Slave Power
Nafis
Slave power or slaveocracy are the terms used to describe the people in power that were in defense of slavery expansion beyond the states that are made into slave states after the Missouri compromise. During the antebellum period, northerners opposed to slavery feared that a small group of southern slaveholders were conspiring to gain control of the federal government and use it to increase interest of southern slave holdings. These northerners argued that the conspiracy sought to expand the South’s political power. The Republican Party, which developed during the tense sectional politics of the 1850s, made the fullest use of this argument. Its leading figures, such as Charles Sumner, William Seward, and Joshua Giddings, were among the most active proponents of the theory that a “Slave Power Conspiracy”.
Though abolitionists began to use the concept of the “Slave Power” around 1835, some abolitionists and northern politicians went back to the beginning of the federal government to seek the origins of the “Slave Power.” They discovered the roots of the problem in some of the compromises made at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. These compromises included the three-fifths clause, which gave the South additional political power; a provision for a fugitive slave law, later passed in 1793, which obligated northern states to return runaway slaves to their original states; and the twenty-year extension of the international slave trade until 1808.
The Missouri Crisis of 1819-1821 reawakened fears of the expansion of slavery among many northerners. Missouri was part of the Louisiana Purchase and lay on the west bank of the Mississippi River, where it served as the gateway to the western territories. Northern concerns included the damaging effect of slavery on the free labor economy of the western territories, the preservation of western lands for white non-slaveholding men, the failure of the United States to live up to the ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the growth of southern political power, and the growing opposition to the institution of slavery. The Tallmadge Amendment, proposed by James Tallmadge, sought to ban the further importation of slaves into Missouri and to begin the process of gradual emancipation in that state. The Missouri Compromise of 1820, however, permitted Missouri to form a state government without regard to slavery, but it also created a geographic line at 36°30′ north latitude (the southern boundary of Missouri) above which slavery could not expand into the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase. It also admitted Maine into the union, thus preserving the sectional balance between free and slave states.
The next major event that contributed to the fear of a “Slave Power Conspiracy” was the Texas annexation issue of 1845. Texas had gained its independence from Mexico in 1836, but U.S. presidents had rebuffed Texans’ requests for annexation. Fear of war with Mexico and sectional discord at home over the slavery issue were the deciding factors in those decisions. There was an equal number of free and slave states in the Union, and Texas, which would be a slave state, threatened to disrupt this balance of power. John Tyler, hoping to win reelection in 1844, used the issue of Texas annexation as a political tool. His reelection bid failed, but Texas entered the Union as a slave state in 1845. Some extreme northerners, such as John Smith Dye, charged that John C. Calhoun led the plot to annex Texas, and when President William Henry Harrison refused to assent to the plan, the president died of an illness that resembled arsenic poisoning. Calhoun claimed Tyler, the recently inaugurated vice-president, was fully in agreement with Calhoun’s plan, pointing to the fact that Tyler appointed Calhoun secretary of state and several years later, Texas was a slave state. However, this interpretation left out two key points: first, the United States had long sought Texas, and second, the United States feared that Great Britain might form an alliance with Texas, a diplomatic move that would have derailed the expansionist goals of Manifest Destiny.
In 1857, the Supreme Court decided the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford. The court decided that Dred Scott, a slave from Missouri, could not sue because he was not a citizen, and that blacks could never be citizens, that slaves were constitutionally protected property, and therefore that Congress could not regulate or restrict slavery in the territories. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 and popular sovereignty were declared unconstitutional and thus the case opened the way for the expansion of slavery throughout the territories. Many Republicans accused President James Buchanan, who had discussed the case with several justices before his inauguration, and the Supreme Court of conspiring with the Slave Power to bring about this outcome. This conclusion was untrue as the Supreme Court was bitterly divided over the case and Buchanan’s remarks about the impending decision were typed before he spoke with the justices at his inauguration (Potter, 287-289). Notwithstanding, many northerners now feared that the next step of the Supreme Court would be to strike down northern state laws that forbade slavery’s existence, thus nationalizing slavery.
In the late 1850s, strong sentiment for reopening the African slave trade emerged in the cotton-producing states of the Deep South. Supporters of this movement claimed that the 1808 prohibition was unconstitutional and a response to northern anti-slavery fanaticism. Defenders of this policy argued that additional slaves would give the South greater political power in the House of Representatives, where the three-fifths clause held sway, and restore a sectional balance of power (Cairnes, 239-245).
