Chapter 14 Reading Guide – Use these terms and questions to guide your outlining
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What role did territorial expansion play in the tensions leading to the Civil War?
o Wilmot Proviso & Treaty of Guadaloupe-Hidalgo/Mexican Cession – impact?
Free Soil Party Platform
BIG QUESTION FOR CHAP 14: How did the events of the 1850s increase northern fears that slavery was going
to spread to the new territories?
Popular Sovereignty – what was it? who liked it, who didn’t, why?
Issue of California statehood – why so soon?
Henry Clay’s Omnibus Bill – what does it propose and why does it fail?
o Webster’s and Calhoun’s positions
Stephen Douglas & Compromise of 1850
o What are the main parts, how does it differ from Clay’s bill?
o Why was Congress able to pass the Compromise of 1850?
o How does Compromise of 1850 reflect a win or loss for the North? The South?
Fugitive Slave Act - know the parts, how did the North resist it?
What was the impact of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin on the North? The South?
Election of 1852 – Whigs v Democrats: how does each side choose their nominee? What is the main platform
issue for each party? Who wins?
Why is the election the end of the Second Party System? (Whigs/Democrats)
Gadsden Purchase
Ostend Manifesto
Kansas-Nebraska Act: background, main components, impact on sectionalism, impact on politics
Know-Nothing Party: major platform issue, downfall
Republican Party (1854): composition, major platform issue, how/why do they gain in power?
Bleeding Kansas
o Border ruffians, Sack of Lawrence
o John Brown and the Pottawatomie Massacre
o So how did that popular sovereignty idea work out?
Preston Brooks/Charles Sumner – the Caning of Sumner
What did the election of 1856 demonstrate to the parties?
Poor Buchanan….or worst president in history? See what you think by the end of the chapter…. “Southerners
looking north saw creeping abolitionism in the guise of free soil, while northerners looking south saw an
insatiable slave power.” – Can this marriage be saved?
Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) and Roger Taney Ruling – what was the key question before the Court? What
were main parts of the ruling? How is the ruling received in the north?
Lecompton Constitution – what was it and why was it a problem? How did Buchanan respond?
Lincoln-Douglas debates: what were the primary positions of each candidate on slavery? How did each
candidate try to back the other into a corner?
Stephen Douglas’s Freeport Doctrine (or, having it both ways…)
John Brown (again) in Harper’s Ferry – what does he try to do? Why is the raid an epic fail? What is the impact
in the South?
What were the South’s reasons for considering secession in the late 1850’s?
Panic of 1857 – why? Impact?
Election of 1860? What was the impact of the issues of the 1850s on the election of 1860? What was the
platform of each party in the election of 1860? What were the electoral results of the election? Why did
Lincoln win?
Which state secedes first? When? Who follows by Feb 1861? Why are the upper south states last to go?
Crittenden Compromise – what did it propose? Why did it fail?
Ft Sumter, SC – date? What happens? Why does it cause the Upper South to leave the Union?
BIG PICTURE: What was the relative importance of slavery and states’ rights as factors leading to war?
BIG PICTURE: What were the political changes/continuities in this period? What parties declined, emerged,
and succeeded? Whom did each party appeal to? How did issues in the 1850s impact these parties?
BIGGEST PICTURE: Why did all the attempts at compromise fail? Was the war inevitable?
From the Concept Outline for Chap 14
Key Concept 5.2: Intensified by expansion and deepening regional divisions, debates over
slavery and other economic, cultural, and political issues led the nation into civil war.
I.
Ideological and economic differences over slavery produced an array of diverging responses from
Americans in the North and the South.
A. The North’s expanding manufacturing economy relied on free labor in contrast to the Southern
economy’s dependence on slave labor. Some Northerners did not object to slavery on principle but
claimed that slavery would undermine the free labor market. As a result, a free-soil movement arose
that portrayed the expansion of slavery as incompatible with free labor.
B. African American and white abolitionists, although a minority in the North, mounted a highly visible
campaign against slavery, presenting moral arguments against the institution, assisting slaves’
escapes, and sometimes expressing a willingness to use violence to achieve their goals.
C. Defenders of slavery based their arguments on racial doctrines, the view that slavery was a positive
social good, and the belief that slavery and states’ rights were protected by the Constitution.
II.
Debates over slavery came to dominate political discussion in the 1850s, culminating in the bitter
election of 1860 and the secession of Southern states.
A. The Mexican Cession led to heated controversies over whether to allow slavery in the newly acquired
territories.
B. The courts and national leaders made a variety of attempts to resolve the issue of slavery in the
territories, including the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas– Nebraska Act, and the Dred Scott
decision, but these ultimately failed to reduce conflict.
C. The Second Party System ended when the issues of slavery and anti-immigrant nativism weakened
loyalties to the two major parties and fostered the emergence of sectional parties, most notably the
Republican Party in the North.
D. Abraham Lincoln’s victory on the Republicans’ free-soil platform in the presidential election of 1860
was accomplished without any Southern electoral votes. After a series of contested debates about
secession, most slave states voted to secede from the Union, precipitating the Civil War.