Slave Power
, also called the
Slave Power conspiracy
and
Slaveocracy
, was a term first used by
abolitionists
in 1839 and was in common use by the 1850s.
[1]
It
referred
to the
economic
,
social
and
political
influence
held by
slaveholders
in the
Southern United States
.
[2]
Southern slaveholders had a great deal of power in
Congress
and many other
federal
offices up to and including the
presidency
.
[2]
This is in spite of the fact that they made up only a small
minority
of the
population
of the nation. These few very powerful men used their influence to maintain the
institution of slavery
. The fear in the
North
was that the slave power conspiracy intended to not only to spread slavery to the
Western territories
but to all the states in the North.
[3]
Slavery in the United States
began in the
English colony
of
Jamestown
in 1619.
[4]
It started with the purchase of 20
Africans
from an English
warship
named the
White Lyon.
[5]
The Colonists in the
Virginia Colony
bought the
contracts
of the
Africans
as
indentured servants
.
[6]
It became a
custom
to hold slaves for life in the colonies.
[5]
During the
17th
and
18th centuries
, slaves were used to raise crops of
tobacco
and food crops.
[5]
After the invention of the
cotton gin
in 1793,
cotton
became the most important crop.
[5]
Slavery became a critical part of the
South
's
economy
.
[5]
By the late 1850s, there was a
widespread
belief that a slaveholding
oligarchy
ran the country.
[7]
That they ran it for their own benefit to spread slavery was also a popular
belief
. It was what
Abraham Lincoln
and the new
Republican Party
used to gain political power.
[7]
It was also popular among
conspiracy theorists
.
[7]
The
Free Soil Party
in the 1840s and the Republicans in the 1850s gave Slave Power its credibility.
[7]
On March 12, 1857, the
Cincinnati Daily Commercial
published an article about Slave Power.
[1]
The article called the United States "one great
homogeneous
slave-holding community" and said slavery had removed all state
boundaries
.
[1]
It charged that Slave Power had three objectives. These were: to reopen the
slave trade
; to extend slavery to the entire country and beyond; and to make the white man a slave to the slave-holding Southern
aristocracy
and the Northern
capitalists
.
[1]
After 1850, Southern slaveholders had been
lobbying
for the reopening of the slave trade. So that charge seemed valid.
[1]
Abolitionists had ample evidence Slave Power wanted to extend slavery to all the states and even the hemisphere. The third claim, that white men would become slaves to the Slave Power was harder to prove even though many believed it was true.
[1]
Those who defended slavery had a number of arguments to
justify
the institution. They said abolition would
destroy
the economy of the South. Without slave labor they could not raise
cotton
,
tobacco
or
rice
.
[8]
Freeing the slaves would cause widespread
unemployment
, it would lead to
uprisings
,
bloodshed
and complete
chaos
.
[8]
They pointed to the
French Revolution
as an example.
[8]
They pointed out slavery had existed all through
history
.
[8]
It was in the
Bible
and even
Abraham
had slaves.
[8]
Their legal argument pointed to the
Supreme Court of the United States
who decided in
Dred Scott v. Sandford
(1857) that blacks were not
citizens
but were
property
.
[8]
Southern
plantations
could be very
profitable
. Sources differ as to just how profitable they were. Between 1770?1860, land was abundant and easy to obtain making it virtually worthless by itself.
[9]
It was hard to get rich by just owning land. The Southern elite got very wealthy by owning the labor force that produced the crops on the land.
[9]
The value of the slaves themselves was between one and two years of the entire national income of the United States.
[9]
Only a small minority held slaves and it was limited to the Southern United States. Slaves were the real wealth.
[9]
A study by Alfred Conrad and John Meyer computed the rate of return for "slave capital".
[10]
They calculated that slave ownership was at least equal to other forms of
investments
and higher than most.
[10]
Slave ownership alone could return as high as 13% per year while railroad
bonds
would return 6?8%.
