This is interesting:

http://guides.library.cornell.edu/content.php?pid=17490&sid=118857

Check the deadlines page! I MEAN it.

I’ll make you a deal: I’ll go over at least 1-14 with you on Monday, and then give you the terms check on Tuesday! I would suggest you get the whole thing done by Monday, so that you can ask about anything you don’t understand, though.

Chapter 19 questions

Make sure you are completely answering the question with depth if you want credit.

1. What was the impetus for the writing of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and what was its impact? (If you would like to be able to read a bit of it, the complete text is online here: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/STOWE/stowe.html) How did it influence foreign readers?

2. How did the Southern aristocracy react to Hinton Helper’s book, and why? What argument did Helper make? (If you need help, the text can be found online here: http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/helper/helper.html)

3. What were the purposes of the New England Immigrant Aid Society? Was their intention non-violent? Explain.

4. What had southerners who supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act believed would happen as a result of that law? Why did they feel betrayed?

5. Explain the phrase about “an imaginary Negro…” on p. 413.

6. Describe the career of John Brown as described in this chapter. Make sure you combine the two sections about him. Why was he called a “martyr?”

7.  On a separate piece of paper, trace the sequence of major crises that flowed from the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act to secession. This website will help you: http://www.lecomptonkansas.com/index.php?doc=time.php

8. What was significant about the settlements of Shawnee Mission, Topeka, Lawrence, Lecompton, Pottawatomie Creek? Looking at the map on p. 412, what role did Kansas City play in the settlement of Kansas?

9. What’s the difference between “Border ruffians” and “Nebrascals?”

10. What was the “trick” in the Lecompton Constitution? What motive did Douglas and Buchanan have in supporting this document’s acceptance as legitimate?

11. Using information from chapter 18 and well as chapter 19, who were the Republicans, and how and why did they come into existence? What were their advantages and disadvantages politically by the election of 1856? In 1860?

12. Why did Senator Charles Sumner get pummeled mercilessly, and what were the effects of this incident on both the  supporters and the opponents of slavery?

13. Why did Buchanan receive the Democratic nomination for president over Douglas and Pierce?

14. Describe the fractured political landscape in 1856 and the parties that were participating. What role did sectionalism play in the election?

15. Describe the four main provisions of the Dred Scott decision. Why did the Supreme Court make such a sweeping statement?

16. How did the Panic of 1857 make territorial expansion all the more pressing of a need? Why were Southerners opposed to the homestead act that was proposed? How else did the Panic increase Southern resentment?

17. What was Lincoln’s unique biography? (You can find the definition of “logrolling here: http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/logrolling) How did win a moral victory in 1858?

18. What were the main points of contention between Lincoln and Douglas in the debates held in 1858? What was the Freeport Doctrine? What was the outcomes of the two times they ran against each other?

19. What happened to the Democrats in 1860? What was the political fallout from the turmoil?

20. Who was William Seward? Using chapter 18 as well as 19, explain the famous phrases with which he was associated.

21. What were the differences between the Republican platforms of 1856 and 1860?

22. What were all of the handicaps facing Lincoln as president-elect? What happened between the time of Lincoln’s election and his inauguration?

23. How did the South respond to Lincoln’s election? What had been their threat in 1856 and 1860?

24. What were the main provisions of the Crittenden compromise, and why did Lincoln reject it?

25. What precedents and reasons did Southerners cite in supporting secession?

26. Was the Civil War unavoidable? Was Buchanan a total wimp? Explain.

Be ready to discuss this by Tuesday.

Chapter 3 of Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Harriet Beecher Stowe

(Eliza is a beautiful mixed-race slave who is the personal servant in the Shelby household in Kentucky. Her mistress is fond of her, and encouraged her marriage to another mixed race slave named George, who belongs to a Mr. Harris, who is far more cruel. George and Eliza have a young child named Harry, who is admired for his handsomeness and entertaining personality. Eliza had overheard a slave trader offering to buy Harry, but had been assured by her mistress that she would never allow such a thing. George had been rented out to a manufacturer who processed hemp into rope, his intelligence in inventing a machine in the factory causes his master to remove him from his work in the factory. In a fit of jealousy, Mr. Harris puts George to work at the most menial and hardest of tasks back on the plantation, making George very bitter indeed. Here, George gets a chance to visit his wife, and they converse about their situation.

