Chapter 10
Section 4: The
System Fails

Violence Erupts
• Antislavery groups in the northeast set up Emigrant Aid Societies in
1854-1855 to send 1,200 New
Englanders to Kansas
–Free Soilers
–Proslavery south formed groups to counter them
–2 competing capitals

“Bleeding Kansas”
• May 21- group of southerners looted newspaper offices & homes of free soilers
• Stirred a swift response from
John Brown
–May 24- Brown led several New
Englanders to a proslavery settlement near Pottawatomie
Creek

• Roused 5 men from their beds, dragged them from their homes & killed them in front of their families
• Sparked a summer of murderous raids & counter raids

Bleeding Sumner
• May 22- violence spread to the US
Capitol
• Sen. Charles Sumner attacked southerners for forcing slavery on the territory
–Insulted Sen. Andrew Butler of
SC

• Butler’s nephew Rep. Preston
Brooks wanted to defend the south
–Beat Sumner with his cane
•He was badly injured & never returned to full health
–Brooks resigned his house seatbut was immediately reelected

Slavery & National Politics
• The election of 1856
–Republican John Fremont
•Said government had the right to restrict slavery in the territories
–American party chose Millard
Fillmore

–Democrats nominated James
Buchanan
•Supported the Compromise of 1850 & Kansas Nebraska
Act, won with the solid south
–Buchanan hoped the Supreme
Court would end the slavery issue

The Dred Scott Decision
• Dred Scott v. Sandford
• One of the most controversial decisions
• Scott filed suit against his owner because he had once lived in states where slavery was illegal & he was free

• Court rules 7-2 against Scott
• All slaves weren’t citizens & had no right to sue in court
• Living in a free state didn’t free him
• Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional
–Slaves were property of their owners

• Meant that Congress had no power to ban slavery anywhere!!!

The Lecompton Constitution
• Fall 1857 a small proslavery group in Kansas elected members to a convention to write the constitution required to attain statehood

• Most Kansans were opposed to slavery & refused to vote on a referendum on the constitution because both options on the ballot would have protected slavery
• Supported by Buchanan
–Defeated in Congress Aug. 1858

The Lincoln- Douglas Debates
• Stephen Douglas denounced the
Lecompton Constitution
–Faced a difficult reelection campaign in Illinois in 1858
–believed whites were superior to blacks

• Series of 7 debates on slavery in the territories
–Highlighted 2 important principles
•Majority rule
•Minority rights
• Douglas- supported popular sovereignty

• Lincoln didn’t think the majority should violate minority rights
• Douglas won the election

John Brown’s Raid
• Attacked the federal arsenal at
Harper’s Ferry, VA
• Hoped to seize the weapons & give them to enslaved people
–Hoped it would end slavery
• US troops under Robert E. Lee surrounded the arsenal

• Brown was sentenced to be hanged
–Northerners hailed Brown as a martyr to justice