Toward the Civil War
VUS.6c
THE "PECULIAR INSTITUTION"
Slavery
 

As the United States expanded westward, the conflict over slavery grew more bitter and threatened to tear the country apart.


Slavery was spreading across the Deep South, as the profits of cotton production were climbing (thanks to the introduction of the cotton gin).

Southernes wished to preserve their ability to make profits in cotton, as Northerners were concerned that slavery would spread!


The abolitionist movement grew in the North, led by William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of  "The Liberator" , an antislavery newspaper, and many New England religious leaders, who saw slavery as a violation of Christian principles.


Frederick Douglass, a former slave, became a prominant abolitionist in the North.  He was most effective as a public speaker, utilizing churches and abolitionist meeting halls, to send his message of the evils of slavery.


Harriet Beecher Stowe, wife of a New England clergyman, wrote "Uncle Tom’s Cabin", a best-selling novel that inflamed Northern abolitionist sentiment. Southerners were frightened by the growing strength of Northern abolitionism.

Even though this book was not realistic, and Stowe never visited a plantation, it was the propaganda needed to raise awareness of the evils of slavery.


Slave revolts in Virginia, led by Nat Turner and Gabriel Prosser, fed white Southern fears about slave rebellions and led to harsh laws in the South against fugitive slaves.  Southerners who favored abolition were intimidated into silence.

Nat Turner's rebellion was the only slave revolt in the United States that was violent, as he and others armed and killed white plantation owners before being captures.  Prosser's rebellion was stopped before it could start, as the plan was revealed to plantation owners.

Neither of these revolts helped the cause of slavery...And worse treatment of slaves was the result!


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