Expert: Dylan Thompson - 2/6/2007

Question
Hello, I was wondering about the context this book (Huckleberry Finn) was written in. Like anything political going on, certain laws that would help me understand the book, why there was a civil war and what life was like before the civil war started. Also just any information you believe would give me a good understand of the time frame, to really let me see why certain characters react to certain things in certain ways. Thank you for your time.

Mike  

Answer
Mike,

You have asked a lot of in depth questions. I will start with the easiest and then deal a little with reasons for the Civil War.

some laws it is handy to know about. 1. If you found a runaway slave in a free state, you were required to return him to his owner. (This law was first publicly broken shortly before the civil war in Wisconsin where the citizens of the state rioted and abducted a slave who had been caught and escorted him to Canada.)
2. when someone died (unless explicitly stated otherwise) slaves owned by that person were simply auctioned off to pay for burial costs and taxes etc.

another thing to remember is that everyone back then were proud of being from their state.. not always being American, but being, say Virginian, or new Yorker...

the civil war was an almost inevitable clash of two fundamentally different cultures making up America at the time. There was the Southern agriculture society that hinged on slow development and growing stuff. and then there was the Northern culture of factory. Now if these two cultures had remained balanced then the whole slavery thing would probably have worked itself out with the inventions of machines. but the North exploded with population of immigrants thereby forcing the south into what is teamed a 'Permanent Minority'. Now when a group of people are in this position, they cannot keep any laws from being passed, they are completely at the mercy of the 'permanent majority' now there were checks on the permanent majority in the House of Representatives caused by immigration, Namely the senate and the President. But slowly from the 1850s on, the senate became a permanent majority (with the admission of California) then manly the president was left... and the South was cornered, and they turned to fight to protect EVERYTHING that they now considered their way of life that the North was forcing from them. this unfortunately included slavery. That is a rough sketch of the causes of the civil war, I hope this helps, if you want more, read some biographies of southern generals, and you will see that they were not fighting to defend slavery... have fun reading Huckleberry Finn, remember that the first part was written long before the second part, and therefore the focus compliantly changes, and Mark Twain goes into a philosophical debate with his fictional characters. so the first part is meant to be fun, and the second part is to think about, and the transition isn't the best. But all that said, it is a fantastic book. Have fun. DJT