Elephant in the Room

During the 18th century, slavery was a problem. Millions were enslaved but many people in the government ignored this fact. There was many discussions about slavery, but it was definitely the elephant in the room.

 Slavery was ignored for many reasons, one being that it helped the economy drastically. As much as people thought it was morally wrong, they knew America depended on it. All the textiles mills in the north needed the supplies like cotton, which was picked by slaves in the South. Although the North did not allow slavery, they were still supporting it by buying products from the South. Cotton became a huge product all around the world and became 57% of the worlds export revenue.

 Another reason why slavery was the elephant in the room is because instead of getting rid of slavery completely, they just decided the even out the abolitionist to non-abolitionist states. In 1850, many people went out west due to the gold rush. California wanted to become a free state, but this upsets the south because then there would be more anti-slavery states. A man named Henry Clay comes up with an agreement, known as the Compromise of 1850. He composed that California would be admitted as a free state, the slave trade in DC would be abolished,  and the states of Nevada Utah Arizona and New Mexico could have pro slavery states. The government was not seeing the big picture, the problem was not the ratio of slave states to non slave states, it was the fact that people were enslaved in their own country and people were not doing anything about it.

Another law that was mad was the Fugitive slave act. This meant if there was an escaped slave in the North, then anyone (even anti slavery people) must report him or her to the police and the slave would be sent back to their plantation. This law was very controversial in the United states, the South believed this was the right thing to do because slaves were considered their property, but the north though they should be left alone.