Sandford involved a
slave, Dred Scott, who traveled with his master for
several years, first in the free state of Illinois and
then in the free territory of Wisconsin. After his
master’s death, Scott sued for his freedom, arguing that
his temporary stay in free territory had made him free.
On March 6, 1857, two days after the inauguration of
President James Buchanan, the U.S. Supreme Court
announced its decision. Writing for the 7-2 majority,
Chief Justice Roger Taney declared that Scott was still
a slave with no standing to sue; that black Americans
(slave or free) were not citizens and did not have civil
rights protected by the U.S. Constitution; and that
neither territorial governments nor the federal
government could ban slavery in the territories. Under
the reasoning of Dred Scott, the central plank of
the Republican Party platform—that the federal
government should ban slavery in the territories—and the
Missouri Compromise line (had it not been repealed by
the Kansas-Nebraska Act) were not constitutionally
permissible. |
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November 1860 |
Election Results:
On November 6, 1860, Republican Abraham Lincoln was
elected president with an Electoral College majority
greater than the combined total of his three opponents:
180 for Lincoln to 72 for Southern Democrat John
Breckinridge, 39 for Constitutional Unionist John Bell,
and 12 for Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas. Lincoln
won a plurality of the popular vote, 40% to Douglas’s
30%, Breckinridge’s 18%, and Bell’s 12%. |
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December 1860 |
Secession:
On November 10,
1860, the South Carolina legislature became the first to
call for a convention to consider seceding from the
Union. Delegates were elected on December 6, and the
convention opened on December 17. On December 20, 1860,
delegates unanimously approved a secession resolution,
making South Carolina the first of 11 Southern slave
states to leave the Union.
Crittenden Compromise:
On
December 18, 1860, Senator John Crittenden of Kentucky,
proposed six constitutional amendments and four
congressional resolutions aimed at appeasing and keeping
the slave states in the Union. The proposed
constitutional amendments would have: (1) extended the
old Missouri Compromise line to California, allowing
slavery below and banning it above the line, and
protecting slavery from congressional interference; (2)
forbidden Congress from banning slavery on federal
property in slave states (e.g., military posts); (3)
prevented Congress from abolishing slavery in the
District of Columbia as long as it was legal in Maryland
and Virginia; (4) prohibited Congress from interfering
with the interstate slave trade; (5) mandated Congress
to compensate directly the owners of runaway slaves;
and, (6) made the other five amendments and the 3/5 and
fugitive slave clauses of the Constitution unrepealable.
His congressional resolutions offered stronger
protection of the Fugitive Slave Law. The Crittenden
Compromise was not acceptable to President-elect Lincoln
and most Republicans because it would have expanded
slavery into the Western territories and given perpetual
protection to the institution. |
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