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Circulating the Nation: David Walker, the Missouri Compromise, and the Appeals of Black Literary Nationalism

Robert S. Levine

in Dislocating Race & Nation: Episodes in Nineteenth-Century American Literary Nationalism

This chapter argues that the debates on the Missouri Compromise were crucial to the development of African American literary nationalism during the 1820s and 1830s because they had a pronounced ... More

This chapter argues that the debates on the Missouri Compromise were crucial to the development of African American literary nationalism during the 1820s and 1830s because they had a pronounced influence on the development of a more broadly conceived American literary nationalism. As was the case during the 1790s and early 1800s, U.S. nationalism remained highly conflicted and contingent, and it therefore would be mistaken to say that there emerged a clear and distinctive “national narrative,” as Jonathan Arac terms it, informed by “an American ideology … that was played out … by the national expansion that brought the United States all the way to the Pacific coast and threatened to go further into Central America and the Caribbean.” The Missouri crisis made clear that there was no single “American ideology” at this time but instead fiercely contested notions of what such an ideology might be.Less

Commencement Exercises: The Missouri Crisis

Matthew Mason

in Slavery and Politics in the Early American Republic

This chapter examines the Missouri debates of 1819–1821 and their impact on American politics. It shows how the Missouri Crisis, which pitted the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in Congress, ... More

This chapter examines the Missouri debates of 1819–1821 and their impact on American politics. It shows how the Missouri Crisis, which pitted the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in Congress, exposed and exacerbated sectional tensions between North and South and prompted moderates to revive the tactics they had employed in previous controversies. The chapter charts the origins of the crisis, which began when Missouri's application for admission to the Union as a slave state in February 1819 was rejected by Northerners who wanted to maintain a balance between free and slave states in the Senate. It also discusses the controversial amendment to the statehood bill proposed by Congressman James Tallmadge of New York, the first Missouri Compromise authorizing Missouri to come in without a restriction on slavery but also admitting the free state of Maine, and the debate over the acceptability of the Missouri state constitution's exclusion of free blacks.Less

Slavery and Union

WILLIAM DUSINBERRE

in Slavemaster President: The Double Career of James Polk

Polk's purpose in securing the speedy annexation of Texas had been to expand plantation slavery into that vast domain. But this was not his aim in provoking war with Mexico; instead, Polk's principal ... More

Polk's purpose in securing the speedy annexation of Texas had been to expand plantation slavery into that vast domain. But this was not his aim in provoking war with Mexico; instead, Polk's principal purpose was continentalist — to expand the American empire — an aim he shared with many Northerners. Nevertheless, the Mexican War was as dangerous to the American Union as if slavery expansion had been the president's purpose. This was because Polk believed that the federal government must recognize Southern rights to extend slavery at least south of the Missouri Compromise line, even if it should prove impracticable to establish slavery very vigorously anywhere in the arid Southwest. Polk felt slavery could not be secure in the Southern states unless the right to take slaves into some of those territories were to receive federal recognition.Less

Senatorial Junta

Alice Elizabeth Malavasic

in The F Street Mess: How Southern Senators Rewrote the Kansas-Nebraska Act

This chapter examines the institutional power of the F Street Mess during the 33rd Congress including their influence over President Franklin Pierce and Stephen Douglas, the author of the proposed ... More

This chapter examines the institutional power of the F Street Mess during the 33rd Congress including their influence over President Franklin Pierce and Stephen Douglas, the author of the proposed Kansas-Nebraska bill. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how the F Street Mess forced a rewrite of the bill’s language which repealed the original 1820 restriction against slavery above the 36 30 and replaced it with the principle of congressional non-intervention, better known as popular sovereignty. Less

The Power to Repeal

Alice Elizabeth Malavasic

in The F Street Mess: How Southern Senators Rewrote the Kansas-Nebraska Act

This chapter examines how the F Street Mess managed the floor debate and passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill in the United States Senate. The chapter pays particular attention to Douglas and the ... More

This chapter examines how the F Street Mess managed the floor debate and passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill in the United States Senate. The chapter pays particular attention to Douglas and the Mess’ institutional control and procedural knowledge versus the opposition’s lack thereof.Less

Scott v. Sanford

Lackland H. Bloom

in Do Great Cases Make Bad Law?

