The city of Washington is facing unprecedented…

The city of Washington is facing unprecedented tension between abolitionists and slavery defenders in 1835.

 

The tension is so high because a slave uprising had occurred only a few years prior, Nat Turner's slave rebellion of 1831.

 

Panic and fear have since spread across the slave states (including the District of Columbia).

 

Abolitionists are flooding Congress with petitions for ending slavery in the nation's capital, so many that the House has adopted a series of gag rules to automatically table them.

 

An inebriated slave, Arthur Bowen, had come into his mistress Anna Thorton's bedroom with an axe,  though he did not strike or attempt to strike her.

 

Bowen is ultimately taken into custody without harm, and proslavery advocates target after the man they believe is leading the distribution of abolitionist material in Washington, Reuben Crandall. 

 

District Attorney Francis Scott Key, writer of the United States' national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner", is the leading man behind the arrest and prosecution of Crandall.

 

Crandall is found innocent, and the incident publicly embarrasses Key and ends his political career.

 

In the summer the nation experiences the first labor strike by federal employees, the 1835 Washington Navy Yard labor strike, which begins on July 29, 1835, when Commodore Isaac Hull issues an order in response to thefts limiting workers' lunch privileges.

 

The Navy Yard strikers want a ten-hour day and for Hull to retract his order.