Slavery: Linchpin of the 19th Century American SecessionCrisis

*How could a legal (Constitutionally protected) institution lead to the demise of hundreds of thousands of people and threaten to destroy the United States in less than 90 years after itsinception?

How did the institution of slaveryentrench itself so deeply into the American experience?

The climate of the southern coastal lowlands contributed to the development of an agrarian society in which large plantations flourished. The operation of the plantation required cheap labor. Initially, immigrantsfrom England, Scotland and Ireland came to the New World as indenturedservants, agreeing to work for a period of time in exchange for theirpassage. Eventually, the demand for cheap labor grew to the point thatthe enslavement of Africans proved to be the most viable and controversialsolution. Thus the slavery question permeated the fabric of Americanculture for nearly 150 years.

“Square peg in a round hole”: The struggle to keep slavery and and still not tear the fabric of union (1787-1754)…what is the Solution?

Missouri Compromise of 1820

Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854

Institutionalized Exploitation: How the system impinged onlife, liberty and happiness…

Cumberland Landing: New Kent, Virginia

Henry “box”Brown

The Unrelenting Pressure of the Abolition Movement:

William Lloyd GarrisonPublishes The Liberator in1851

Fredrick Douglass

Harriet Beecher StowePublishes Uncle Tom’s CabinIn 1852

Abraham Lincoln Signs the Emancipation ProclamationOn Jan. 1, 1863

Violent Resistance:

Gabriel Prosser:Led a failed slaverevolt in Richmond,Virginia in 1800

Nat Turner RebellionSouthamptonCounty, Virginia1831

Lighting Rod of Secession: JohnBrown and his attempted slaveInsurrection: 1859

The Legacy of Slavery: For the next 150 years of American History it would foster attitudes of…

Segregation:

Discrimination:

Racism:

What Price did the South Pay?

What about slave owners?Was the institution cruel to them?Consider James Ivy Cox…and his family…