Scott v Sanford, the Dred Scott case, is unquestionably the most infamous case ever decided by the Supreme Court. This chapter provides a detailed account of the historical circumstances leading to ... More

Scott v Sanford, the Dred Scott case, is unquestionably the most infamous case ever decided by the Supreme Court. This chapter provides a detailed account of the historical circumstances leading to the decision. It also explores how the pressures brought to bear by the politically red hot question of the constitutionality of congressional authority to prohibit slavery in the territories transformed what might have been a fairly obscure decision into a political and constitutional blockbuster. It analyzes the opinions of all nine justices, especially the majority opinion of Chief Justice Taney invalidating the Missouri Compromise. The chapter focuses on how the greatness of the case had an extremely unfortunate impact on the Court’s deliberations, decision and its opinion and the law it produced. It also considers the impact of the case on the election of Abraham Lincoln and on secession and the Civil War.Less

The Slippery Slope

in The Constitution in Congress: Descent into the Maelstrom, 1829-1861

Popular conventions in Mississippi and Georgia rejected secession and agreed to respect the new compromise, and Mississippi went so far as to deny the right to secede. The Kansas–Nebraska Act ... More

Popular conventions in Mississippi and Georgia rejected secession and agreed to respect the new compromise, and Mississippi went so far as to deny the right to secede. The Kansas–Nebraska Act effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise, which had banned slavery in parts of the Louisiana Purchase outside Missouri and north of its southern border. A bill was introduced to organize the Nebraska Territory, west of Iowa and Missouri, as early as 1844. Missouri Senator David Atchison made clear he would oppose it so long as the Missouri Compromise made slavery impossible there. After a series of amendments that were progressively more explicit as to the fate of the compromise line, the bill as enacted created two territories rather than one, promising them both statehood “with or without slavery” as their people might decide, just as Congress had provided for Utah and New Mexico in 1850.Less

Nebraska

Alice Elizabeth Malavasic

in The F Street Mess: How Southern Senators Rewrote the Kansas-Nebraska Act

This chapter discusses the discovery of the South Pass through the Rocky Mountains and its impact on western expansion. It also looks at the growing sectional divisions over slavery’s expansion, the ... More

This chapter discusses the discovery of the South Pass through the Rocky Mountains and its impact on western expansion. It also looks at the growing sectional divisions over slavery’s expansion, the congressional debate over the route for the first transcontinental railroad, and Stephen Douglas’ efforts to organize the Nebraska territory. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the political feud between Missouri’s two senators, David Rice Atchison and Thomas Hart Benton, and its impact on the future organization of Nebraska.Less

Mr. Clay's Compromise

in The Constitution in Congress: Descent into the Maelstrom, 1829-1861

Southern politicians openly threatened secession on the floor of Congress, and the Mississippi legislature had called for a convention of Southern states to meet in Nashville to discuss ways of ... More

Southern politicians openly threatened secession on the floor of Congress, and the Mississippi legislature had called for a convention of Southern states to meet in Nashville to discuss ways of protecting Southern rights. Alarmed at increasing intransigence on both sides and convinced that the President's plan would only make matters worse, Henry Clay stepped forward for the third time with a comprehensive plan to save the Union. Some Southerners pressed the extension of the Missouri Compromise, which the Nashville Convention said was the “minimum condition” for sectional peace. Clay's initial proposal had been to bribe Texas to relinquish what he called its plausible, but unfounded, claim by assuming the debts incurred by the former Republic in its struggle for independence. The Committee of Thirteen modified the proposed boundary somewhat to the advantage of Texas and substituted a money grant for the assumption of debts, but basically it endorsed Clay's proposal.Less

The State of the Country and the Church

Paul C. Gutjahr

in Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy

Chapter forty-nine examines Hodge’s early engagement in the events surround the beginning of the Civil War. Hodge was strongly pro-Union, and wrote early about the need to keep the Union intact. In ... More

Chapter forty-nine examines Hodge’s early engagement in the events surround the beginning of the Civil War. Hodge was strongly pro-Union, and wrote early about the need to keep the Union intact. In this effort, he wrote one of his most famous and widely read Repertory articles: “The State of the Country.” Once it became clear that Lincoln’s election would lead to succession, Hodge attempted to keep Southern and Northern Old School Presbyterians united. This effort also failed as James Thornwell and Benjamin Morgan Palmer led Southern Old School Presbyterians to form their own denomination. Hodge had little sympathy for the South, who he saw unlawfully seceding as it turned its back on the Constitution, but he worked hard to attempt to avoid the breakup of the Union.Less

Traversing Uneven Political Ground, 1855

William F. Moore and Jane Ann Moore

in Collaborators for Emancipation: Abraham Lincoln and Owen Lovejoy

This chapter examines how Abraham Lincoln and Owen Lovejoy traversed an uneven political ground in 1855 to move their respective positions on slavery into almost perfect alignment. It first provides ... More

This chapter examines how Abraham Lincoln and Owen Lovejoy traversed an uneven political ground in 1855 to move their respective positions on slavery into almost perfect alignment. It first provides an overview of Lincoln and Lovejoy's political grounding before discussing the political agreement that would allow Lincoln to advance his candidacy for the U.S. Senate and for Lovejoy to find a venue to correct some intentional mischaracterizations of the early Republican Party in Illinois. It also considers the two men's speeches in which they both regarded the repeal of the Missouri Compromise as a big mistake; their contradictory perceptions of the abolitionists; and their disagreement over the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the cautious approach taken by Lovejoy and others in uniting various antislavery groups.Less

