In examining the 1851 political cartoon (Document #3), how are Southerners arguing against Northern protests of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act? To what extent does this image relate to the issues raised regarding nullification in Documents #1 and #2? How does the 1856 political cartoon (Document #4) relate to the issues arising from the Kansas- Nebraska Act? To what extent did slavery complicate the process and politics of westward expansion in the 1840s and 1850s?

Answer:

The Fugitive Slave Act was a law to support the return of slaves who escaped from one state to another territory. The issue of slavery caused a deep split between North and South. This law was passed as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slave interests and the Northern free-soil movement. The Fugitive Slave Act was a big controversy in 1850 that frightened Northern about the slave power conspiracies. In examining the 1852 political cartoon, on one side, Southerners wanted to intensify the fugitive slave law; on the other side, Northerners wanted to respect the Constitution’s fugitive slave clause and, in this way, preserve the Union. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act permit slave owners to retake fugitive slaves. The Southern slave owners could apprehend a person suspected to be a fugitive slave and arrest them before going to a commissioner, and also the fugitive couldn’t even testify at the hearing. They could even be a free American but with this law they were forced into slavery. Northerners saw this cruel situation very intrusive, and they resisted and defied this law because they see it as kidnapping. For these reasons Northern turned against slavery. The Southerners threating and insulting the social and legal reactions that the Northern took, because they felt that some abolitionist in the North were inspirit slaves to revolt, that was a feared possibility that many Southern were scared. We can see this situation in the left panel of the cartoon.

This image is related to the issues regarding nullification because Southern planters and slaveholders kept using the doctrine and the rights of the state to protect institution of slavery and nullify what they consider wasn’t constitutional and affect their economy. For some Sothern radical, the tariff problem was a pretext for the threat of secession. That’s why these radicals wanted to separate every time they see that a new federal law was going to affect the interests of the slaveholding South.

In the 1856 political cartoon we can see in the background a scene of burning and pillaging, and also a man hanging dead from a tree. I think this was made to reflect the consequences that would come when they try to force the members of the Free Soil Party to accept the decisions that implicate slavery. This background also showed the violent acts were happened in Kansas. The attempt of Democrats to impose decisions about slavery is showed in this image with the Senator Stephen Douglas and President Franklin Pierce trying to force a slave into the mouth of a free soiler giant. This represent the main doctrine of the Free Soil Party, that was to avoid the expansion and use of slavery in the states. In the right side of the cartoon we see the democratic platform and the violence the democrats used against anti-slavery settlers in Kansas because of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The labels on the Democratic Platform “Kansas”, “Cuba”, and “Central America” refer to the Democratic purposes of the slavery expansion in different territories. In that moment were exactly 15 slave states and 15 free states, and Kansas was ready to be admitted as a new state. When the Kansas-Nebraska Act was approved, it resulted in a lot of debate and violence because it violated the Missouri Compromise. Furthermore, the South aspired to expand slavery to other lands in Cuba and South America making more controversy in all this existent problem.