The Elephant in America

Last week in Honors History 10, we learned about the last cause of the civil war. This final lesson was called "The Elephant in the Room", and idiom for the indisputable but ignored issue of slavery in America. In class, we organized ourselves into small groups, and learned about the events that took place in the newly formed western US. The north and the south began to disagree with how to distribute slavery in the country.

The first picture is of my groups timeline, consisting of 8 major events that lead up to the debate over slavery and the civil war. The events above the timeline are the cons of abolishing slavery, and the events below the line are the pros of abolishing slavery. Most 19th century southerners supported the events above the timeline, while most 19th century northerners supported the events below the line. 

4 of the 8 major events were the Missouri Compromise, Bleeding Kansas, the Caning of Charles Sumner and the Dred Scott Decision.  

The Missouri Compromise was a multi-part compromise created by Henry Clay in an attempt to resolve the conflicts between the north and the south.  The first two  solutions were that the new southern state, Missouri, would enter as a slave state, as long as the new northern state, Maine, entered as a free state.  Another compromise was that slavery would not exist above the 36 degree latitude line in Missouri.  

'Bleeding Kansas' refers to the riot that broke out in Lawrence, Kansas, where a group of pro-slavery southerners attempted to rebel against the anti-slavery advocates.  John Brown and his sons ended up massacring 5 of the pro-slavery men.

 The Caning of Charles Sumner took place right after Sumner's fiery 2-day speech on the slavery conflict, in which he targeted Andrew Butler, the senate of South Carolina.  Butler's nephew, Preston Brooks, beat Sumner in his chamber with a cane in response to the speech.

Dred Scott was a Missourian slave who traveled to Illinois with his owner because of his owner's relocation.  Illinois was declared a free state, which meant Scott was living on free soil.  After a long period of time, Scott and his owner were again relocated back to the slave state of Missouri.  In Missouri, Scott's owner died.  Scott went to court, seeking freedom because he had lived on free soil for such a long time, and had no living owner.  The case got bought to the US Supreme Court, where Scott was never granted freedom, because the court ruled him as a non-citizen, granting him no rights. The effects of this decision were that slaves were denied the right to sue in court, enslaved people could not be granted freedom by living on free soil, and the Missouri Compromise was ruled unconstitutional (because all territories were technically open to slavery).

Making the timeline was a really helpful way to understand the events that lead up to slavery, and to see how they had effects on each other.