1820: Erasmus and Upheaval

Liam Gillick

in Industry and Intelligence: Contemporary Art Since 1820

Enclosure. Compromise. Specialization in the light of technology. The development of parallel histories in tension with simultaneous realities. The emergence of the exhibition and the rebel who ... More

Enclosure. Compromise. Specialization in the light of technology. The development of parallel histories in tension with simultaneous realities. The emergence of the exhibition and the rebel who provokes commentary within a search for settings. The emergence of places of thought versus places of display.Less

Lincoln, Douglas, and Popular Sovereignty: The Mormon Dimension

John Y. Simon, Harold Holzer, and Dawn Vogel

in Lincoln Revisited: New Insights from the Lincoln Forum

The famed 1858 debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas centered on Douglas's strident defense of popular sovereignty. Douglas defended the right of citizens of Kansas Territory to vote ... More

The famed 1858 debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas centered on Douglas's strident defense of popular sovereignty. Douglas defended the right of citizens of Kansas Territory to vote slavery “up or down” while Lincoln insisted that the Missouri Compromise of 1820 had already settled the issue. To Lincoln, popular sovereignty jeopardized the intent of the founders to place slavery “in the course of ultimate extinction.” Throughout the debates, Lincoln refrained from mentioning Utah Territory, where settlers employed popular sovereignty to maintain a theocracy despised by others. However, on the Mormon issue, Douglas was especially vulnerable. In the previous year, President James Buchanan had sent an expedition of 2,500 men to enforce federal authority in Utah. This army established a permanent base some thirty miles from Salt Lake City.Less

The Constitution of 1818: Slavery, a Bogus Census, Feeble Executive Power

Frank Cicero Jr.

in Creating the Land of Lincoln: The History and Constitutions of Illinois, 1778-1870

Chapter 2 follows Illinois’s transition from territory to state. A territorial census was likely padded to reach the required 40,000 inhabitants. The 1818 constitutional convention wrote the state’s ... More

Chapter 2 follows Illinois’s transition from territory to state. A territorial census was likely padded to reach the required 40,000 inhabitants. The 1818 constitutional convention wrote the state’s founding document, many of its provisions drawn from other states’ constitutions. The delegates sought to limit the governor’s role by vesting powers in the legislature, leading to an unsteady balance of governmental powers. Delegates also focused on the question of slavery, termed “indentured servitude” in the constitution and described as “voluntary.” This wording set up debate in U.S. Congress that previewed the Missouri Compromise, but ultimately the constitution was approved and Illinois became a state on December 3, 1818. The slavery debate continued in Illinois, a frontier state that blended northern and southern sensibilities.Less

Deadlock and a Deepening Crisis

William L. Barney

in Rebels in the Making: The Secession Crisis and the Birth of the Confederacy

Congressional efforts to quell secession through a sectional compromise collapsed in December. As Northerners debated ways to deal with secession, President James Buchanan, a Democrat who had long ... More

Congressional efforts to quell secession through a sectional compromise collapsed in December. As Northerners debated ways to deal with secession, President James Buchanan, a Democrat who had long sympathized with Southern grievances, lost credibility on both sides when he declared secession to be an unconstitutional act that he was powerless to put down. Following the departure of House members from the Lower South and South Carolina’s secession on December 20, a Senate committee proposed the Crittenden Compromise, a package of constitutional amendments guaranteeing the protection of slavery, including the recognition of slavery in all present and future territories south of the Missouri Compromise line of 36° 30'. Lincoln emphatically rejected the territorial feature on the expansion of slavery, and the Republicans backed him by scuttling the compromise. At the same time, the governors in the Lower South denounced the surprise move by Major Robert Anderson of his federal garrison from the vulnerable Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter in the Charleston harbor as a hostile act portending a new aggressive federal policy against secession. In what amounted to de facto secession, the governors ordered the seizure of federal forts and possessions in their states. War over Fort Sumter was averted when Buchanan and the South Carolina governor agreed to maintain the status quo in the wake of the firing on a poorly planned relief effort to resupply the fort.Less

With Liberty for Some: The Old Constitution and African American Rights, 1776–1846

Donald G. Nieman

in Promises to Keep: African Americans and the Constitutional Order, 1776 to the Present

This chapter examines antislavery ideas and action sparked by the American Revolution as well as the compromises between northern and southern delegates at the Constitutional Convention. The ... More

This chapter examines antislavery ideas and action sparked by the American Revolution as well as the compromises between northern and southern delegates at the Constitutional Convention. The convention created a document that recognized slavery and provided significant, albeit limited protection to it. By building political coalitions and appealing to northern racism, southerners won legislation such as the Fugitive Slave Act, administrative regulations such as exclusion of antislavery literature from the mail, and judicial interpretations of the Constitution such as Prigg v. Pennsylvania that strengthened protection for slavery between 1789 and the 1840s, transforming it into a proslavery document. State law further strengthened slavery by giving masters almost unquestioned authority over slaves and significantly restricting the rights of free blacks.Less