Episodes Nearest to March 12, 1857: 1 through 25 of 25

  1. The Changing Nature of the Institution of Slavery
    date March 12, 1857map Washington City, District of Columbiatags African-Americans, Church/Religious-Activity, Economy, Government, Law, Politics, Migration/Transportation, Race-Relations, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    In the Supreme Court case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, Chief Justice Roger Taney delivered the opinion of the court, concluding that people of African decent, whether or not they were bound by slavery or free, could never become citizens of the United States and furthermore, that Congress had no right to create or administer territories. It was also the opinion of the Court that the Constitution could...

  2. The Effects of the Dred Scott Decision
    date March 10, 1857map RICHMOND, Virginiatags African-Americans, Law, Slavery

    The Dred Scott decision of March 6, 1857, brought to a head the tension surrounding the issue of slavery in the United States.In the case, the Supreme Court ruled that Scott was still a slave, and therefore, and no right to file suit in a United States court as he was not a citizen and did not have the rights of such.The Enquirer, a Democratic newspaper, greeted this decision with great applause.The...

  3. Dred Scott v. Sanford
    date March 6, 1857map WASHINGTON, Virginiatags African-Americans, Race-Relations, Slavery

    Dred Scott was a slave living in Missouri. Between the years of 1833 and 1843 Scott lived in Illinois (a free state) and a part of the Louisiana Territory that barred slavery under the Missouri Compromise of 1820. When he returned home to Missouri, Scott claimed that after living in a free state he had become a free man and was no longer a slave. Scott's master, Mr. John F. A. Sanford, claimed...

  4. Tariff of 1857
    date March 3, 1857map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Economy

    Passed with some hope to elude the impending economic crisis, the Tariff of 1857 was the lowest tariff enacted by Congress since 1816. The tariff was partially passed in order to rectify the conflict between the woolen manufacturers and producers, both of whom were badly hit with the 1846 tariff, which had raised the duties on raw wools to thirty percent and reduced that on flannels and blankets...

  5. Hunter Amendment adopted in Congress
    date February 24, 1857map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Economy

    After one day of debate on the Senate floor, the Hunter Amendment, named after Robert M. T. Hunter of Virginia, was passed by a vote of 32-12. The Hunter Amendment to the Tariff of 1857 included a reduction in all tariff schedules by twenty to twenty-five percent. Hunter's bill, which reduced the duty on iron from thirty to twenty-four percent, caused iron manufacturers in Pennsylvania to...

  6. African Slave Trade in the United States
    date April 1, 1857map NEW YORK, New Yorktags African-Americans, Slave Trade

    The United States Congress outlawed the African slave trade in 1808, but there were some who still took part in the slave trade, knowing it was illegal. Some southerners even talked about reviving the slave trade in the mid-1850s, but most Americans opposed this idea, and numerous slave smugglers were put on trial in the United States. According to the New York Herald, "the United States...

  7. Reverand Glennie Baptizes in Litchfield
    date February 6, 1857map GEORGETOWN, South Carolinatags Church/Religious-Activity

    On February 6, 1857, Reverend Alexander Glennie visited a plantation in Litchfield, South Carolina. On this particular morning, he performed morning services and conducted three adult baptisms. The act of baptism is a vital part of Christianity, and was highly regarded as an important event in one's life during this time. To Christians in South Carolina, and in the general region, to be baptized...

  8. Widespread and Acute Forebodings of Possible Slave Rebellions
    date January, 1857 to February, 1857map ORLEANS, Louisianatags Crime/Violence, Slavery

    A New Orleans newspaper editor published news of “slave disturbances' throughout the South. The Times Picayune of New Orleans, Louisiana reported, “the increased discontents have as often shown that a remedy has not been reached;it is not to be disguised that violent offenses, breaches of the peace, and homicides have multiplied, especially of late;' Other reports from various...

