Frederick Douglass
On April 14, 1775, Anthony Benezet founded the first abolition society in America in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Abolition Society (PAS), also known as the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, would have Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush serve as presidents. At the very outset of the United States, individuals rose to challenge slavery. Former slaves such as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman and others like William Lloyd Garrison are just a few of the names who put themselves at risk for the abolitionist cause. It took a civil war in which over 3 million fought and over 620,000 Americans died to accomplish their vision.
In 1793, a New England abolitionist named Ely Whitney invented a device that made separating cotton fibers from their seeds easier. He intended to make life better for slaves who had to go through a long process to accomplish this task. While Whitney’s motives were good, the result of his cotton gin produced the opposite effect. Cotton, which had not been particularly profitable before, quickly became the staple crop of the American South because it could be produced more efficiently. Southern plantation owners needed more workers for their fields. They turned to slave labor.
Throughout the 19th century, regional interests between the North, South, and West dominated the national discussion. Issues such as the national bank, tariffs, and even the idea of a state’s ability to nullify federal law brought great debate. But overwhelming all other issues was slavery. The issue escalated as America grew westward and new states joined the Union. Would states be free or permit slavery?
The issue almost came to violence over the admission of Missouri to the Union in 1820. In a compromise offered by Henry Clay of Kentucky, Missouri joined the Union as a slave state, while Maine joined as a free state. Slavery was forbidden north of the 36 30′ latitude line that ran through the center of the country.
The Missouri crisis prompted Thomas Jefferson, long retired and living at Monticello, to believe the work he and his contemporaries achieved in forming the nation would be undone by slavery. He declared, “But as it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.” Ultimately, the compromise kept the Union in place for an additional 40 years.
The balance between free states and slave states was considered important for the preservation of the Union so no region could be seen as dominating another. However, with this came the expansion of slavery into new territories and states.
Another more sinister motive kept slavery growing in America as well – profit. As the demand for slaves grew, the industry of buying and selling slaves grew with it. While the international slave trade was banned, the domestic slave trade continued. Slave traders wanted to keep prices for slaves high, so they controlled the supply of slaves as much as possible. In time, slaves became a greater expense for slave owners than the land they worked on.
The reality of being a slave is hard to comprehend. Within a cruel system, not all slave owners were cruel. However, others were. Beatings and whippings were common. The average slave was out in the fields by age 12, working as long as 14 hours a day. Diseases spread in tight living quarters. It was uncommon for a slave to live beyond age 60. Most died much earlier. Slaves were usually sold at least once in their lifetime and subjected to demeaning physical exams. Families were often broken up, so slaves depended on their owners for survival. It was illegal to teach slaves to read or write.
Frederick Douglass
In February 1818, Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in Maryland. Around age 12, Sophia Auld, the wife of a Baltimore slave owner, taught him the alphabet. This was quickly stopped, but Douglass taught himself how to read and write anyway.
At age 16, an important event occurred in Douglass’ life. Sold to a notorious “slave-breaker” named Edward Covey, who routinely beat Douglass, and when he was psychologically at his end, Douglass summed up the courage to fight back. Before he would be beaten by Covey again, Douglass grabbed him by the throat. The two wrestled to the ground before Covey quit. Although the punishment for this could have been severe, Covey did not mention this to anyone out of embarrassment. He never struck Douglass again. Douglass states in his autobiography, “The day had passed forever when I could be a slave.”
After several failed attempts, Douglass successfully escaped in 1838. He began to discuss his experiences as a slave and slowly gained attention from others in the abolitionist movement. This included William Lloyd Garrison, one of the era’s most vocal abolitionists from Massachusetts, who owned the influential abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. The two often spoke together throughout the country.
Douglass’s supporters bought his freedom after a trip to Ireland and Britain in 1845. He returned to the United States in 1847 as a free man and continued his effort to rid the country of slavery. As a former slave, Douglass was critical of the United States in many of his orations as it continued to permit slavery. He published several abolitionist newspapers, the most famous of which was The North Star.
In 1857, he gave a speech that is one of his most quoted. Douglass reminded Americans of the commitment freedom requires. Part of this speech is below:
If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.
This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
While William Lloyd Garrison viewed the Constitution as a pro-slavery document, Douglass did not. In 1864, during the height of the Civil War, Douglass wrote, “Abolish slavery tomorrow, and not a sentence or syllable of the Constitution need be altered.”
For Douglass, the United States needed to live up to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal.” This required struggle. He never argued the country was somehow illegitimately founded. This same sentiment would be made again 100 years later by Martin Luther King, Jr., during the civil rights movement.
