What To Do When The Elephant Tamers Ignore The Elephant

Throughout the 19^th century, the debate over slavery was the “elephant in the room” because an answer was never directly stated by authority. Instead, the authority sided with their own individual beliefs and fought against the opposing side- ignoring their opportunities in government to use their power to compromise with leaders from the other side of the debate.

My group's timeline of the slavery revolt.
Made with TimeLine app.

Description of events included in my group's timeline. 

            The first event we learned about in class was the Compromise of 1850. This compromise can be summed up into five parts. The majority of the parts worked in favor of slavery. Texas gave up its land expanding to Santa Fe, receiving $10 million, and entered as a slave state. This was a win for proslavery because it gave the south more land to run slavery. New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah territories can vote proslavery or antislavery when they’re populated enough to be considered states. This is a win for proslavery because these territories can easily be filled with proslavery settlers who will vote in favor of slavery. The worst was the fugitive slave law. This says all Americans should work to return slaves to their owners. Many northerners had been working to help slaves escape slavery and this law prevented them from continuing to do so. It was obviously passed by proslavery government without the consultation of antislavery government. They had the opportunity to collaborate and find a solution, but they do not. Instead, they pass a law without the approval of officials from the opposite side of the argument. Americans ended up breaking this law anyways, so I was ineffective even through the eyes of the proslavery officials who passed it.

Caning of Charles Sumner.
Take from class notes on edline. 

Another example of the government immaturely ignoring their ability to solve the problem rather than simply fight with their side occurred in 1856 and is referred to as the “Caning of Charles Sumner”. Sumner was a leading republican and one of the leading voices against slavery in congress. He gave a speech called The Crime Against Kansas which attacked Southerners for attempting to force slavery in the territories. Representative Preston Brooks, a proslavery member of the House of Representatives, who was attending Sumner’s speech, was enraged by the accusations made towards the South. In attempt to defend the South, Brooks beat Sumner with his cane. In response to this, southerners showed great support towards Brooks, even mailing him canes with the message “beat him again”. Instead of confronting the issue with Sumner verbally and finding a long term solution that would benefit both of their sides, Brooks reacted in a way that only fueled the debate even more. The government officials at this time weren’t working towards ending the debate. They were making their opinions well known and sharing the messages their sides were trying to get across, but they refused to comprehend the possibility of compromise. Because of this, the debate went on for centuries longer than it should have.