The de facto nationalization of slavery was created with three developments in government, the Compromise of 1850, which enacted the Fugitive Slave Law; the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which opened Northern territory to settlement by slaveholders; and the Dred Scott decision of 1857, which declared that no Black person could be a citizen of the U.S. Following these developments, there was an offensive move among the powerful slaveholders pushing permanent enslavement of all Black people. The argument was that slavery was the God-ordained state for Black people. Along with the movement was an economic offensive making it more difficult for Black people to earn a living outside the system of slavery. It was at this time that a famine in Ireland and politics throughout Europe sent millions of White immigrants to the shores of the U.S. Between 1830 and 1860 more than five million such immigrants settled in American cities. The effect was devastating to the Black workforce, but played well into the hands of slaveholders.
The new wave of immigrants, although detested by much of the existing White population, had one advantage over free Blacks - they weren’t Black. The fight over the worst “free” jobs became an all-out war in several cities. The worst tensions seemed to be between Irish immigrants and free Blacks. The ironic part of this war was that both sides were viewed by the White owning class as bottom of the bucket. Irish immigrants were referred to as “white niggers” and to be called an “Irishman” was considered a great insult.
However, in the fight to create a system where Black people were systematically enslaved by the law of God and government, it made sense for the owning classes to back the advancement of the “white nigger” over the original. The growing workforce of skilled free Blacks was swiftly wiped out and replaced by a strong White workforce. Leaving Blacks