Chapter 18
A Divided Nation
(1848-1860)
Chapter 18
A Divided Nation
(1848-1860)
Section 1
The Debate over Slavery
The Expansion of Slavery
 Mexican cession (addition of territory) renewed
the debate over slavery
 President Polk wanted to run the line set by the
Missouri Compromise to the Pacific Ocean
dividing the Mexican cession into free and slave
territory
 Wilmot Proviso – proposed prohibiting slavery
in all parts of the Mexican Cession
 Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan pushed for
popular sovereignty – allowing voters in the
territories to decide whether they wanted to
allow or ban slavery
The Expansion of Slavery (continued)
 Debate over slavery dominated the presidential
campaign of 1848
Neither Whigs nor Democrats took a clear position on
slavery in the West
 Free-Soil Party – formed by thousands of antislavery northerners
 Zachary Taylor (Whig) was able to win election
 California Gold Rush caused a population boom
that allowed California to skip the territorial
stage
 When California applied for statehood, the
majority of its residents wanted California to
enter the Union as a free state
The Compromise of 1850
Henry Clay (“The Great Compromiser”)
helped settle the Missouri crisis and the
nullification crisis
The questions of whether California
would be admitted to the Union as a free
state or a slave state led Henry Clay to
offer a series of proposals to address all
of the current issues of sectional
disagreement
Senator William Seward (NY) demanded
admission of California without
conditions or compromises
The Compromise of 1850 (continued)
 Senator John C. Calhoun (SC) asked Congress to
allow the slave states to peacefully leave the
Union if California was admitted as a free state in
1850
 Senator Daniel Webster (MA) favored Clay’s plan
– during a stirring speech to Congress, he
criticized abolitionists and scolded southerners
who spoke for disunion
 Conditions of the Compromise of 1850
California entered as free state
Mexican Cession divided into two territories – Utah
and New Mexico – status decided by popular
sovereignty
Texas agreed to give up claims in New Mexico, federal
government gave TX financial assistance it needed
Outlawed slave trade in D.C. and produced new
fugitive slave law
The Fugitive Slave Act
Part of the Compromise of 1850
Made it a federal crime to help runaway
slaves
Alarmed by the number of accused
fugitive slaves who were returned to the
South after 1850, thousands of African
Americans in the North fled to Canada to
avoid capture
Antislavery Literature
 Slave narratives used to help the abolitionist
cause
 Uncle Tom’s Cabin – written by Harriet
Beecher Stowe – powerful antislavery novel
Wrote UTC after the passage of the Fugitive Slave
Act of 1850 to show northerners what slavery was
really like
Sparked outrage in South, gained praise in the
North
Book’s popularity caused some to remark that
Stowe had created “two million abolitionists”
Chapter 18
A Divided Nation
(1848-1860)
Section 2
Trouble in Kansas
The Election of 1852
 Democrats chose Franklin Pierce
Although he was from New England,
southerners trusted him because he promised
to honor the Compromise of 1850 and enforce
the Fugitive Slave Act
 Whigs chose Winfield Scott (Mexican War
hero)
Although he was a southerner, he lost support
in the South because he failed to completely
support the Compromise of 1850
 Pierce (Democrats) won election by large
margin
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
 Stephen Douglas wanted to build a railroad
from Chicago to the Pacific
 The rest of the Louisiana Purchase had to
become a federal territory for this to happen
 Southerner’s did not support Douglas’s plan
– wanted their own railroad running across
already organized territory in the south to the
Pacific
 Douglas convinced some southerners to
support his plan in exchange for opening the
territory west of Missouri to slavery
The Kansas-Nebraska Act (continued)
 Stephen Douglas introduced the KansasNebraska bill when southern senators agreed
to abandon their plan for a southern railroad
route if the new territory west of Missouri
was opened to slavery
 In 1854 Douglas introduced a bill (K-N Act) in
Congress that would organize the remainder
of the Louisiana Purchase into two
territories, each to determine the slavery
question by popular sovereignty
 Douglas and President Pierce pressured
other Democrats to vote for it
“Bleeding Kansas”
 Antislavery and proslavery groups rushed to
populate Kansas
 Elections for the Kansas territorial legislature
were held in March 1855
 To ensure a proslavery victory thousands of
men crossed the border from Missouri,
voted, then went home
 The new territorial legislature located at
Lecompton had a huge proslavery majority
 Antislavery Kansans formed their own
legislature in Topeka
“Bleeding Kansas” (continued)
 The “Sack of Lawrence” referred to the attack on
Lawrence by pro-slavery forces
 Many antislavery activists in Kansas wanted to get
shipments of weapons from abolitionists in the East
 Abolitionist John Brown decided to punish proslavery
forces for the “Sack of Lawrence”
 He led a group of 7 men along the Pottawatomie Creek killing 5
proslavery men in what became known as the Pottawatomie
Massacre
 Kansas collapsed into civil war – became known as
“Bleeding Kansas”
 A Congressman (Brooks) resorted to violence in the
Senate chamber in 1856 after a northern senator
(Sumner) insulted a senator from South Carolina
(Butler)
 Brooks beat Sumner unconscious with his cane; afterwards,
many southerners sent Brooks new canes
Chapter 18
A Divided Nation
(1848-1860)
Section 3
Political Divisions
New Divisions
 Republican Party formed by Whigs, some Democrats,
Free-Soilers and abolitionist in 1854 – united to
oppose spread of slavery west
 After nearly 60 northern Democrats voted for the
Kansas-Nebraska Act, only seven of them retained
their House seats in the next election
 The Whig Party was most damaged by passage of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act
 Know-Nothings chose Millard Fillmore
 Pennsylvanian James Buchanan was nominated for
president by the Democrats in 1856 because he had
avoided the Kansas-Nebraska Act controversy
 At its first presidential nominating convention, the
Republican Party chose as it candidate John C.
