Compromises attempting to resolve differences
Missouri Compromise (1820) / Compromise of 1820:
What
they did
Result
Map
Missouri entered the Union as a slave state;
Maine entered the Union as a free state.
Keeps the balance of Free states and Slave
states. Temporary fix
Compromise of 1850
What they did
California entered the Union as a free
state. Southwest Territories (Utah and
New Mexico) would decide about slavery.
The South got stronger fugitive slave laws.
Result
Temporary Fix with a more complex balance
Map
Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)
What they did
Result
Map
People in each state would decide the
slavery issue (“popular sovereignty”).
Bloodshed, fighting in Congress
- The Dred Scott Decision- The supreme court
decides that slaves are property, and
property cannot be taken away from
people, so you can’t ban slavery.
- The Election of 1860 –President Lincoln is
elected, will not endorse the spread of
slavery into other territories
Southern Secession
Following Lincoln’s election, the southern
states seceded from the Union.
Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter, in
South Carolina, marking the beginning of
the Civil War.
Lincoln and many Northerners believed that
the United States was one nation that could
not be separated or divided. Most
Southerners believed that states had freely
created and joined the union and could
freely leave it.