Antebellum Era Slavery

Slavery has tremendously influenced the pathway of American history. During the Antebellum period, slavery provided a firm basis for the economy of the United States, governed politics, and eventually led to the war between the North and South. People in bondage were forced to work and live in unsanitary conditions, made to feel like livestock as they were bought and sold in the infamous slave market, and were scrutinized and ridiculed for their heritage. Slavery was implemented by the men and women of American colonization to take over the harvesting process of crops in the South, but caused the majority of American citizens to refocus their moral compass and choose whether or not to support this peculiar institution. Tension regarding the
Sandford, was an 1857 Supreme Court case that ruled that Congress could not limit slavery in the United States, that people who were of African descent weren’t entitled to protection under the constitution or citizenship, and that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. Dred Scott sued for his freedom from slavery on the basis that his master had taken him into Illinois, a free state, and the Wisconsin Territory, also a free territory. Chief Justice Taney ruled that slaves were not freed if they were taken into jurisdictions that banned slavery. The decision upset the balance between free and slave states, led to fears that slavery would be extended to free states, and contributed to the Civil War. Despite how long slaves stayed on American soil, antebellum sentiment, especially in the government, was never in their
government outlawed the African slave trade in the early 1800’s, so it was the domestic slave trade that thrived as the nation was on the cusp of the Civil War. The domestic slave trade in the U.S. allocated the African population throughout the South so efficiently that it greatly surpassed any trade that the U.S. received in the Atlantic Slave Trade. As the domestic trade flourished, the slave population nearly tripled. Slavery in the US was distinctive in this way because of the ability of the slave population to increase its numbers naturally. Unlike any other slave society, the U.S. had a continuous increase in the slave population for a more than half a century. Unfortunately, as a result, approximately 1.2 million men, women, and children were displaced throughout the country, the vast majority of whom were born in