THE NATION
BREAKING APART
Ch. 15
Growing Tensions Between
North and South
North and South Take Different
Paths
Northern Economy
Southern Economy
– Based on Industry and
Commerce
– Growth of Northern
Cities
– Eastern and
Midwestern states
develop strong ties
– Based on Plantation
System
– Few wealthy planters
controlled Southern
Society
– Planters relied on
exports for profit
– South had little
industry
Controversy over Territories
• California wants to come into US as a
FREE state
• Would disrupt the balance of power
between slave and free states in Congress
• Southerners wanted to divide the state into
2 halves
Compromise of 1850
• Proposed by Henry
Clay
• 2 Main Terms…
Compromise of 1850
1. California admitted as FREE state
•
slave trade is abolished in Washington, D.C.
Pleases North
2. Congress would not pass laws regarding
slavery for rest of territories won from Mexico
•
pass stronger law to help slave owners recapture
runaway slaves
Pleases South
Fugitive Slave Act
• Helped slave owners
recapture runaway slaves
• People accused could be
held without arrest
warrant
• No right to jury trial
• Required Northerners to
help recapture runaway
slaves
• Sometimes free African
Americans were captured
• Fines and jail for those
who did not cooperate,
helped slaves escape
www.todaysmeet.com/jefferson
55
• Moral Choice….
Do I obey the law and support slavery,
Or
Do I break the law and oppose
slavery?WHY?????????
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
• Written by Harriet
Beecher Stowe
• Portrayed the moral
issues of slavery
– Book centers on main
character’s life under
three owners
Kansas-Nebraska Act (Notes)
Background info:
• Stephen Douglass drafted a bill to
organize Nebraska territory into two
territories – Nebraska and Kansas
• Suggested decision of slavery should be
decided by Popular Sovereignty
Kansas-Nebraska Act
• Popular Sovereignty
– System where the residents vote to decide an
issue (in this case they are voting on slavery)
– If passed, would get ride of Missouri
Compromise by allowing people to vote for
slavery where it had been banned
– Passed in Congress and became law
“Bleeding Kansas” (Notes)
• Fire-eaters: Those that were “Proslavery”
• Jayhawkers: Those that were “Antislavery”
“Bleeding Kansas”
• Proslavery and antislavery settlers flood into
Kansas territory to vote on issue of slavery
• 5,000 Missourians came over and voted illegally
• New Kansas legislature was now packed with
proslavery representatives
• Antislavery settlers boycotted new government
• Settlers on both sides get violent
“Bleeding Kansas”
• Proslavery mob attacks
Lawrence, Kansas
• Abolitionist John Brown
seeks to avenge the
“Sack of Lawrence”
• Goes to cabins of
proslavery neighbors and
murders 5 people.
• Civil War breaks out in
Kansas
“Bleeding Kansas”
Republican Party Forms
• Created by split of
Whig Party
– Northern: against the
K-N Act
– Southern: for K-N Act
• Republicans gain
strength in the North
Election of 1856
John Fremont
Party
Stand on Slavery
James Buchanan Millard Fillmore
Republican
Democratic
Know-Nothing
Against
For
Split
Election of 1856
• James Buchanan Wins!
The Case of Dred Scott
• Scott was a slave in
Missouri
• Owner had taken him
to live in territories
where slavery was
illegal
• Owner dies and Scott
sues for his freedom
Dred Scott v. Sandford
• Case reaches Supreme Court
• Said Dred Scott was a slave, not a citizen, so he
could not sue in U.S. courts
• Also rules that Congress could not ban slavery
in the territories
– This would violate slaveholders’ 5th Amendment
property rights
• Huge setback for abolitionist movement!!
Dred Scott v. Sandford
“The language of the Declaration of Independence
is equally Conclusive: ...
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all
men are created equal; that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable rights;
that among them is life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness; that to secure these rights,
Governments are instituted, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed.
Dred Scott v. Sandford
The general words above quoted would
seem to embrace the whole human
family, and if they were used in a similar
instrument at this day would be so
understood. But it is too clear for
dispute, that the enslaved African race
were not intended to be included, and
formed no part of the people who framed
and adopted this declaration…..
Dred Scott v. Sandford
…Yet the men who framed this declaration
were great men -- high in literary acquirements
-- high in their sense of honor, and incapable of
asserting principles inconsistent with those on
which they were acting. They perfectly
understood the meaning of the language they
used, and how it would be understood by
others; and they knew that it would not in any
part of the civilized world be supposed to
embrace the negro race”
Lincoln-Douglass Debates
Lincoln
• Slavery was a moral,
social, and political
wrong.
Douglass
• Argued that popular
sovereignty was the best
way to address slavery
"A house divided against itself cannot stand." I
believe this government cannot endure, permanently
half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to
be dissolved-I do not expect the house to fall-but I do
expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all
one thing, or all the other.”
-Abraham Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois,
June16, 1858
John Brown Attacks Harpers Ferry
• Brown wants to
inspire slaves to fight
for their freedom
• Planned to capture
weapons arsenal at
Harpers Ferry,
Virginia
John Brown Attacks Harpers Ferry
•
•
•
•
Kills 4 people in the raid
Sends word to rally and arm local slaves
But no slaves join the fight!!
Brown and his men captured and
executed
• Abolitionists tolled bells and fired guns in
salute
“Bleeding Kansas”
Lincoln’s Election and Southern
Secession
Ch. 15-4
Election of 1860
Southern States Secede
• Lincoln had said he would do nothing to
abolish slavery
• Southerners did not trust him
• Saw Republican victory as a threat to the
Southern way of life
• Warned if Lincoln won, the Southern
states would secede, or withdrawal from
the Union
Southern States Secede
• South Carolina secedes first
• Followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama,
Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas
• Formed the Confederate States of America
Jefferson Davis –
President of the
Confederacy
Efforts to Compromise Fail
• Efforts for Compromise fail
• Lincoln assured South again he would not
abolish slavery
• Lincoln stated he would not invade the
South, but he would not abandon the
Union’s property there
• Would need to supply several forts in the
South, including Fort Sumter, S.
Carolina…
Critical Thinking
States’ Rights – theory that states had the right to
judge when the federal government had passed an
unconstitutional law
• Do you think the Southern states seceded
to protect slavery or states’ rights??
• Defend your answer