Was Slavery an Elephant in the Room

            This past week in honors history 10 we learned about how slavery was the “elephant in the room” in the early 19^th century. Dictionary.com defines the phrase “elephant in the room” as, “A difficult situation that is very obvious, but not discussed or addressed.” This definition applies to slavery in the 19^th century because frequently during this time period politicians would come up with new acts and compromises to dance around the topic of slavery. These included the Compromise of 1850, the Gasden Purchase, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Dred Scott Decision, and the John Brown Raid. We created a timeline with all of these listed events. 

Timeline

Timeline descriptions

           

Politicians for several reasons ignored slavery, but the main reason could have been because slavery was a major factor in the United States economy. Slaves helped produce cotton and cotton was necessary for the textiles in the north. Also, politicians danced around the topic of slavery because they knew it would result in a war, which it eventually did.

Before all of the previously listed events was the Missouri Compromise of 1820. This compromise was created to ensure that slave states and non slave states have equal representation in the senate. Missouri wanted to be a slave state so Maine was listed as a non slave state to maintain equality in senate. Also, the government decided that there could be no slave states above the 36 degree 30 minute latitude line. This compromise shows that the politicians were ignoring the real problem because they just made sure that there was an equal number of slave states and non slave states instead of getting rid of slavery all together.

Bleeding Kansas was the result of the Kansas-Nebraska act. The Kansas-Nebraska act was the act that created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. This act went essentially repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820 because the government decided that the people who occupied these states would be able to vote if they wanted slaves or not. This led to a large amount of anti slavery and pro slavery activists both fighting for their cause in Kansas. Of course fighting erupted between both parties. In his speech “Crime Against Kansas” Hon. Charles Sumner states, “Against this Territory, thus fortunate in position and population, a Crime has been committed which is without example in the records of the Past.” Charles Sumner believed that a crime had been committed against the state of Kansas because the decision to allow a vote for slavery resulted in major bloodshed. This Kansas-Nebraska act shows that slavery was the elephant in the room because politicians decided that instead of getting rid of the problem of slavery they were better off letting the people decide their fate.

Crime Against Kansas Speech

Dred Scott was a man, who was a slave in Missouri, and then his master brought him to Illinois, and Dred was still treated as a slave there. He was unhappy with this because he was being treated as a slave in a state where slavery was not supposed to exist. He took his argument to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of Dred Scott’s slave owner. This outraged many people because it essentially meant that slavery could be legal anywhere. This event shows that slavery was the elephant in the room because people knew slavery was wrong but they ignored it to make certain people happy. This quote from the Dred Scott SCOTUS Decision states, “So in this case. As Scott was a slave when taken into the State of Illinois by his owner, and was there held as such, and brought back in that charcter, his staus, as free or slave, depended on the laws of Missouri, and not of Illinois....” This quote shows that the State of Illinois was afraid to make a verdict about slavery so they handed it off to Missouri, which was a slave state.

SCOTUS Decisions

          

  Finally, John Brown was a man who organized a group of 18 men to raid a room of artillery in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. His goal was to capture the guns and arm slaves so they could revolt. Brown was unsuccessful in his attempt and was hanged. People worshipped Brown after this attempt and Marc R. Weston even created a song for him. Brown’s acts show help answer the essential question because if the government just took care of slavery people like John Brown would not have to make wild attempts to stop slavery like this one.

John Brown Song