[10]
The slave trade was banned in the United States after January 1, 1808.
[11]
Slave ownership was still legal, but no more African slaves could be brought into the country.
[11]
Until that time slave traders had become very wealthy by transporting slaves.
[10]
Examples of the enormous wealth of Southern slave owners includes
Joshua John Ward
of
Georgetown County, South Carolina
.
[12]
He owned 1,130 slaves and controlled six large plantations.
[12]
In 1850, he grew 3,900,000 pounds (1,800,000 kg) of
rice
earning his nickname as the "King of the Rice Planters".
[12]
Another was
Stephen Duncan
.
[12]
He was the wealthiest
cotton planter
before the Civil War. Over his lifetime he owned more than 2,000 slaves.
[12]
He owned 15 plantations. The largest one used 858 slaves.
[12]
The
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
was a large political
concession
given to the South.
[13]
It created a new commission that acted similar to the
United States Marshals Service
but with several differences.
[13]
They were paid a reward by the federal government for each slave (or those who were claimed to be slaves) that was captured.
[13]
They quickly became the largest federal
employer
at the time.
[13]
The new act was anything but pro-
States' rights
as Northern state laws were ignored.
[13]
There was no
due process
of law. In short, the Fugitive Slave act gave Southern states the power over the laws of Northern states by using the federal government to do their bidding.
[13]
The Act of 1850
alarmed
Northerners both black and white.
[3]
Free blacks had much to fear about being
kidnapped
and finding themselves a captive slave in the South.
[3]
Northern whites were alarmed because their communities were being
assaulted
by slave hunters.
[3]
Northerners saw this as proof positive of a Slave Power conspiracy that was threatening their liberty.
[3]
Northern Free-Soilers and Republicans had their differences. But one thing they agreed on was they both opposed slavery expanding to the territories.
[1]
Both opposed the Southern
planters
who they called "slave oligarchs".
[1]
Together they had an advantage over earlier attempts by political parties to oppose slavery. Earlier, Northern politicians had to go easy on slavery issues because they needed the political power of the Southerners to win national
elections
.
[1]
For that reason they supported slaveholding presidents,
congressmen
and
senators
. But the Republicans and Free-Soilers did not need to please the Southern politicians and they attacked their power at every opportunity.
[1]
They brought up old arguments that Slave Power had too long held power in American politics.
[1]
That argument was used when
Thomas Jefferson
had been elected president.
[1]
It came up when
Missouri
was admitted as a
slave state
in 1820 and again in 1845 when
Texas
was
annexed
.
[1]
This time the Republicans hammered the idea hard. It hurt Northern
Democrats
the most.
[1]
Republicans won many offices in the North that had been held by Democrats for
decades
.
[1]
In the 1860 election, the Democrats split between North and South with each supporting their own candidate. This allowed
Lincoln
to win even though he did not have a majority. This ended the Slave Power dominance in politics and was a contributing factor to the
American Civil War
.
Most
Antebellum Period
presidents were not only from the South, but also owned slaves themselves. Many figured prominently in maintaining the economics of slavery. One reason for so many Southern presidents is that they benefited from the
electoral college
advantage they held, especially those from the largest slaveholding state,
Virginia
.
[14]
In the
Constitutional Convention
(1787) delegates from Northern states did not want slaves counted as each being one person for the purposes of a state's representation in Congress.
[14]
Southern delegates wanted slaves to count as individuals even though they could not vote.
[14]
The delegates finally arrived at the
Three-Fifths Compromise
.
[14]
In Article I, section 2 of the
United States Constitution
, calling slaves by the
euphemism
"all other persons", the founders counted each slave as three-fifths of a person. This gave slave states one-third more seats in Congress than they would otherwise have based on the number of citizens they had.
[14]
This factor was decisive in the
1800 presidential election
giving Thomas Jefferson the win by the
House of Representatives
.
