In the 1850s – the first half of the 1860s, the United States went through a period of regional tensions that eventually led to the rebellion of the Southern States and a bloody civil war. In 1854, after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, fighting broke out between supporters and opponents of slavery, polarizing the entire country. The victory of anti-slavery forces in Kansas and the creation of a new Republican party with a clearly abolitionist agenda have shifted the balance of political power and raised fears in the South for their future. After Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln became President of the United States in 1860, the Southern States announced their secession from the union and the creation of a new confederate state.
One of the main events to be addressed in order to get an idea on the views on the slave-owning institution at the time is The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, which took place in 1858 during the Congressional elections. Foner (2020) states that Abraham Lincoln blamed the Democrats and Stephen Douglas personally for departing from the founding fathers’ principles of considering slavery to be a moral, social and political evil. In turn, Douglas did not see why the United States could not exist divided into slave-owning and free states. He also did not put aside the republican statement about the equality of blacks and whites, calling it heresy. Lincoln argued that Negroes, like Whites, have the same rights as those enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. However, he noted that he had never been a proponent of achieving social and political equality between the whites and the blacks. It is important to remember that, after all, Lincoln was the product of his time and was as progressive as he could be.
The extent to which Negroes were truly powerless is demonstrated by The Dred Scott Decision (1857). The trial began after black slave Dred Scott applied to the District Court for recognition as a free man, with the reasoning that he had been living in the non-slave-owning states for several years. However, according to Foner (2020), the Supreme Court established that, first of all, Negroes had no rights of citizenship; secondly, a slave taken by his master to a free land shall not be free; finally, the Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in any territory. This decision confirmed that a slave was the property of the master, even in states and territories where slavery was prohibited altogether.
In this context, it is also interesting to consider South Carolina’s secession from the Union in 1860. The separatists of South Carolina sought to justify their actions by shifting the blame for what was happening to the Northern States, who, according to them, have confirmed in themselves a law that clearly violates the Constitution. As Foner (2020) cites it, South Carolina Ordinance of Succession’s (1860) long list of charges can be limited to the following points: the Northern States denied the right to ownership that was recognized by the Constitution; the Northerners declared the institution of slavery criminal and founded societies openly opposed to slavery; they encouraged the escape of slaves. In addition, it was declared that the election to the position of the President a person whose opinions are hostile to slavery was a proof of the existence of a conspiracy against the institution.
Reference
Foner, E. (2020). Voices of freedom. (6th ed.). W. W. Norton & Company.