The last great act of the “Slave Power” was secession from the Union, beginning with South Carolina on 20 December 1860. Slaveholders feared that the new Republican administration of President Lincoln, elected in 1860, would embrace an abolitionist policy toward slavery in the South. What began as an effort to protect slavery from government interference ended in failure as the Confederacy lost the Civil War. The Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment put an end to slavery and fears of a “Slave Power.”
Though abolitionists began to use the concept of the “Slave Power” around 1835, some abolitionists and northern politicians went back to the beginning of the federal government to seek the origins of the “Slave Power.” They discovered the roots of the problem in some of the compromises made at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. These compromises included the three-fifths clause, which gave the South additional political power; a provision for a fugitive slave law, later passed in 1793, which obligated northern states to return runaway slaves to their original states; and the twenty-year extension of the international slave trade until 1808.
The Missouri Crisis of 1819-1821 reawakened fears of the expansion of slavery among many northerners. Missouri was part of the Louisiana Purchase and lay on the west bank of the Mississippi River, where it served as the gateway to the western territories. Northern concerns included the damaging effect of slavery on the free labor economy of the western territories, the preservation of western lands for white non-slaveholding men, the failure of the United States to live up to the ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the growth of southern political power, and the growing opposition to the institution of slavery. The Tallmadge Amendment, proposed by James Tallmadge, sought to ban the further importation of slaves into Missouri and to begin the process of gradual emancipation in that state. The Missouri Compromise of 1820, however, permitted Missouri to form a state government without regard to slavery, but it also created a geographic line at 36°30′ north latitude (the southern boundary of Missouri) above which slavery could not expand into the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase. It also admitted Maine into the union, thus preserving the sectional balance between free and slave states.
The next major event that contributed to the fear of a “Slave Power Conspiracy” was the Texas annexation issue of 1845. Texas had gained its independence from Mexico in 1836, but U.S. presidents had rebuffed Texans’ requests for annexation. Fear of war with Mexico and sectional discord at home over the slavery issue were the deciding factors in those decisions. There was an equal number of free and slave states in the Union, and Texas, which would be a slave state, threatened to disrupt this balance of power. John Tyler, hoping to win reelection in 1844, used the issue of Texas annexation as a political tool. His reelection bid failed, but Texas entered the Union as a slave state in 1845. Some extreme northerners, such as John Smith Dye, charged that John C. Calhoun led the plot to annex Texas, and when President William Henry Harrison refused to assent to the plan, the president died of an illness that resembled arsenic poisoning. Calhoun claimed Tyler, the recently inaugurated vice-president, was fully in agreement with Calhoun’s plan, pointing to the fact that Tyler appointed Calhoun secretary of state and several years later, Texas was a slave state. However, this interpretation left out two key points: first, the United States had long sought Texas, and second, the United States feared that Great Britain might form an alliance with Texas, a diplomatic move that would have derailed the expansionist goals of Manifest Destiny.
In 1857, the Supreme Court decided the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford. The court decided that Dred Scott, a slave from Missouri, could not sue because he was not a citizen, and that blacks could never be citizens, that slaves were constitutionally protected property, and therefore that Congress could not regulate or restrict slavery in the territories. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 and popular sovereignty were declared unconstitutional and thus the case opened the way for the expansion of slavery throughout the territories. Many Republicans accused President James Buchanan, who had discussed the case with several justices before his inauguration, and the Supreme Court of conspiring with the Slave Power to bring about this outcome. This conclusion was untrue as the Supreme Court was bitterly divided over the case and Buchanan’s remarks about the impending decision were typed before he spoke with the justices at his inauguration (Potter, 287-289). Notwithstanding, many northerners now feared that the next step of the Supreme Court would be to strike down northern state laws that forbade slavery’s existence, thus nationalizing slavery.
In the late 1850s, strong sentiment for reopening the African slave trade emerged in the cotton-producing states of the Deep South. Supporters of this movement claimed that the 1808 prohibition was unconstitutional and a response to northern anti-slavery fanaticism. Defenders of this policy argued that additional slaves would give the South greater political power in the House of Representatives, where the three-fifths clause held sway, and restore a sectional balance of power (Cairnes, 239-245).
The last great act of the “Slave Power” was secession from the Union, beginning with South Carolina on 20 December 1860. Slaveholders feared that the new Republican administration of President Lincoln, elected in 1860, would embrace an abolitionist policy toward slavery in the South. What began as an effort to protect slavery from government interference ended in failure as the Confederacy lost the Civil War. The Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment put an end to slavery and fears of a “Slave Power.”