[14]
One of the key reasons
Washington, D.C.
was selected as the
United States Capitol
was that it located around a slave town,
Alexandria, Virginia
.
[14]
New York City
was in a free state and in
Philadelphia
a slave could only be kept for six months before being freed.
[14]
This was inconvenient for slave owning politicians. Also, Washington D.C. was promoted by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison?three key Southerners who owned slaves.
[14]
- ↑
1.00
1.01
1.02
1.03
1.04
1.05
1.06
1.07
1.08
1.09
1.10
1.11
1.12
1.13
1.14
Russel B. Nye, 'The Slave Power Conspiracy: 1830-1860',
Science & Society
, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Summer, 1946), pp. 262?267
- ↑
2.0
2.1
"Definition of Slave Power"
.
American History
. Digital History
. Retrieved
16 November
2016
.
- ↑
3.0
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
"The Coming of the Civil War"
.
Annenberg Learner
. Annenberg Foundation. Archived from
the original
on 15 September 2015
. Retrieved
16 November
2016
.
- ↑
"Slavery in America"
.
History Vault
. A&E Television Networks, LLC
. Retrieved
13 November
2016
.
- ↑
5.0
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4
"African Americans at Jamestown"
.
Historic Jamestowne
. National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior
. Retrieved
13 November
2016
.
- ↑
"Events Leading to War - A Civil War Timeline"
.
The Civil War Home Page
. civil-war.net. Archived from
the original
on 29 October 2016
. Retrieved
30 October
2016
.
- ↑
7.0
7.1
7.2
7.3
Leonard L. Richards,
The Slave Power: The Free North and Southern Domination, 1780?1860
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000), pp. 1?2
- ↑
8.0
8.1
8.2
8.3
8.4
8.5
"The Southern Argument for Slavery"
.
ushistory.org
. Independence Hall Association
. Retrieved
16 November
2016
.
- ↑
9.0
9.1
9.2
9.3
Thomas Piketty; Gabriel Zucman.
"Capital Is Back: Wealth-Income Ratios In Rich Countries 1700?2010"
(PDF)
. Paris School of Economics
. Retrieved
17 November
2016
.
{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- ↑
10.0
10.1
10.2
10.3
"Did slavery make economic sense?"
. The Economist Newspaper Limited. 27 September 2013
. Retrieved
17 November
2016
.
- ↑
11.0
11.1
"1807 Congress abolishes the African slave trade"
.
This Day in History
. A&E Television Networks, LLC
. Retrieved
17 November
2016
.
- ↑
12.0
12.1
12.2
12.3
12.4
12.5
Thomas L. Scott (23 December 2014).
"9 of the Biggest Slave Owners in American History"
. Atlanta Black Star
. Retrieved
17 November
2016
.
- ↑
13.0
13.1
13.2
13.3
13.4
13.5
Kristopher Nelson (19 February 2012).
"Federal vs. State Power in Antebellum America"
. in propria persona
. Retrieved
16 November
2016
.
- ↑
14.00
14.01
14.02
14.03
14.04
14.05
14.06
14.07
14.08
14.09
14.10
14.11
14.12
14.13
14.14
14.15
14.16
14.17
14.18
14.19
14.20
14.21
14.22
14.23
14.24
14.25
14.26
14.27
14.28
"Slaveholding Presidents"
. The Hauenstein Center at Grand Valley State University. Archived from the original on 22 March 2018
. Retrieved
16 November
2016
.
{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (
link
)
- ↑
"Ulysses S. Grant and Julia Dent Grant at White Haven Farm: The Missouri Compromise in American Life (Teaching with Historic Places (U.S. National Park Service)"
.
www.nps.gov
. Retrieved
2023-12-07
.
- ↑
Sacco, Nicholas W. (2019).
"
"I Never Was an Abolitionist": Ulysses S. Grant and Slavery, 1854?1863"
.
Journal of the Civil War Era
.
9
(3): 410?437.
ISSN
2154-4727
.
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