Elephant in the Room

In class, we were given the essential question: "How do we know the debate over slavery was the "elephant in the room" for American politics in the early 19th century?", and to understand the question you need to know that by elephant in the room, we mean that it was a topic that was avoided in conversation as it was very controversial at the time. To answer the question, my group and I decided that the way to prove this is by pointing out that the Northerners developed a very passive approach towards slavery and didn't ever really directly address slavery as a problem which would have been because in every situation where they did, such as the Caning of Sumner (which will later be addressed), the southerners responded with violence or something of the sort.  In class, we went over some events that took place throughout the 19th century regarding slavery, and then put them in chronological order on a timeline, that being the images below. On the timeline, you'll find the Missouri Compromise which happened in 1820 and  made it so there were 11 free states and 11 slave states because the south didn't want to be outnumbered by votes in the senate because Maine was coming out as a free state, and also made it so nothing above Missouri could be declared slave territory. There is also the Compromise of 1850, which was that as states in the west such as Nevada, Utah, etc;, gained a larger population, they decided to let the people vote on whether they wanted to be a free or slave state. Not long after that is the Gadsden Purchase, in which the US paid $10 million for a small piece of land in present day South Arizona so they could build a transcontinental railroad. Later on the timeline is the caning of Sumner. In this, Andrew Butler hit Charles Sumner with his cane after his two day speech, which at a point directly targeted Butler's nephew, Preston Brooks, which was held against southerners as a whole and was used to prove a point that they were all uncivilized. Throughout the Elephant in the Room lesson, it was made clear that slavery really was avoided in conversation for a good reason, because whenever it was mentioned bad things happened. 

In these pictures, you see the timeline made in class, as well as the description for each event on the timeline.