The elephant in the room

The class started a new lesson called elephant in the room. The essential question was, "How we know the debate over slavery was the "elephant in the room" for American politics in the early 19th century?" To help answer this questions, students were assinged to create a timeline and as the class  proceeded into the lesson , we would add the event to the timeline. 

Slavery was major issue in the early 19th century. Most people, especially Americain politics, never brought it up and that's why it was called "the elephant in the room." They knew slavery was an issue and it needed to be fix but no one cared to fix it.

 One event that occurred was the Missouri compromise. The Compromise made it so that there was 11 slave states and 11 free states. This made it so some were in favor of the North and some in favor of the South so that it did not anger the balance of free verses slave states. If it was thrown off balance, the free states no longer had equal number of votes from the senate. Since California became a free state, Anti-slaves were happy with the compromise. 

Another event was the Kansas Nebraska Act. It made it so that Chicago would be the center of the Northern transcontinental railroad, making it an advance economy.  It allowed southerners to move into land that was previously anti-slavery, so slaves  had the opportunity to move into the Western territories.  This Missouri compromise was violated because it gave pro slavery an opportunity to spread slavery which maked it harder to abolish slavery. 

The Kansas Nebraska Act then leaded to an event called Bleeding Kansas. Since the Nebraska act violated the Missouri Compromise, the residents  had to decide on whether the areas became free state or slave states. Pro slavery and free state settlers tried to influence their decision by coming to Kansas. Violence then erupted which led the name. One of the most known violent outrages of this act was  the pottawatome massacre which was when John brown and his men mustered five salve owners in front of thier families. Another was when a proslavery mob burnt down several buildings in a abolitionist town in Lawrence Kansas. This made Topeka and antislavery Capitol and Lecompton a proslavery capitol. 

This event angered Charles Sumner especially because he was antislavery. He delivered a fiery speech called,  The crime against Kansas. It  proved that the controversy of slavery can cause even the most civilized men to resort to violence, included direct remarks towards Butler. His speech led to the The Caning of Charles Sumner in 1856. Butler's nephew, Preston Brooks, was angry that Sumner  offended his uncle in the speech. He  ran up to Sumner in the senate chamber and beat him with his cane. People supported Brooks and even sent him canes in the mail. There was never a solution to solve the big issue of slavery .That was why they called it the elephant in the room because it was there, people just never took the time to deal with it.