  9. The Ledger of a Slave Trader
    date January 2, 1857 to January 31, 1857map RICHMOND, Virginiatags African-Americans, Economy, Slavery

    For Mlle. Templeman and Goodwin of Richmond, Virginia, January 2 to the 31 in 1857 was a time of rather lucrative business.They sold a great deal of merchandise and had made a significant amount of profit. In fact, their sales business had seen mostly boon time since they first established in Richmond in 1849. However, for their merchandise, times were not so good. They found their families...

  10. Proslavery Party Convention and Territorial Legislature Meet in Lecompton, Kansas
    date January 12, 1857map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Slavery

    Lecompton was a busy town on the south bank of the Kansas river that served as the territory's capital. There, the Proslavery Party Convention and the Territorial Legislature convened to draft the new constitution to be adopted once Kansas gained statehood. Much debate centered around electoral law. The Territorial Legislature, ignoring the recommendations of Governor John W. Geary, followed...

  11. Richest County in the Union
    date January 3, 1857map DOUGHERTY, Georgiatags Economy, Slavery, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    Different cultures define wealth in very different ways. In the minds of the citizens of Dougherty County, Georgia in the late 1850s, they were very wealthy indeed. According to the South Carolina Times in January of 1857, this plantation county claimed to be the richest County in the Union, excepting those containing the great cities. As evidence, they cited the per capita average of nine slaves...

  12. This Sin Polluted Earth
    date January 3, 1857map ALBEMARLE, Virginiatags African-Americans, Church/Religious-Activity, Crime/Violence, Race-Relations, Slavery

    On January 3, 1857 cries of pain echoed throughout the plantation. The crack of the whip onto bare skin had an unmistakable sound. All those who witnessed the brutal whipping cringed with each crack. The slave's back was already covered with old scars; some several years old and some only days old. Mary Boyden became used to seeing her father discipline unruly slaves, but this...

  13. The Hate Crime In Louisville
    date May 20, 1857map JEFFERSON, Kentuckytags racial violence, African-Americans

    The hate crime that occurred in Louisville, Kentucky, on May 20, 1857, was "one of the most shocking instances of cruelty and of mob violence that has transpired in this country for years." A group of slaves from Louisville had been accused of a crime. A white jury found the slaves not guilty, which angered a mob of whites who wanted the slaves executed for a crime that they clearly did not commit....

  14. Fugitive Slave and Author Delivers Speech in Glasgow, Scotland
    date June 2, 1857map SUMTER, South Carolinatags Race-Relations, Slavery

    John Andrew Jackson was a slave living under the lash in Sumter County, South Carolina. After years of servitude, Jackson fled slavery when he was separated by sale from his wife and child in 1846. Jackson worked briefly in Charleston, South Carolina before he stowed away on a vessel bound for Boston, Massachusetts. He settled in Salem and worked part-time as a sawmill operative and leather tanner....

  15. Southern Reaction to Senator Stephen A. Douglas Delivers Speech that Eventually Evolves into Freeport Doctrine (Delivered in Springfield, Illinois)
    date June 12, 1857map HENRICO, Virginiatags Race-Relations, Slavery

    Senator Stephen Douglas, who sponsored the Kansas-Nebraska Act, delivered a speech supporting the Supreme Court's decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford, 1857. Echoing the words of sympathetic southern slaveowners, Douglas agreed that a slaveholder's right to carry his property (i.e. slaves) in and out of U.S. territory continued “in full force under the guarantees of the Constitution.'...

  16. The Southern Commercial Convention
    date December 8, 1856 to December 10, 1856map CHATHAM, Georgiatags Economy, Slavery

    On December 8th 1856 the Southern Commercial Convention met in Savannah. Over six hundred delegates were in attendance at the convention from ten southern states to discuss topics relevant to the South and its livelihood. On the first day of the convention the Virginian James Lyons was appointed the permanent president of the convention. After his appointment, Lyons gave a speech maintaining...

