Congress and the Crisis of the 1850s

Congress and the Crisis of the 1850s PDF Author: Paul Finkelman
Publisher: Ohio University Press
ISBN: 9780821419779
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
During the long decade from 1848 to 1861 America was like a train speeding down the track, without an engineer or brakes. The new territories acquired from Mexico had vastly increased the size of the nation, but debate over their status—and more importantly the status of slavery within them—paralyzed the nation. Southerners gained access to the territories and a draconian fugitive slave law in the Compromise of 1850, but this only exacerbated sectional tensions. Virtually all northerners, even those who supported the law because they believed that it would preserve the union, despised being turned into slave catchers. In 1854, in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Congress repealed the ban on slavery in the remaining unorganized territories. In 1857, in the Dred Scott case, the Supreme Court held that all bans on slavery in the territories were unconstitutional. Meanwhile, northern whites, free blacks, and fugitive slaves resisted the enforcement of the 1850 fugitive slave law. In Congress members carried weapons and Representative Preston Brooks assaulted Senator Charles Sumner with a cane, nearly killing him. This was the decade of the 1850s and these were the issues Congress grappled with. This volume of new essays examines many of these issues, helping us better understand the failure of political leadership in the decade that led to the Civil War.

Congress and the Crisis of the 1850s

Congress and the Crisis of the 1850s PDF Author: Paul Finkelman
Publisher: Ohio University Press
ISBN: 9780821419779
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
During the long decade from 1848 to 1861 America was like a train speeding down the track, without an engineer or brakes. The new territories acquired from Mexico had vastly increased the size of the nation, but debate over their status—and more importantly the status of slavery within them—paralyzed the nation. Southerners gained access to the territories and a draconian fugitive slave law in the Compromise of 1850, but this only exacerbated sectional tensions. Virtually all northerners, even those who supported the law because they believed that it would preserve the union, despised being turned into slave catchers. In 1854, in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Congress repealed the ban on slavery in the remaining unorganized territories. In 1857, in the Dred Scott case, the Supreme Court held that all bans on slavery in the territories were unconstitutional. Meanwhile, northern whites, free blacks, and fugitive slaves resisted the enforcement of the 1850 fugitive slave law. In Congress members carried weapons and Representative Preston Brooks assaulted Senator Charles Sumner with a cane, nearly killing him. This was the decade of the 1850s and these were the issues Congress grappled with. This volume of new essays examines many of these issues, helping us better understand the failure of political leadership in the decade that led to the Civil War.

The Political Crisis of the 1850s

The Political Crisis of the 1850s PDF Author: Michael Fitzgibbon Holt
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description


The Shattering of the Union

The Shattering of the Union PDF Author: Eric H. Walther
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780842027991
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
The 1850s offered the last remotely feasible chance for the United States to steer clear of Civil War. Yet fundamental differences between North and South about slavery and the meaning of freedom caused political conflicts to erupt again and again throughout the decade as the country lurched toward secession and war. The Shattering of the Union is a concise, readable analysis and survey of the major ideas and events that resulted in the Civil War. The first scholarly synthesis of America's final antebellum decade to be published in more than twenty years, this essential overview incorporates methods and findings by recognized historians on politics, society, race relations, ideology, and slavery. This book is a fascinating look at one of the pivotal decades in U.S. history.

The War Before the War

The War Before the War PDF Author: Andrew Delbanco
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735224137
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book Selection Winner of the Mark Lynton History Prize Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award Winner of the Lionel Trilling Book Award A New York Times Critics' Best Book "Excellent... stunning."—Ta-Nehisi Coates This book tells the story of America’s original sin—slavery—through politics, law, literature, and above all, through the eyes of enslavedblack people who risked their lives to flee from bondage, thereby forcing the nation to confront the truth about itself. The struggle over slavery divided not only the American nation but also the hearts and minds of individual citizens faced with the timeless problem of when to submit to unjust laws and when to resist. The War Before the War illuminates what brought us to war with ourselves and the terrible legacies of slavery that are with us still.

An American Crisis: Congress & Reconstruction 1865-1867

An American Crisis: Congress & Reconstruction 1865-1867 PDF Author: NA NA
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349816965
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description


The Union in Crisis, 1850-1877

The Union in Crisis, 1850-1877 PDF Author: Robert Walter Johannsen
Publisher: New York : Free Press
ISBN:
Category : United States
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description


Congress in Crisis

Congress in Crisis PDF Author: Dean Lesley Yarwood
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Scaling (Social sciences)
Languages : en
Pages : 588

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Book Description


Our Documents

Our Documents PDF Author: The National Archives
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198042272
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Our Documents is a collection of 100 documents that the staff of the National Archives has judged most important to the development of the United States. The entry for each document includes a short introduction, a facsimile, and a transcript of the document. Backmatter includes further reading, credits, and index. The book is part of the much larger Our Documents initiative sponsored by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), National History Day, the Corporation for National and Community Service, and the USA Freedom Corps.

Compendium of the Impending Crisis of the South

Compendium of the Impending Crisis of the South PDF Author: Hinton Rowan Helper
Publisher: Gale Cengage Learning
ISBN:
Category : Slavery
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
This book condemns slavery, by appealed to whites' rational self-interest, rather than any altruism towards blacks. Helper claimed that slavery hurt the Southern economy by preventing economic development and industrialization, and that it was the main reason why the South had progressed so much less than the North since the late 18th century.

The Crime Against Kansas

The Crime Against Kansas PDF Author: Charles Sumner
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Kansas
Languages : en
Pages : 40

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Book Description
Speech delivered in the Senate condemning the Southern expansion of slavery and the force used in compelling Kansas to be a slave state. In the course of the speech, Sumner ridicules South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler.