Unfair and Undiscussed: What Else but Slavery?

The unit that we have been working on in history has been about slavery and the civil war, most recently we have been discussing how slavery has impacted all of the systems in the U.S. The question that we were trying to answer in this section is; How do we know the debate over slavery was the “elephant in the room” for American politics in the early 19th century? The expression “elephant in the room” refers to an obvious truth that is either being ignored or going unaddressed. This applies to slavery because there were certain aspects of different situations involving slavery that people ignored to achieve what they wanted regarding the issue.

My groups timeline.

Clear and concise descriptions of the events shown on our timeline.

To answer this question, in small groups we created a timeline to analyze certain events that gave slavery the controversial reputation that it has. The first largely important event on our timeline is The Compromise of 1850, this was proposed by Henry Clay and it contained 5 parts. The first was that Texas had to relinquish part of its land and then they would be given $10 million this is money that would be used to pay off it's debt to Mexico. This satisfied proslavery advocates. The second part was that the territories of New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and Utah would be later be determined slavery or a free state by the inhabitants when they applied for statehood. Next the compromise of 1850 stated that the district of Columbia slave trade would be abolished, although slavery would still be permitted. This satisfied anti-slavery advocates. The next part was that California it would be admitted as a free state. This obviously satisfied those that were against slavery. The last part of the compromise of 1850 was the fugitive slave act. This required citizens to assist in the recovery of fugitive slaves; and it also denied a fugitives right to a jury trial. All of these parts to the compromise of 1850 applied to slaves, but the decisions were made regarding the states and territories not the slaves themselves. The politicians and representatives should have paid more attention to the slaves part in the whole ordeal.

The Gadsden purchase occurred in 1853. The US paid $15 million for all of Nevada, California, Utah, and much of Arizona and New Mexico but this was the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The Gadsden purchase was where the US paid $10 million for a much smaller strip of land. This land would later be used as a route for the transcontinental railroad. This ridiculous purchase shows how slavery was ignored because the government was willing to spend this money on a tiny strip of land just so the railroad would satisfy proslavery advocates. The trains would transport people to these territories and then the classification of these states (slave state or free state) would be determined by popular sovereignty. Since this railroad would be in the south where more proslavery advocates live they would be able to move themselves to these new territories and claim these new states as slave states.

The Dred Scott decision occurred in 1857 this was where Jets got in and slave man living in Missouri filed suit against his owner. He argued that he and his wife Harriet were free because they had once lived with their owner in states and territories where slavery was ill legal. The Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 against the Scotts. The effects of this decision were that slaves, because they're not citizens were denied the right to sue in court. Enslaved people now cannot win freedom simply by living in a free territory or state. And the Missouri compromise was ruled unconstitutional and all territories are now open to slavery. Here the one act that was protecting the balance of slave states and free states was abolished; this shows that slavery was the elephant in the room because again the people who were proslavery were doing what they wanted and did not consider the effects on the system of slavery and slaves themselves.

Another event that took place during this time that clearly demonstrated that slavery was the elephant in the room was John Brown's raid in 1859. An anti-slavery activist John Brown entered Harpers Ferry Virginia and intended to start a slave revolt. This was unsuccessful but brown managed to drag five slaveowners from their beds and murder them. Brown was eventually put on trial for treason and hung but still people were avoiding discussing the topic of slavery and taking actions that would make it more and more difficult to discuss later on. Overall slavery was clearly the elephant in the room during this time and people would do whatever it took to avoid discussing and addressing it.