(If you want to read Chapters 1-2, the entire original text is located here at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/STOWE/stowe.html –click on “The Text” to begin reading. Background information for the novel is also found at this site.)

Mrs. Shelby had gone on her visit, and Eliza stood in the verandah, rather dejectedly looking after the retreating carriage, when a hand was laid on her shoulder. She turned, and a bright smile lighted up her fine eyes.

“George, is it you? How you frightened me! Well; I am so glad you ’s come! Missis is gone to spend the afternoon; so come into my little room, and we’ll have the time all to ourselves.”

Saying this, she drew him into a neat little apartment opening on the verandah, where she generally sat at her sewing, within call of her mistress.

“How glad I am! — why don’t you smile? — and look at Harry — how he grows.” The boy stood shyly regarding his father through his curls, holding close to the skirts of his mother’s dress. “Isn’t he beautiful?” said Eliza, lifting his long curls and kissing him.

“I wish he’d never been born!” said George, bitterly. “I wish I’d never been born myself!”

Surprised and frightened, Eliza sat down, leaned her head on her husband’s shoulder, and burst into tears.

“There now, Eliza, it’s too bad for me to make you feel so, poor girl!” said he, fondly; “it’s too bad: O, how I wish you never had seen me — you might have been happy!”

“George! George! how can you talk so? What dreadful thing has happened, or is going to happen? I’m sure we’ve been very happy, till lately.”

“So we have, dear,” said George. Then drawing his child on his knee, he gazed intently on his glorious dark eyes, and passed his hands through his long curls.

“Just like you, Eliza; and you are the handsomest woman I ever saw, and the best one I ever wish to see; but, oh, I wish I’d never seen you, nor you me!”

“O, George, how can you!”

“Yes, Eliza, it’s all misery, misery, misery! My life is bitter as wormwood; the very life is burning out of me. I’m a poor, miserable, forlorn drudge; I shall only drag you down with me, that’s all. What’s the use of our trying to do anything, trying to know anything, trying to be anything? What’s the use of living? I wish I was dead!”

“O, now, dear George, that is really wicked! I know how you feel about losing your place in the factory, and you have a hard master; but pray be patient, and perhaps something — “

“Patient!” said he, interrupting her; “haven’t I been patient? Did I say a word when he came and took me away, for no earthly reason, from the place where everybody was kind to me? I’d paid him truly every cent of my earnings, — and they all say I worked well.”

“Well, it is dreadful,” said Eliza; “but, after all, he is your master, you know.”

“My master! and who made him my master? That’s what I think of — what right has he to me? I’m a man as much as he is. I’m a better man than he is. I know more about business than he does; I am a better manager than he is; I can read better than he can; I can write a better hand, — and I’ve learned it all myself, and no thanks to him, — I’ve learned it in spite of him; and now what right has he to make a dray-horse of me? — to take me from things I can do, and do better than he can, and put me to work that any horse can do? He tries to do it; he says he’ll bring me down and humble me, and he puts me to just the hardest, meanest and dirtiest work, on purpose!”

“O, George! George! you frighten me! Why, I never heard you talk so; I’m afraid you’ll do something dreadful. I don’t wonder at your feelings, at all; but oh, do be careful — do, do — for my sake — for Harry’s!”

“I have been careful, and I have been patient, but it’s growing worse and worse; flesh and blood can’t bear it any longer; — every chance he can get to insult and torment me, he takes. I thought I could do my work well, and keep on quiet, and have some time to read and learn out of work hours; but the more he see I can do, the more he loads on. He says that though I don’t say anything, he sees I’ve got the devil in me, and he means to bring it out; and one of these days it will come out in a way that he won’t like, or I’m mistaken!”