Frémont
 Buchanan won – 14/15 slave states, 5 free
The Dred Scott Decision
 Dred Scott sued (1846) for his freedom,
saying that he had become free when he
lived in free territory (traveled with owner)
 Case reached supreme court in 1856 – 3 key
issues
Was Scott a citizen of the U.S.? (to determine if
he was eligible to sue in federal court)
Did the time he spent living on free soil make
him free?
Was the ban on slavery in parts of the Louisiana
Purchase constitutional? (would affect the
Missouri Compromise)
The Dred Scott Decision (continued)
 Roger Taney – Chief Justice (from slaveholding
family in Maryland) wrote majority of Dred Scott
decision in March 1857
 The majority of Supreme Court justices who
heard the Dred Scott case were from the South
 Dred Scott decision As a noncitizen, Scott did not have the right to sue in
federal court
His status, as free or slave, depended on the laws of
Missouri, where his owner lived
Ruled that Congress could not prohibit someone
from taking slaves into a federal territory because
slaves were considered property
Missouri Compromise restriction on slavery north of
36°30’ = unconstitutional
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
 In 1858, Lincoln was nominated for U.S. Senate
seat vs. Democrat Stephen Douglas (Illinois)
 Douglas well-known for Kansas-Nebraska Act
 Lincoln challenged Douglas to series of
debates in Illinois to take advantage of his
opponent’s fame to gain recognition
 Lincoln stressed the central issue in the
campaign involved slavery and its future in the
west
 Douglas criticized Lincoln for saying country
could not remain half free, half slave
Said Republicans would want to make every
state free
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
In what became known as the Freeport
Doctrine, Stephen Douglas upheld
popular sovereignty over the power of
the Supreme Court
As a result of the debates, Lincoln
became one of the most important
leaders of the new Republican Party
Chapter 18
A Divided Nation
(1848-1860)
Section 4
Secession
The Raid on Harpers Ferry
 John Brown worked to start a slave uprising
 Wanted to attack the federal arsenal in Virginia
and seize weapons stored there
 John Brown’s raid began on night of October 16,
1859
 After John Brown seized the federal arsenal at
Harper’s Ferry, he hoped slaves in the region
would join him, but none did
Judging John Brown
 Brown charged and convicted of treason,
murder, and conspiracy to stir up slave
rebellion – executed December 2, 1859
 Many in the North mourned his death, but not
everyone who opposed slavery supported
his actions
 Lincoln reacted to the hanging of John
Brown by refusing to excuse Brown’s
violent tactics
The Election of 1860
 The Democratic Party split in two in 1860 because
northern and southern members could not agree on a
candidate
 North nominated Stephen Douglas
 South nominated VP John C. Breckinridge
 Presidential candidate John C. Breckinridge was a
slaveholder who did not believe a Republican victory
in the election justified secession
 Constitutional Union Party, formed by Northerners and
Southerners (many former Whigs), focused exclusively
on respecting the Constitution, preserving the Union,
and enforcing the nation’s laws
 Nominated John Bell (TN)
 Republicans chose Lincoln
The Election of 1860 (continued)
Lincoln gained less than 40% of the
popular vote, but won 180 of the 183
electoral votes in the free states
Lincoln’s election to the presidency
angered many southerners because he
did not carry a single southern state
Strong reminder of how south was
losing its political power on the
national level
Breaking with the Union
 Many southerners believed that Lincoln, if
elected, would move to abolish slavery
 Lincoln opposed the spread of slavery but
promised not to support abolishing it where it
already existed
 4 days after Lincoln’s election, South
Carolina’s legislature called for a special
convention to consider the question of
secession
 The first state to formally withdraw from the
Union was South Carolina (December 20,
1860)
 The Constitution does not directly address the
issue of secession
Breaking with the Union (continued)
 While the South Carolina secession
convention was under way, a plan to save the
Union was introduced in Congress by John
J. Crittenden
 The last minute effort to prevent southern
states from seceding was called the
Crittenden Compromise
The Confederate States of America
 The Confederate States of America was a new
nation with its own constitution and own
officials
 By February 1, 1861, Mississippi, Florida,
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had
seceded
 February 4th – delegates met in Montgomery,
Alabama (first capital of CSA)
 Jefferson Davis of Mississippi elected president