Another Compromise
While the first shots of the Civil War were fired on April 12, 1861, with the attack on Fort Sumter, the United States almost went to war 11 years earlier in 1850. Just as in 1820, sectional differences over the issue of slavery nearly brought succession from the Southern states. After thousands moved across the country to join the Gold Rush, California petitioned Congress to join the Union as a free state. The admission of California to the Union as a free state would disrupt the balance between free and slave states in Congress. This issue, along with the fate of territory gained by the United States after the Mexican-American War in 1848, brought the issue of the expansion of slavery back to the national stage.
While the founding generation tolerated slavery out of compromise to form the new nation, believing it would eventually be eradicated from the country on its own, they nonetheless knew it to be an evil institution. A growing number in succeeding generations were more strident in defense of slavery. They connected the issue to the protection of the Southern way of life.
The leading figure for this position was John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. A former vice-president and secretary of state, as well as a fixture of the United States Congress going back to the War of 1812, Calhoun argued slavery was good for slaves. In 1837, Calhoun addressed the Senate: “In the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin and distinguished by color and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding states between the two is, instead of an evil, a good – a positive good.” Calhoun advocated for this belief in the United States Senate until he died in 1850.
If one side believed slavery was not evil, in fact, a “positive good,” and abolitionists, who rightfully saw slavery as abhorrent, called for its immediate end everywhere, the moral divide between the two positions was too large to bridge. Tensions only grew.
Still, many believed if given time, the South would move towards freedom for its slaves. Avoiding Southern succession and civil war was the immediate goal of most, including Henry Clay. After a stay in Kentucky away from public service, an aging Clay re-entered the Senate to offer a compromise, much like he did 30 years earlier in 1820.
The compromise that became law dealt with multiple issues, but its essential terms were these: California was admitted to the Union as a free state. The slave trade, but not slavery itself, was made illegal in Washington, D.C. Texas gave up disputed land for $10 million in compensation. The Utah and New Mexico territories were organized without mentioning slavery, meaning they could decide for themselves through the doctrine of popular sovereignty whether to become free or slave states. Finally, a controversial and more aggressive Fugitive Slave Act that denied the right of a jury trial to an escaped slave and created federal, rather than state, administration of the law was passed. This forced local law enforcement in the North to cooperate, whereas most did not before the law.
The balance of power in Congress shifted to the free states, but the Compromise of 1850 did little to move the United States towards abolition nationwide. The new fugitive slave law created more fugitive slave hunters. Former slaves living in the North feared being made slaves once again and many fled to Canada after the law was passed.
Harriet Tubman
The abolitionist movement had tried for years to aid escaped slaves out of the South through a network of sympathetic landowners and safe houses in what became known as the Underground Railroad. Under these circumstances, another brave former slave named Harriet Tubman risked her life to free others.
Born in Maryland in 1822, Tubman escaped slavery in 1849. In between, she suffered being hit in the head with a two-pound weight meant for another slave. This caused her lifelong health challenges, including dizziness, long periods of sleep, and even seizures.
Harriet Tubman
Tubman’s goal was simple – she wanted to free as many slaves as possible. Despite significant risk, Tubman ventured back into the South up to 19 times to bring slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad. The exact number of those she rescued has been listed as high as 300, but Tubman herself placed the number at 50, while historians now believe it was 70 people. This included her parents, a brother, and a sister. The number is not important. The fact she repeatedly and selflessly put herself in harm’s way is all that matters.
Tubman was just five feet tall and led slaves toward freedom through dark woods, swamps, and other rough terrains. She used the North Star in the sky to lead her. She carried a gun and would not allow any slave to turn back. She lost no one on any mission.
Harriet Tubman earned the nickname “Moses” for her heroism. Frederick Douglass would say of her, “Excepting John Brown – of sacred memory – I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than [Harriet Tubman].”
For her part, Harriet Tubman had a deep faith in God. As told to biographer Sarah H. Bradford, Tubman said of her actions, “‘Twant me, ’twas the Lord. I always told him, “I trust you. I don’t know where to go or what to do, but I expect you to lead me,” and he always did.”
Tubman went on to work with other leading abolitionists of the time to end slavery. During the Civil War, she worked as a cook, nurse, and spy, giving the Union important information about areas of the South. She led about 150 black Union soldiers ashore during the Combahee River Raid in South Carolina, which freed an additional 700 slaves. She was fearless.
The Road to the Civil War
The efforts of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, William Lloyd Garrison, and legislators like Henry Clay could not change the country’s trajectory away from violence. Events in the 1850s began to quicken, and the divide over slavery grew insurmountable. Its ultimate fate rested in a war between the states – the American Civil War.
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