Slaves and Rebellion
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Before the civil war, life for slaves was becoming increasingly frustrating. The evidence of such events as Nat Turner's Rebellion as early as 1831 is that the slaves were quite conscious of their status as quasi-animals, in the view of their masters, and that they were so desperate and miserable about their lives that they were willing to go to murderous lengths to change those lives. According to Oates, the slaves who followed "General Nat" came upon the relatively small farms that they attacked, taking them all by surprise (224-5). The surprise was all on the part of the whites, of course, since their view of their local "niggers" was that the slaves were well treated and that there was no particular need of freeing them. Further, Turner himself appears to have been riding "chaotically around the countryside . . . almost always reaching the farms after his scattered troops had done the killing" (Oates 225).What the slave owners did not realize was that a deep anger, however inchoate, fed the 1831 rebellion, irrespective of Garrison's much publicized call for abolition in early 1831, months before Turner made his move. When Turner and others were executed, some slaves might have been deterred from future rebellion, but Oates emphasizes that the white power structure retrenched and "increased the severity of their slave codes" during the "Great Reaction" (230), instituting all manner of disciplinary measures. Even without such measures, the slaves were not subject to any r
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s Sojourner Truth, a former slave who became a popular abolitionist speaker in he North during the 1850s (Quarles 345). Meanwhile, in 1851, the Supreme Court ruled that local (state) courts could decide the slave/free status of Negroes in their localities (Norton, et al. 371). That kept the main court out of the debate but did not settle the question.
The ferment of protest culminated in two infamous episodes. The first was the Kansas-Nebraska dispute of 1854, leading to "bleeding Kansas" by 1855. Stephen A. Douglas opened up slave question by proposing Kansas and Nebraska to be admitted, with popular sovereignty to decide the slave question. The trouble was that this violated the Missouri Compromise, which mandated all state above the 36/30 latitude would have to be free states; both Kansas and Nebraska were above the line. It also violated the Compromise of 1850 if the people and not Congress could decide the slave question. Both abolitionists and proslavery people poured into Kansas to vote--and Kansas bled, with many casualties on both sides. There were even casualties in Congress, with abolitionist Charles Sumner being caned in session by a South Carolina representative (Norton, et al. 370).
The practical effect of all of t
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1211
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)
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