“O dear! what shall we do?” said Eliza, mournfully.

“It was only yesterday,” said George, “as I was busy loading stones into a cart, that young Mas’r Tom stood there, slashing his whip so near the horse that the creature was frightened. I asked him to stop, as pleasant as I could, — he just kept right on. I begged him again, and then he turned on me, and began striking me. I held his hand, and then he screamed and kicked and ran to his father, and told him that I was fighting him. He came in a rage, and said he’d teach me who was my master; and he tied me to a tree, and cut switches for young master, and told him that he might whip me till he was tired; — and he did do it! If I don’t make him remember it, some time!” and the brow of the young man grew dark, and his eyes burned with an expression that made his young wife tremble. “Who made this man my master? That’s what I want to know!” he said.

“Well,” said Eliza, mournfully, “I always thought that I must obey my master and mistress, or I couldn’t be a Christian.”

“There is some sense in it, in your case; they have brought you up like a child, fed you, clothed you, indulged you, and taught you, so that you have a good education; that is some reason why they should claim you. But I have been kicked and cuffed and sworn at, and at the best only let alone; and what do I owe? I’ve paid for all my keeping a hundred times over. I won’t bear it. No, I won’t!” he said, clenching his hand with a fierce frown.

Eliza trembled, and was silent. She had never seen her husband in this mood before; and her gentle system of ethics seemed to bend like a reed in the surges of such passions.

“You know poor little Carlo, that you gave me,” added George; “the creature has been about all the comfort that I’ve had. He has slept with me nights, and followed me around days, and kind o’ looked at me as if he understood how I felt. Well, the other day I was just feeding him with a few old scraps I picked up by the kitchen door, and Mas’r came along, and said I was feeding him up at his expense, and that he couldn’t afford to have every nigger keeping his dog, and ordered me to tie a stone to his neck and throw him in the pond.”

“O, George, you didn’t do it!”

“Do it? not I! — but he did. Mas’r and Tom pelted the poor drowning creature with stones. Poor thing! he looked at me so mournful, as if he wondered why I didn’t save him. I had to take a flogging because I wouldn’t do it myself. I don’t care. Mas’r will find out that I’m one that whipping won’t tame. My day will come yet, if he don’t look out.”

“What are you going to do? O, George, don’t do anything wicked; if you only trust in God, and try to do right, he’ll deliver you.”

“I an’t a Christian like you, Eliza; my heart’s full of bitterness; I can’t trust in God. Why does he let things be so?”

“O, George, we must have faith. Mistress says that when all things go wrong to us, we must believe that God is doing the very best.”

“That’s easy to say for people that are sitting on their sofas and riding in their carriages; but let ‘em be where I am, I guess it would come some harder. I wish I could be good; but my heart burns, and can’t be reconciled, anyhow. You couldn’t in my place, — you can’t now, if I tell you all I’ve got to say. You don’t know the whole yet.”

“What can be coming now?”

“Well, lately Mas’r has been saying that he was a fool to let me marry off the place; that he hates Mr. Shelby and all his tribe, because they are proud, and hold their heads up above him, and that I’ve got proud notions from you; and he says he won’t let me come here any more, and that I shall take a wife and settle down on his place. At first he only scolded and grumbled these things; but yesterday he told me that I should take Mina for a wife, and settle down in a cabin with her, or he would sell me down river.”

“Why — but you were married to me, by the minister, as much as if you’d been a white man!” said Eliza, simply.

“Don’t you know a slave can’t be married? There is no law in this country for that; I can’t hold you for my wife, if he chooses to part us. That’s why I wish I’d never seen you, — why I wish I’d never been born; it would have been better for us both, — it would have been better for this poor child if he had never been born. All this may happen to him yet!”

“O, but master is so kind!”

