Slavery: A Peculiar InstitutionAPUSH - Spiconardi

Do Now: • Read and interpret the quote below. What is

Thomas Jefferson stating about the issue of slavery?

But as it is we have the wolf by the ears, we can neither hold him, nor let him safely go. Justice is in one scale, and self preservation in the other.

King Cotton• King Cotton Expression used by Southern authors and

orators before the Civil War to indicate the economic dominance of the Southern cotton industry, and that the North needed the South's cotton. In a speech to the Senate in 1858, James Hammond declared,

"You daren't make war against cotton! ...Cotton is king!"

Slaveholding, 1850

1 68,000

2 – 4 105,000

5 – 9 80,000

10 – 19 55,000

20 – 49 30,000

50 – 99 6,000

100 – 199 1,500

200+ 250

Statistics

Where are the majority of large slaveholdings located?

How does this graph prove that cotton was king?

A Peculiar InstitutionPeculiar Institution a term used to explain away the seeming contradiction of legalized slavery in a country whose Declaration of Independence states that "all men are created equal"

A Peculiar InstitutionThe peculiar institution of the South--that, on the maintenance of which the very existence of the slaveholding States depends, is pro nounced to be sinful and odious, in the sight of God and man; and this with a systematic design of rendering us hateful in the eyes of the world--with a view to a general crusade against us and our institu tions. This, too, in the legislative halls of the Union; created by these confederated States, for the better protection of their peace, their safety, and their respective institution; --and yet, we, the representa tives of twelve of these sovereign States against whom this deadly war is waged, are expected to sit here in silence, hearing ourselves and our constituents day after day denounced, without uttering a word; for if we but open our lips, the charge of agitation is resounded on all sides, and we are held up as seeking to aggravate the evil which we resist. Every reflecting mind must see in all this a sate of things deeply and dangerously diseased.

Source: John C. Calhoun, Speech on the Reception of Abolition Petitions (1837)

A Peculiar Institution• The Gag Rule (1836) – The House of Representatives adopted a gag

rule prohibiting antislavery petition from being read or acted upon. Repealed in 1845 Members of Congress were flooded with petitions to abolish slavery in Washington,

D.C.

Pro-Slavery Documents

• How do the two images compare?

• Why do you think the artist chose to compare the conditions of slaves with that of English, not American, free laborers?