  17. Hinton Rowan Helper publishes The Impending Crisis of the South: How To Meet It
    date June, 1857map ROWAN, North Carolinatags Race-Relations, Slavery

    Hinton R. Helper, a southerner, publishes his book entitled The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It. Helper champions the nonslaveholding Southern whites while denouncing Southern slave masters as “lords of the lash.' Helper concluded that slavery was impeding the South's economic, social, and cultural development. Using the 1850 census, Helper used demographic statistics...

  18. The Revival of the Slave Trade
    date November 29, 1856map RICHLAND, South Carolinatags Slavery

    Although the United States had passed legislation in 1807, ending the slave trade in the United States, some southerners still pushed for its renewal. In the Southern Commercial Convention of December 1856, certain members of the assemblage created a discourse on the issue, evoking heated responses from both sides. Some thought the revival of the slave trade would alienate the South from other...

  19. Southern Reaction to Lincoln's Speech on “Amalgamation' in Springfield, Illinois
    date June 26, 1857map HENRICO, Virginiatags Race-Relations, Slavery

    Abraham Lincoln delivered a speech in response to Senator Stephen Douglas's speech on June 12 in Springfield, Illinois. Lincoln noted “a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people, to the idea of an indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races.' He assured his audience that although the Republican Party deemed the Declaration of Independence's famous line...

  20. A Balanced Man
    date June 27, 1857map BALTIMORE, Marylandtags Agriculture

    A tobacco planter of Cedar Park, Maryland, Thomas S. Mercer kept a concise diary of daily activities. His diary consists of the condition of agriculture, weather, and his social life. Mercer was an ordinary Maryland yeoman farmer. As a yeoman farmer he relied on family and never mentioned the use of slave labor, except that of hired servants. He grew Maryland's first staple crop of tobacco as...

  21. A Former Slave's Account on Abolition
    date 1857map MONTGOMERY, Marylandtags Crime/Violence, Race-Relations, Slavery

    Frederick Douglass perceived Maryland to be a state that possessed slavery in its mildest form. In one of his books, My bondage and my freedom, Douglass showed the truth to a doubting nation that believed that Maryland divested of the harsh and terrible occurrences that characterized the slave system. Douglass challenged the argument that Maryland was not a state harsh on its slaves by comparing...

  22. Harriet's Freedom
    date 1857map SHELBY, Alabamatags African-Americans, Law, Migration/Transportation, Slavery

    Harriet knew that when she turned twenty-seven years old, she was free. Harriet's mother, Phyllis, was the slave of Alexander Nelson. In his will, Nelson manumitted Phyllis at the age of thirty-five and all of her daughters at age twenty-seven. Phyllis died on the way to Liberia, but Harriet still wanted her chance at freedom. In 1857, however, Harriet was over twenty-seven years old and still...

  23. Harriet's Freedom
    date 1857map SHELBY, Alabamatags African-Americans, Law, Migration/Transportation, Slavery

    Harriet knew that when she turned twenty-seven years old, she was free. Harriet's mother, Phyllis, was the slave of Alexander Nelson. In his will, Nelson manumitted Phyllis at the age of thirty-five and all of her daughters at age twenty-seven. Phyllis died on the way to Liberia, but Harriet still wanted her chance at freedom. In 1857, however, Harriet was over twenty-seven years old and still...

  24. The Nineteenth-Century Web of Race and Divorce
    date 1857map LOWNDES, Mississippitags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Law, Race-Relations, Women

    Having a petition granted for divorce was hard to come by in the nineteenth-century. However, each year many divorce petitions were filed in the South. In 1857, Mrs. Charlotte Smith of Lowndes County, Mississippi stated that she caught her husband committing adultery with a negro girl named Nancy in April of that year. Mrs. Smith, devastated by her husband's crime, filed for divorce, alimony,...

  25. Order On Plantations
    date 1857map FRANKLIN, Floridatags Slave, plantation

    Maintaining order on a plantation that was dependent on slavery was very important. To achieve this slaves required positive aspects in their life to look forward to. These privileges drove them to work. The creation of task systems and gang systems were frequent practices and established content lives among workers. Task systems were designed so that each slave had one engagement he or she was...