APUSH Period 5

Find the historical context, intended audience, point of view, and purpose for each documents.

Document Analysis: Period 5

I have lived all my life without suffering any known inconvenience from American Slavery. I never saw it; I never heard the whip; I never felt the check on my free speech and action, until, the other day, when Mr. Webster, by his personal influence, brought the Fugitive Slave Law on the country. I saw Mr. Webster, for though the Bill was not his, it is yet notorious that he was the life and soul of it, that he gave it all her had; it cost him his life, and under the shadow of his great name inferior men sheltered themselves, threw their ballots for it and made the law. I say inferior men… men without self respect, without character, and it was strange to see that office, age, fame, talent, even a repute for honesty, all count for nothing. They had no opinions, they had no memory for what they had been saying like the Lord’s Prayer all their lifetime; they were only looking to what their great Captain did; if he jumped, they jumped, if he stood on his head, they did.
Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1854

Historical Context: Transcendentalist movement, slavery, abolitionist

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The question is simply this; Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied by that instrucment to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution.

It will be observed, that the plea applies to that class of persons only whose ancestors were negroes of the African race, and imported into this country, and sold and held as slaves. The only matter in issue before the court, therefore, is, whether the descendants of such slaves, when they shall be emancipated, or who are born of parents who had become free before their birth, are citizens of a state, in the sense in which the word citizen is used in the Constitution of the United States.
Decision of the Supreme Court: Dred Scott v. Sandford, 1857
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We, the People of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the Ordinance adopted by us in Convention, on the Twenty-third of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States was ratified, and also all other Acts and parts of Acts of the General Assembly of the State ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed, and the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved.

South Carolina’s Ordinance of Secession and Declaration of Independence, 1860

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The state of things which exists in many sections of our country is alarming. Scarcely a night passes but some outrage is perpetrated against the welfare of some community. Houses are burned, persons are whipped, and in some instances killed, by parties unknown, and for causes which no one can decipher. These things are not right; they are not prudent. They are grave crimes against God and the best interest of the Country.

By common consent, the house-burning is charged upon the colored race, and the whipping and killing upon the so-called Ku-Klux. This is not certainly known to be the case, but the probability is that the supposition with regard to the perpetrators of these deeds is correct. One thing must be evident to every observing man: there is concert of action both in the house-burning and in the whipping and killing.
Lee Guidon, Klan Terrorism in South Carolina, 1872

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