Dred Scott Decision Uncle Tom's Cabin

CK_5_TH_HG_P231_324.QXD 2/13/06 1:55 PM Page 275 • The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 took up the issue of slavery in lands above the 36th parallel and overturned the Missouri Compromise. The new law Teaching Idea allowed voters in the two territories to determine for themselves whether the If you have taught Section I on states should be free or slave. Nebraskans voted to become a free state, but bloody Westward Expansion, ask students to fighting broke out in Kansas as pro- and antislavery factions fought each other for relate the Compromise of 1850 to the power and the outcome of the vote. The fighting was so widespread that Kansas Mexican-American War (see pp. became known as “Bleeding Kansas.” 253–254). Make sure they understand that the Compromise of 1850 Dred Scott Decision addressed the question of slavery in the Mexican Cession, the lands Dred Scott was a slave whose owner, an army doctor, had taken him from gained by the U.S. from the Treaty of Missouri (a slave state) to live in Illinois (a free state). After two years in Illinois, Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Scott and his owner moved to the Wisconsin Territory to live for two years before Mexican-American War. returning to Missouri. According to the terms of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, slavery was banned in the Wisconsin Territory. When Scott’s owner took him back to Missouri, Scott sued for his freedom on the grounds that he had lived in a territory where slavery was expressly forbidden and had therefore ceased to be a slave. The lawsuit, known formally as Dred Scott v. Sandford, made its way to the Supreme Court. In 1857, seven of the nine justices ruled in favor of Scott’s owner. (It should be noted that five of the seven were Southerners.) Chief Justice Roger B. Taney of Maryland wrote the majority ruling. First, Taney wrote, Scott had no right to sue because he was not a citizen. The Constitution did not recognize slaves as citi- zens. Even if he could have sued, that Scott had once lived in a free state was of no consequence; as a slave, he was the property of his owner. As such, Congress could not deprive an owner of his property. Third, and of the greatest consequence to the nation, the justices ruled that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. The justices found that the right to own a slave was a property right and Congress under the Fifth Amendment could not interfere with a per- son’s property rights. As a result of the decision in the Dred Scott case, slavery was allowed in all new territories and, therefore, new states. The South was jubilant; the North was outraged. Uncle Tom’s Cabin Sometimes, books can change history. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, is one book that did. Stowe was born into a New England family that was opposed to slavery. She moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, as a young woman, where she saw firsthand what slavery was like. She was moved in particular by a scene she witnessed in which a slave husband and wife were separated and sold to different buyers. Stowe became a writer. Around that time, the Fugitive Slave Act was passed in 1850, outraging abolitionists. Stowe’s sister-in-law challenged her to “write something that would make this whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is!” In 1852, Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which sold more than 300,000 copies in its first year and more than 3 million copies before the outbreak of the Civil War. The novel describes the life of the gentle slave Tom who even- tually dies at the hands of a brutal overseer named Simon Legree. Although some- History and Geography: American 275 CK_5_TH_HG_P231_324.QXD 2/13/06 1:56 PM Page 276 II. The Civil War: Causes, Conflicts, Consequences what melodramatic, the novel brought home to thousands of Americans the ter- Teaching Idea rors and brutality of slavery. The novel greatly boosted the antislavery movement Read selections from Uncle Tom’s and created alarm in the South where Southerners felt maligned by the brutal Cabin with the class. Discuss how this depiction of slavery. Abraham Lincoln paid tribute to the impact of the novel novel changed history. Then, have stu- when, during the Civil War, he characterized Stowe as “the little woman who dents create a poster advertising either caused this big war.” the sale of the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin During the years since Stowe’s novel was published, the term “Uncle Tom” or a theatrical production based on it. has taken on a life of its own. In the book, Tom accepts the great suffering that The novel was dramatized and played comes upon him, in part because of his strong Christian faith. Among African in many cities in the North. Americans today, the phrase “Uncle Tom” is sometimes used to attack a black per- son who is perceived as being too accepting of an inferior position in society and too eager to please whites in positions of authority. John Brown and Harpers Ferry Today, John Brown would be called an extremist. He believed in the use of force to further his cause—in this case, the end of slavery. And he was willing to die to achieve his goals. Brown claimed he was a devout Christian and believed slavery was a terrible sin. He met and corresponded with the abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Douglass described Brown as a true friend of the black man: “Though a white gentleman, he is in sympathy a black man, and as deeply interested in our cause, as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery.” In the 1850s, Brown participated in the bloodshed in the Kansas Territory over the fight to ban slavery. He and his sons were involved in the killing of five settlers who held proslavery beliefs. Brown soon returned to the East and hatched a plot to establish a nation of free African Americans in Virginia. His plan was to take over the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, a town in northern Virginia (now northeast West Virginia), and call for slaves to stage an uprising with the weapons from the arsenal. On the night of October 16, 1859, with about 18 supporters, including five Africans, Brown raided the arsenal at Harpers Ferry and took hostages, but no additional slaves joined him and the anticipated uprising never happened. However, news of his seizure of the arsenal spread and soon the building was surrounded by a company of Marines that included a contingent led by Robert E. Lee. By morning, the raiders were either dead or captured. Brown was tried for treason and hanged. While Southerners mostly felt Brown got what he deserved, his death stirred more antislavery feeling in the North. Brown’s conviction of his righteousness caused many Northerners to see him as a martyr. In his speech to the court at his trial, Brown said: I believe that to have interfered as I have done, as I have always freely admitted I have done, in behalf of his despised poor, I did not wrong but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave coun- try whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enact- John Brown ments, I say let it be done. 57 276 Grade 5 Handbook CK_5_TH_HG_P231_324.QXD 2/13/06 1:56 PM Page 277 Brown also issued an ominous warning about the future: “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.” Brown was remembered in a popular song of the era, “John Brown’s Body.” A version current during the Civil War went like this: John Brown’s body lies a-moulderin’ in the grave, John Brown’s body lies a-moulderin’ in the grave, John Brown’s body lies a-moulderin’ in the grave, But his soul goes marching on. CHORUS: Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His soul goes marching on. He captured Harper’s Ferry with his nineteen men so true; He frightened old Virginia ’til she trembled through and through. They hanged him for a traitor, themselves the traitor’s crew, His soul goes marching on. During the Civil War, Julia Ward Howe took the melody from “John Brown’s Body” and wrote new lyrics to create her “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln was born in poverty on the Kentucky frontier and grew up in a log cabin that his father had built. There was no mandatory public education at the time. Children were expected to work in the family business, whether it was a farm or a store. As a boy, Lincoln taught himself to read and write by fire- light at the end of his long workdays on the farm. He read the Bible, Aesop’s Fables, Robinson Crusoe, and (later) Shakespeare’s plays. Lincoln grew to be tall (as an adult he stood about 6'4") and strong. He was a rail splitter and a cham- pion wrestler in his youth. At age 22, he moved to New Salem, Illinois, also a frontier area. He taught himself the law while supporting himself by working in a store, as a surveyor, and as postmaster.

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