“Yes, but who knows? — he may die — and then he may be sold to nobody knows who. What pleasure is it that he is handsome, and smart, and bright? I tell you, Eliza, that a sword will pierce through your soul for every good and pleasant thing your child is or has; it will make him worth too much for you to keep.”

The words smote heavily on Eliza’s heart; the vision of the trader came before her eyes, and, as if some one had struck her a deadly blow, she turned pale and gasped for breath. She looked nervously out on the verandah, where the boy, tired of the grave conversation, had retired, and where he was riding triumphantly up and down on Mr. Shelby’s walking-stick. She would have spoken to tell her husband her fears, but checked herself.

“No, no, — he has enough to bear, poor fellow!” she thought. “No, I won’t tell him; besides, it ain’t true; Missis never deceives us.”

“So, Eliza, my girl,” said the husband, mournfully, “bear up, now; and good-by, for I’m going.”

“Going, George! Going where?”

“To Canada,” said he, straightening himself up; and when I’m there, I’ll buy you; that’s all the hope that’s left us. You have a kind master, that won’t refuse to sell you. I’ll buy you and the boy; — God helping me, I will!”

“O, dreadful! if you should be taken?”

“I won’t be taken, Eliza; I’ll die first! I’ll be free, or I’ll die!”

“You won’t kill yourself!”

“No need of that. They will kill me, fast enough; they never will get me down the river alive!”

“O, George, for my sake, do be careful! Don’t do anything wicked; don’t lay hands on yourself, or anybody else! You are tempted too much — too much; but don’t — go you must — but go carefully, prudently; pray God to help you.”

“Well, then, Eliza, hear my plan. Mas’r took it into his head to send me right by here, with a note to Mr. Symmes, that lives a mile past. I believe he expected I should come here to tell you what I have. It would please him, if he thought it would aggravate ‘Shelby’s folks,’ as he calls ‘em. I’m going home quite resigned, you understand, as if all was over. I’ve got some preparations made, — and there are those that will help me; and, in the course of a week or so, I shall be among the missing, some day. Pray for me, Eliza; perhaps the good Lord will hear you.”

“O, pray yourself, George, and go trusting in him; then you won’t do anything wicked.”

“Well, now, good-by,” said George, holding Eliza’s hands, and gazing into her eyes, without moving. They stood silent; then there were last words, and sobs, and bitter weeping, — such parting as those may make whose hope to meet again is as the spider’s web, — and the husband and wife were parted.

What symbols are used in this cartoon? What kind of commentary is this making regarding the Whig party? What apparently is the “one qualification for a Whig president?”

Slaves working in a cotton field

Despite slaveowners’ protests, all ages were often expected to work.

working in a rice field

Working conditions were often brutal.

One of the practices ended by the Compromise of 1850 was the slave trade in Washington DC. As a southern city, slavery had been legal in our nation’s capital from its founding. Here is a description of a slave pen used to hold slaves before they were sold, by E. S. Abdy:

One day I went to see the “slaves’ pen”–a wretched hovel, “right against” the Capitol, from which it is distant about half a mile, with no house intervening. The outside alone is accessible to the eye of a visitor; what passes within being reserved for the exclusive observation of its owner, (a man of the name of Robey,) and his unfortunate victims. It is surrounded by a wooden paling fourteen or fifteen feet in height, with the posts outside to prevent escape and separated from the building by a space too narrow to admit of a free circulation of air. At a small window above, which was unglazed and exposed alike to the heat of summer and the cold of winter, so trying to the constitution, two or three sable faces appeared, looking out wistfully to while away the time and catch a refreshing breeze; the weather being extremely hot. In this wretched hovel, all colors, except white–the only guilty one–both sexes, and all ages, are confined, exposed indiscriminately to all the contamination which may be expected in such society and under such seclusion. The inmates of the gaol [jail], of this class I mean, are even worse treated; some of them, if my informants are to be believed, having been actually frozen to death, during the inclement winters which often prevail in the country. While I was in the city, Robey had got possession of a woman, whose term of slavery was limited to six years. It was expected that she would be sold before the expiration of that period, and sent away to a distance, where the assertion of her claim would subject her to ill-usage. Cases of this kind are very common.

