Summary On The South By Gordon S. Barker

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The author of this article, Gordon S. Barker, primarily focused on the southern perspective of the so-called threat of abolitionism. The author goes fully in depth into why the South was inherently displeased with the actions of the North, and vice versa, and how it was inevitable that this nation faced a civil war. He employed the usage of individual articles from popular newspapers at the time to truly reveal how southern whites had felt in their concern for northern values being imposed on the South. The article began with a highly detailed description of the day Slave Commissioner Edward Loring made his decision on Burns’ case, to fully showcase how it was a pivotal event in American History. Throughout the rest of the article, he explores the contradicting legislation from North and South, and individual’s ideologies and how they compared to other popular ideologies of the time. The secessionist movement leading up to the Civil War was rooted in white southerners’ desperation to maintain their economically archaic societal norms. The rapid evolution of capitalism in the North startled the South, for they feared the Union would prioritize the unfamiliar notion of industrialism over the seemingly stable …show more content…

Just days after Slave Commissioner Edward Loring ruled on the Burns’ case, Abram Smith of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin determined the law to be unconstitutional when ruling on Joshua Glover’s escape to Canada. Since the South had Fugitive Slave Laws, the North had Personal Liberty Laws which almost exactly contradicted the former. They provided jury trials for escaped slaves among other specifications, which differentiate from state to state. These laws essentially allowed slaves and ex-slaves to be treated as human, as equal, which southern states were infuriated

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