This excerpt is from the excellent pbs companion website called Africans in America at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/ .

Sometimes slaves received their manumission, or freedom. As the Civil War approached, most southern states passed laws forbidding free blacks to reside within their borders– those that did not immediately leave risked being re-enslaved. Many of these slaves moved to Washington, DC, and by 1860, free blacks outnumbered slaves in Washington by a ratio of 4 to 1. Here is a certificate of manumission:

The Routes of the Underground Railroad

Go to http://www.nationalgeographic.com/railroad/ and enjoy a brief audio-visual presentation on the Underground Railroad.

Questions to consider:
1. How specific is the description from this poster? What problems could be created through this use of vague terminology?
2. What is your reaction to the physical description of Tom?
3. Why is there a sliding scale for the reward?

Questions to consider:
1. Who created this poster?
2. This poster was created in response to what law?
3. Who had been deputized to help the slave catchers? Why had the decision been made to do this?
4. What attitude is evinced by this poster?
5. What is the main difficulty behind using this poster as a means of communicating to runaway slaves?

Due on Tuesday, Nov. 3.

Chapter 18 Questions

1. Why did the Mexican Cession throw national politics into turmoil, and how did this turmoil weaken national unity? Describe the range of opinion regarding the extension/expansion of slavery in the wake of the Mexican War.

2. Why was the concept of popular sovereignty described as a “panacea?” Who was the “father” of this doctrine?

3. Why did Zachary Taylor receive the Whig nomination in 1848?

4. Explain the birth of the Free Soil Party and its specific reasons for attracting anti-slavery supporters. How did it act as a spoiler in 1848 and 1852?

5. Why did California avoid territorial status which was usually required before applying for statehood? Why was the admission of California potentially damaging to the interests of the South?

6. Pro-slavery Southerners had largely supported the Mexican War, and yet what was the irony regarding the probable status of most of the Cession once it was carved into states?

7. What were the problems with the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793, in Southerners’ eyes? Why did Southerners want a more stringent fugitive slave law by the 1840s, and how did they propose making the law stronger in terms of methods allowed in the pursuit of runaways?

8.  What catastrophe faced Congress in 1850? Who were the “immortal trio,” and how did they attempt to deal with this crisis?

9. Explain the main points of Daniel Webster’s “Seventh of March Speech.” (An excerpt is on the blog.)

10. What was the difference between the “Old Guard” and the “New Guard” regarding the nature of the Union and compromise to preserve it?

11. What was meant by the statement that Taylor threatened to “Jacksonize” the Texas hotheads who threatened to seize Santa Fe? (Hint: see pp. 264-5)

12. How did Taylor’s death help break the impasse?

13. What were the main provisions of the Compromise of 1850? Did anyone win?

14.  How was the new Fugitive Slave Law tipped against fairness? How did the new law backfire in the court of public opinion? Explain.

15. How many times does the word “spit show up on pp. 400-401, and what does this indicate? What were some ridiculous aspects of the election of 1852?

16. Why was the election of 1852 effectively the end of the Whig party?

17. How did Manifest Destiny cause the US to take interest in the isthmus between North  America and South America, and what other country maneuvered against US interests in the region?

18. Why did proponents of slavery turn their eye toward American expansion in the Caribbean and Central America? What were filibusters like William Walker trying to do? How was Cuba involved, in particular?

19. Compare and contrast the Treaty of Wanghia and the Treaty of Kanagawa.

20. Why was the Gadsden Purchase so important to maintain peace between North and South?

21.  How did the Kansas-Nebraska Act contradict the Missouri Compromise, and why was Stephen Douglas in favor of it?

22. How did the Kansas Nebraska Act wreck the Compromise of 1850 as well, and what were the political consequences?